Trade Secrets

[Mick Harper]

Extract Fifty-Two

It is now time to concentrate on process. It is all very well identifying sites of Megalithic marine activity but there is a need to start on the rather more difficult – because the evidence will now not be in situ – task of interpreting how they were used. At the very least, it must be determined how mariners actually managed to get from one site to the next when the sites were not physically in view of one another.

Clearly the 'leyline' system cannot be employed directly because on land it is always possible to construct something which is physically in sight of the previous marker. It is not obvious how that something can be created in the middle of the ocean.

However what is 'on land' and what is not is not necessarily quite what it seems. For example, the Michael Line is suspected to have been only 'over land' once the Somerset Levels were reclaimed from the sea and Glastonbury Tor constructed; and since tidal causewayed islands appear in too many places for their positioning to be natural it must be assumed that the Megalithics could create land when and where they really wanted to. However, neither Somerset Levels nor tidal islands can be said to be 'in the middle of the ocean'.

But what does 'physically in sight of one another' actually mean in practice? For instance, in particularly favourable conditions, it is possible to stand at the southern end of Portland Bill and 'see' the Channel Islands. Not the islands themselves of course but the reflected light of the lighthouse on the Casquets marking the northern end of the islands.

But the other question is 'Who's doing the looking?' For an observer standing on the ground the horizon is only about three miles away but even from the vantage point of the deck of a ship that distance is perhaps doubled and from the crow's nest the distance can double again. But once a crow is launched from the crow's nest then, at two thousand feet, the Channel Islands become clearly visible from Britain. It is not only a matter of process but who is doing the processing.

[Mick Harper]

Extract Fifty-Three

The tide is the one force that appears to unify all Megalithic maritime activity. Whether it be causewayed tidal islands, tidal Venus Pools, sandbanked harbours or tidal rias, the ebb and flow of the water seems to be a central consideration. Whether it is cause, effect or coincidence, the areas of the world most readily associated with The Megalithics are also areas with many of the world's largest tidal ranges.

But tides are peculiarly difficult for us to appreciate because we have no use for them. To us they are a nuisance. When we build a port or a coastal defence we have to take tides into account and build around them but we do not exploit them (1). There is also a major stumbling block that arises because of an established historical paradigm. Engineering is held to be a 'civilised art', civilisation is overwhelmingly associated with the Mediterranean and the Mediterranean is tideless. Pre-historic tidal engineering is not something Classically-trained historians and archaeologists, which ultimately means all of them, can easily comprehend.

Take the simple notion of the tidal island. Why would anyone, ancient or modern, be even slightly interested in them? We might indulge in some touristy (or religious or mystical) notion of them as being ‘special places’ but basically they are a hindrance. In order to get to them conveniently we might build a causeway but it would be rather better if nature had just attached the wretched thing permanently in the first place. The idea of creating such a thing would be nonsensical in our eyes. So why would the Megalithics? Even if it is not accepted that the Megalithics created them it can hardly be denied that they were drawn to them. But why?

A big question, too big for now, so let us turn to the rather more modest problem of Venus Pools. What was their function? Here at least there can be little doubt that constructing them is well within the technical means of Ancient Man even given the orthodox view of them as being somewhat limited in their terraforming ambitions and abilities. Though just in parenthesis it should be noted that every single Venus Pool that exists in the world today is held to be a natural geographic feature by geologists, geographers and archaeologists alike.

The fact that Venus Pools occur nowhere else in the world except in specifically and significantly Megalithic places is regarded by academics with sublime insouciance. Academics are curious people though not, it would seem, curious people.

(1) Even the apparently promising avenue of tidal power stations has not turned out be a road to riches. The world's first c 1966 remained the biggest until 2011 and naturally was built in the thoroughly Megalithic Rance Estuary below St Malo. But no doubt we will catch up with The Megalithics eventually.

[macausland]

I don't think that engineering is seen as a 'civilised' art. It is seen as 'trade'. Dirty and something that 'gentlemen' avoid.

Civilisation is the study of Ancient Greek and Latin something plebs will never understand.

Radio Four had a programme many years ago about the wives of marine officers.

