Trade Secrets

[macausland]

In support of your thesis regarding megalithic 'terraforming' or whatever it is called it may be helpful to look at a modern equivalent, the Netherlands. Not quite the same of course but they are very active in manipulating the sea to create land.

BBC Coast did a programme which covers a fair bit of what they have been doing in recent years and I think is well worth watching. Towards the end of the programme they mention an island that has been created because of sand being deposited by the tides as a result of various barrages they have erected. This is now a wild life sanctuary.

It is on youtube here if anyone's interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O_PN771Hfk

[hvered]

Saint Michel en l'Herm used to be an island.

The lighthouse on the south-eastern tip of the Ile d'Yeu, immediately south of Noirmoutier island, is called le phare de la pointe des Corbeaux (Crows' Point). Yeu in French is 'eye', the same as English -ey or -eg. {Yew in French is if, perhaps related to Ives in English.}

The village of Sainte Radegonde des Noyers which is just east of Saint Michel en l'Herm has a corvid-related coat of arms.



Noyer means nut tree, usually walnut [foreign] nut. Perhaps 'nuts in May'.

St Radegund(e) turns up in various Megalithically and commercially important places in Britain such as Dover, Cambridge, St Paul's etc. Go north from St Radegonde des Noyers as the crow flies and you arrive at Winteringham and, across the Humber, Brough (Petuaria). This meridian crosses Selsey Bill and some sites that ring bells, including Waverley Abbey. Wish I'd known about it before writing up the Pilgrims' Way walk.

[hvered]

This meridian crosses Selsey Bill and some sites that ring bells, including Waverley Abbey.

And Corby!

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Apart from Saint Michel en l'Herm, another St Michael name in the area is Saint-Michel-Mont-Mercure [Michael/Hermes = Mercury].

Saint Michel place-names come as no surprise. They are as numerous in France as in England but like our so-called Michael Line in the south-west Michael names are clustered along the western side of France.

Between Quiberon and Noirmoutier is Saint-Michel-Chef-Chef whose name according to Wikipedia is a corruption of Saint-Michel-de-Chevesché. But it goes on to say chevesche is itself a corruption of chevecier-chef which means something like 'guardian of church treasures', not sure what the equivalent term is in English. Chefferie can be translated as chiefdom but it's more like an inner sanctuary in an ecclesiastical context.

It would be interesting to know if these places appear in any particular relationship to each other or indeed how many there are compared to the rest of the country. Perhaps someone has already tried sailing along a coastal Michael Line.

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Saint-Michel-Chef-Chef has a small port which Wikipedia says is only accessible at high tide.



Next door is Cormorant sailing club.

[macausland]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA0IiB9Pn7g

Here's a film from the sixties about the reclaiming of the Zuider Zee.

Although they use modern machinery etc much of the work is done by hand and what is interesting is the use of old traditional methods for constructing the causeways and dykes at the start of the operation.

This involves woven willow rafts which are covered with boulder clay.

The dropping of sand into areas that have been dredged.

And the use of imported rocks and granite blocks to form a more permanent sea wall.

The Dutch have been doing this for a very long time and it's possible the basic techniques they use are similar to the techniques used in the construction of the causeways and islands under discussion on this site. They also plant marram grass.

[Mick Harper]

Addendum to Forty-Eight

[This arm of the sea is called the Ria de Arousa and the Island of Arousa has a clear Megalithic outline best summed up in this picture. ]

However, the link with the mainland is an entirely modern bridge so it may be that the actual entrepot is the O Grove peninsula to the south which would appear to have been a tidal causewayed island in the distant past, at least if this description can be so interpreted:

Located on the entrance of Arosa´s estuary, Ogrove is a well known tourist resort, appreciated for its natural beauty, mild climate and exquisite shellfish. Surrounded by the lsles of Salvora, Ons, Arosa, and touristic San Xenxo, the old Celtic land of Ocobrix has been an isle until recent ages, when ocean streams created a sedimentary union with the Salnes peninsula.

