Megalithic shipping and trade routes

[Boreades]

Pic 1 - The archaeological site at the Ness of Brodgar.



Pic 2 - A reconstruction of what the site once looked like.

[TisILeclerc]

All of which begs the question.

We are told or assume that technology and ideas came from the south.

The ice melted and slowly people migrated north. I've seen the BBC film about Doggerland and the animal skin clad primitives who fished for a living, or whatever they could do without the beneftis of a university education.

How did the Orcadians get there. Leapfrog?

Where did they get their knowledge from? Most people today couldn't paper a ceiling never mind build this sort of stuff and all the rest that goes with it.

How many people were involved? Who supplied food, who made the shoes, clothes etc etc?

They've even found that the walls were painted. Why would they do that? Who made the paint and where did they learn to do that?

I wonder what the Greeks were up to at this time? Or was Troy really in 'England'?

By the way the quote on the previous post misspelled Aran. Arran is in Ireland. Just a little point but as Sherlock would say, what do you make of it Watson?

[hvered]

Some years ago we had a week's holiday in Mellon Charles [Meallan Theàrlach in Gaelic] in north-west Scotland. Turns out this unremarkable hamlet is right next to the megalithic Tin Route (part of the Great Circle from north pole to Tarifa) which crosses Loch Ewe. There's a hamlet called Mellon Udrigle a couple of miles away on the eastern side of the Rubha Mòr peninsula which is the most northerly bit of land that the meridian passes over.

Mellon is supposed to ‘come from Irish’, a variation of Malone etc., though there’s nothing else in the area to equate it with Irish (on the contrary, Mellon Udrigle is the site of a Pictish hut circle). Mellon or meallan translates into English as 'knoll' or 'small hill'.

Further south, the tin route passes west of the Ile de Molene off the coast of Finistere in Brittany. There's a narrow sea passage to the east of the Ile de Molène that passes a small tidal island, Île Melon, joined at low tide to a rocky promontory.



The island has a dolmen and not much else, not even a proper knoll judging by the photo.

Melon in French is melon and also a pejorative for a native of the Maghreb, hard to tell whether it’s a modern term but in any event is unlikely to refer to those tin-mad Phoenicians.

[TisILeclerc]

Dwelly tells us that 'meallan' is the diminutive of 'meall' which can vary in size from a small lump to a large hill.

'Meall' also means to cheat, defraud, beguile, entice, disappoint.

This could tie in with 'Aberfeldy's' idea that the fire folk were tricksters etc.

The entry for 'mealladh' has '-aidh, sm Deceiving, act of deceiving, cheating, beguiling. 2 Enticing. 3 Disappointing. 4** Allurement, deceit, delusion. 5** Goods, riches. 6 Deception. A' mealladh, pr pt of meall. Mur eil mi air mo mhealladh, if I am not mistaken; bithidh mealladh ann, there will be disappointment.'

Would this tie in with traders keeping their trade routes secret?

[hvered]

Molène in English is mullein, a humble weed, or so I thought, but Mrs Grieve's Modern Herbal shows that mullein was claimed to cure an immense range of ailments.

In line with 'fire folk', she says one of mullein's non-medical uses was as a wick

The down on the leaves and stem makes excellent tinder when quite dry, readily igniting on the slightest spark, and was, before the introduction of cotton, used for lamp wicks, hence another of the old names: 'Candlewick Plant.' An old superstition existed that witches in their incantations used lamps and candles provided with wicks of this sort, and another of the plant's many names, 'Hag's Taper', refers to this, though the word 'hag' is said to be derived from the Anglo-Saxon word Haege or Hage (a hedge) - the name 'Hedge Taper' also exists - and may imply that the sturdy spikes of this tall hedge plant, studded with pale yellow blossoms, suggested a tall candle growing in the hedge, another of its countryside names being, indeed, 'Our Lady's Candle.' Lyte (The Niewe Herball, 1578) tells us 'that the whole toppe, with its pleasant yellow floures sheweth like to a wax candle or taper cunningly wrought.'

And a trickster if Mrs Grieve is correct:

The seeds are said to intoxicate fish when thrown into the water, and are used by poachers for that purpose, being slightly narcotic.

Perhaps visiting crews chewed mullein a la coca leaves and had mild hallucinations.

[Boreades]

The Ness of Brodgar came to mind when the wandering tribe of Boreades discovered the Bronze Age peninsula site of El Campello, near Alicante. Info boards at the site say that "around the port area archaeological remains of circular cabins dating back to 3000BC have been found" along with pre-Roman "Iberian" warehouses.

"Iberian" is new to me. Wossat? Not Phoenician but other sea-going locals?

Edit: I'll add pics when the Boreades ankle-biters have uploaded their pics.

[TisILeclerc]

'"Iberian" is new to me. Wossat? Not Phoenician but other sea-going locals?'

Zut alors zat cannot be right.

Hi Beria and Georgia is on my mind. The land of the lovely St George also known as Tetri Giorgi or White George the Moon Deity celebrated on August 14th. Here's his photo. Reminds me of Northern Ireland for some reason.



Those Georgia girls included the lovely Queen Tamar who also doubled as a sky goddess. She controlled the weather and didn't kill dragons but rode through the sky on them to bring back the Morning Star and summer.

'In Georgian mythology, Tamar was a Georgian sky goddess who controlled the weather patterns. Tamar enslaved Dilis Varskvlavi, the Morning Star, who was master of winter; whenever he escaped, snow began to fall, but annually she captured him and brought summer back to the land.

She was an eternal virgin who rode through the air on a serpent saddled and bridled with gold.'

Unless you mean this lot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iberians

'The Iberians lived in isolated communities based on a tribal organization. They also had a knowledge of metalworking, including bronze, and agricultural techniques. In the centuries preceding Carthaginian and Roman conquest, Iberian settlements grew in social complexity, exhibiting evidence of social stratification and urbanization. This process was probably aided by trading contacts with the Phoenicians, Greeks, and Carthaginians. Among the most important goods traded by the Iberians were precious metals, tin and copper.'

And no mention of onions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iberians

[Boreades]

As promised, a pic of the El Campello peninsula site

[Boreades]

Here’s a nice old-fashioned documentary about a little coaster ship from Guernsey called “Carrick”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW0SxfRShI8

The lifestyle portrayed is timeless, dodging bad weather, working all sorts of cargoes from one port to the next up and down the Channel, and finding the next best cargo from there.

Swap the rusty old tramp steamer for a creaking old wooden Veniti-style boat and you'd hardly notice the difference.

[TisILeclerc]

Campenello, Campenella, Campenile

All to do with bells.

Is it a watchtower of sorts?