One group, the wives of the chief engineers, made a universal complaint. At company functions they were always snubbed by the wives of Chief Officers and Captains.

Their husbands were seen as mere labourers in dirty overalls, not like the gentlemen in gold braid.

The fact of course is the opposite. The cabin next to the Captain is invariably that of the Chief Engineer and for a very good reason. The 'Chief' is the man who really runs the ship, who keeps it moving and who repairs bits and pieces when needed.

The Chief Officer is in charge of the lorry drivers and cleaners.

I think something like this was mentioned in another post regarding the 'raggy' men of the woods. Important people if not quite 'properly' dressed.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons for the abolition of 'polytechnics' in Britain. Other countries with successful engineering based economies, as we once were, have never made that mistake.

Eton rules not the Mechanics' Institute.

[hvered]

In a recent TV series about a cruise ship the chief engineer hardly figured. I expect he was busy working. The people who mattered seemed to be the chaplain and the entertainer/theatre producer. Not so different from a village elderly counsellor and story-teller or bard.

Your 'dirty trade' should be foremost in the minds of historians who seem convinced that Celtic tribes from Gaul were despatched by Druids to far-off places of power like Rome and Delphi for religious/symbolic reasons. They returned with what sounds like tribute or gifts from their new trade partners or allies.

[macausland]

The further removed we become from the production of basics like food, clothes etc and the skills that go into their production the more remote everything becomes and the more isolated we become from what we need to survive.

Food today is something that we get wrapped in plastic from the supermarket. More than that it is often precooked or made up into a mysterious meal that we stick in a magical microwave made by engineering types.

As long as the microwave works and we have electricity to make it work and as long as the supermarkets supply the food in exchange for our bits of paper and metal we are ok.

A very fragile existence I would say.

[Boreades]

Regarding the Somerset Levels, our old friends (orthodox historians) tell us it was drained and made into productive land by the Romans. I find that suspect for a number of reasons.

Had the Romans achieved this enormous piece of civil engineering, they would have crowed about it as another triumph of Imperial Rome over barbaric lands and peoples, and it would be in their written records. It's not.

Who had the motivation to drain the Somerset Levels? Not the Romans, because they were doing very nicely thank you with the already-fertile lands they had "acquired" from Brits to the East. The Roman historical accounts talk of grain that was farmed in the Dorset and Hampshire regions being exported to mainland Europe.

This enforced export would hardly go unnoticed by the native population.

The people who needed to apply their civil engineering skills were the displaced Britons, who needed new farmland to feed their own people.

Any talk of Roman artifacts being discovered in certain sites as proof that Romans were there is pure nonsense. We might as well claim that because parts of a Lada car (with its Viking badge) have been found in a rubbish tip in Scunthorpe, it proves that Russians/Vikings founded Scunthorpe. Trade moves stuff all over the place.

[Mick Harper]

Extract Fifty-Four

But since Venus Pools are in places of Megalithic significance, the first thing to establish is the nature of that significance. There are presumed Venus Pools at the following places:

1. The western end of Lihou Island which is itself at the western end of Guernsey which is itself at the western end of the Channel Islands
2. At Corbiere which is at the southern end of Guernsey
3. At Corbiere which is at the southwestern end of Jersey which is itself at the southwestern end of the Channel Islands
4. At the southern end of Little Sark which is itself the southern end of Sark
5. On Jethou which is at the southern end of Herm/Jethou
6. On Burgh Island
7. At St Malo

Although there are legitimate queries about some of these, the sheer number and positioning overall can scarcely be a matter either of chance or of artefact. But it must also be firmly borne in mind that Venus Pools are not the kind of minor geographic feature that will survive the large scale development that other tidal islands have undergone since Megalithic times eg Mont St Michel, Michael’s Mount, Vale Island, Fort Houmet Herbe. It is not unreasonable to suppose that every tidal Megalithic island once had its tidal Venus Pool.

But were they tidal? One school of thought has it that they were originally built just above the high water mark and were (therefore) not filled with water at all. Only a subsequent general rise in sea levels has rendered them tidal. This explanation not only suffers from ‘special pleading’ – it requires not only a rise in sea level but a very particular sea level rise – but also runs into the objection that if tides are irrelevant why build the pools ‘just above high tide level’? Why not anywhere? Why not on a headland etc?