But an even more intriguing candidate is Cortegada Island which is right at the mouth of the River Ulla leading up to Santiago de Compostela. This is a true causewayed tidal island.

The island is connected to the mainland via a tidal causeway, i.e. a trackway covered at high tide and revealed at low tide. The causeway is 189 meters wide

This is a machine-translation and presumably means '189 metres long'. However, it is the highly peculiar hydrology of the island itself that would seem to point to the sometime presence of Megalithic engineers:

It has two main fresh water sources: a seasonal lagoon and subterranean fresh water. This last source is peculiar since the island is surrounded by salt water, everybody can dig a well without effort even near the beach, without the need of digging further than several tens of centimeters, around ten inches at the most.

And the machine translation of the following rather adds to the air of mystery:

The island is almost flat, its highest elevation is 22 feet high. It has an area of 54 hectares of land with a rectangle shape. Due to the large amount of water in the terrain, it flows in streams everywhere or stay quiet in ponds and puddles. The water drips, cover and soak the plants, rocks, soil, logs, moss etc. and still the water is being impassable the island during heavy rain.

[hvered]

Here's a film from the sixties about the reclaiming of the Zuider Zee.

Although they use modern machinery etc much of the work is done by hand and what is interesting is the use of old traditional methods for constructing the causeways and dykes at the start of the operation.

This involves woven willow rafts which are covered with boulder clay.

Sounds very much like the wattle and daub process. By all accounts a very efficacious and widespread building method and clearly not confined to Friesland or Megalithic places.

[Mick Harper]

Extract Fifty

The route from the relative hot-spot of north-west Spain all the way round to Cadiz and the entrance to the Mediterranean has few obvious Megalithic stop-offs. Presumably the ‘Phoenician' model starts to be the preponderant form replacing the Megalithic model, and the Phoenicians' ports, as with all the trading empires of the tideless Mediterranean, lack the telltale hydrological features.

Nevertheless two places stand out. The first is Peniche, on the Portuguese coast, which has something which looks suspiciously like an ex-tidal causeway and the island itself has given rise to (or naturally conveniently bisects) two perfect sandy bays that, as with the Portland Bill/ Weymouth Bay/ Chesil Beach complex, permits incoming boats to choose which side is best for beaching given that day's wind. This is essential here where the surf is prodigious.



Further south is Lisbon which would seem to be Poole Harbour on an even grander scale:



but perhaps too grand since the Setubal inlet a little further to the south looks rather better suited to the job:

[Mick Harper]

Extract Fifty-One

However far the respective power of the Megalithics and the Phoenicians hold sway, there can be little doubt that the critical interchange is at Cadiz, right at the point where the massive tides of the Atlantic give way to the tideless Mediterranean.

The port of Cadiz is built on a spit of land which in turn is an extension of an island that is tenuously, and perhaps historically tidally, connected to the mainland. As per this traditional map.


Cadiz is considered by some to be he oldest city in Europe which, however true, at least firmly points to the supposition that ‘European civilisation’ is somewhat more maritime and mercantile than orthodox historical accounts claim. Actually, it is the nearby Medina Sidonia that is often given the palm, as per this Wiki entry:

Medina-Sidonia is a city and municipality in the province of Cádiz in the autonomous community of Andalusia, southern Spain. It is considered by some to be the oldest city in Europe

But then Wiki goes quite astray:

used as a military defense location due to its elevated location.

because its actual purpose can be seen from this map:



where the hill of Medina is clearly designed to provide a sight-line for ships entering the port of Cadiz. What ‘designed’ means in this context is not yet established but presumably the hill on which Medina Sidonia stands is artificial. The ‘Sidonia’ part by the way refers to Sidon though Cadiz is held to have been established by Tyre, a little down the Phoenician coast. Whatever timeline is adopted, the whole complex is clearly a fusion of both Phoenicia and Megalithia.