On the other hand it is true that ‘tide level’ would be of much greater concern to Megalithic sailors who a) lacking charts, have to thread their way through islands in an area of huge tidal differences and b) lacking purpose-built harbours, need to know when to breach on sandy/shell/shingle beaches at the correct state of the tide. So a warning device that is purposefully placed just above high water mark might be of great assistance.

But how can a Venus Pool of any kind be of assistance to mariners? They can't be seen from more than a few yards away. But what if they are fire pits, filled with suitable combustibles -- drift wood, seal blubber? Such a Venus Pool would be visible from miles away during the day (a column of smoke) or night (flames to a great height) but even so, why the connection to tides? Are they designed to be put out automatically at high tide?

A great many holes. The Venus Pools seem to be navigational but how they were used is presently anybody's guess.

[hvered]

According to Graham Robb who traces solar paths in The Ancient Paths the northernmost place on the meridian traversing Gaul was Loon Plage, just west of Dunkirk. The unusually named Loon Plage was an island connected to the mainland at low tide and known as Lugdunum ('Lugh's Fortress'), all of which suggests a Megalithic site.



[I'd already had an interest in this area because Dunkirk is the nearest town or port of any significance to Koksijde, site of the Cistercian abbey of Ten Duinen, on the Belgian coast and on the direct line between Dover and Cologne.]

[Boreades]

Graham Robb's The Ancient Paths also has fascinating cross-channel connections. Just try projecting the summer solstice lines across the English Channel. One can use either the "mainland" (GR) projection, or the local Le Havre solstice projection. Either way, you arrive at places of TME significance. The GR projection does match the theme of his book, but without detraction the latter projection is significant as well, because of its arrival in Poole Harbour.

[Mick Harper]

Extract Fifty-Five

Even more mystifying is why, in so many cases, there is a tidal pool at the end of a tidal island. Presumably it must be significant that at the very moment that the one, as it were, ceases to exist by virtue of the incoming tide so the other is created by the same incoming tide. But this only highlights the other abiding mystery of the system: why employ tidal islands at all?

One of the problems here is that whereas it is true to say that the islands that act as obvious terminals—St Michael’s Mount, Burgh Island, Mont St Michel—are permanent landfalls in sand seas and that therefore it might be that a tidal causeway and/or the island itself acts as a sort of convenient beaching place, most of the tidal islands—Lihou, Corbiere, Jethou etc—are positively inimical to shipping, being surrounded by rocks and none of which can be conveniently approached at any state of the tide.

Perhaps a more radical interpretation is needed. One possibility is to concentrate on the fact that the tide makes both islands and Venus Pools temporarily available and non-available. In orthodox accounts, the fact that monks are drawn to tidal islands has led to somewhat fanciful theories about how these peculiar geographical features must have provided security. A somewhat false sense of security, it has to be said, since attackers only need to wait for the tide to go down in order to stroll across. Similarly the idea that being cut off for a few hours a day from the rest of the world promotes contemplative prayer does not seem to lend much confidence to the monks' vocational resolve.

But what if it is not human beings that are the animals being periodically kept out and ingressed? Would it not be the case that a causewayed island could allow controlled access for a variety of animals. The point here is that whereas full offshore islands might be best for some animals (say a seal colony) and a permanently connected bit of land best for others (say, a flock of sheep), a causewayed tidal island might be best if you wanted both sheep and seals.

This particular combination does not obviously seem worth the effort but the general principle of ‘warrening’ which requires both protection for the animal and frequent access for humans would seem to make the causewayed tidal island (or in the case of Little Sark and Portland Island, the causewayed non-island) a realistic proposition. The seal blubber theory of burning Venus Pool fire pits would seem to fit the bill since these would need constant access by humans and yet constant protection for the seals. Though whether the extensive acreage of dry land that becomes available at low tide could realistically be protected from foxes and other terrestrial predators seems doubtful.

Perhaps monks' persistent association with birds offers better prospects of a plausible explanation.