neat! any pictures of the stones??

Yes, on the site - I'm not clever enough yet to patch them in. Marcia probably will when she sees it. I'd not heard of this site at all, but then I don't know Somerset much, I usually pass through on my way to Devon. http://www.eng-h.gov.uk/archaeometry/StantonDrew/

I'll post 'um just as soon as I eat something (long day at the ball field.) Maggie, you have discovered one of my most favorite sites. Thanks for posting the URL.

Stanton Drew is near Bristol, England...across the Bristol Channel from South Wales. From: http://www.stonepages.com/England/Inglese/StantonDrew.html and http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~aburnham/eng/stant1.htm

No, Stanton Drew is not a recumbent stone circle in which a specially-placed stone was placed on its side lengthwise. These simply fell over. All, if I remember correctly, recombent stone circles are in Scotland. Gi, it was in the 18th and 19th century when they rented out sledge hammers at Stonehehenge. The barbarity of the very idea offends me to the soul.

From the BBC - Friday, October 15, 1999 Published at 09:48 GMT 10:48 UK Stonehenge face mystery Silently watching us for 4,000 years? By BBC News Online Science Editor Dr David Whitehouse Has the face of the creator of Stonehenge been staring at us unrecognised for more than 4,000 years? A British archaeologist claims to have seen a face carved into the side of one of the mighty stones at Stonehenge. It is the first face ever seen on the Neolithic monument and one of the oldest works of art ever found in Britain. It was recognised by Terrence Meaden, an archaeologist with a fascination for the ancient standing stones of the British Isles. "I just happened to be there at the right time of day because only when the light is right can you see it properly. During the summer months it is only obvious for about a hour each day around 1400." It is amazing that it has never been recognised before. Dr Meaden believes that it was missed because previous researchers concentrated on the fronts of the standing stones and not their sides. The particular viewing conditions to see it at its best will have also played a part in it not being seen. "But once you see it it's obvious," he says. It seems to carry a serious expression, almost a frown, as it looks across the Salisbury plain. Stonehenge was built about 2450 BC but why does Dr Meaden believe the carving was made at the time and was not done much later. "Why would anyone do that?" he asks, "The type of stone, Sarsen, is the hardest stone know to man. It would have taken hundreds of hours working on a platform to do it. Why bother?" Meaden's photographs are being evaluated by other archaeologists. He also claims that other faces can clearly be seen on the Avebury stones not far from Stonehenge. But who is the face of Stonehenge? "We will never know," says Meaden, "He could be the patron of the monument or even its architect. Perhaps the designer of Stonehenge has been looking at us for four thousand years and we didn't see him." Terence Meaden can be contacted by email at terence.meaden@stonehenge-avebury.net.

That most curious article was found at URL http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_474000/474977.stm

Curiouser and curiouser... http://www.stonecentric.connectfree.co.uk/aveburyi.html

Remember how much I applauded the work of Aubury Burl? Here is the Megalithic web site with which he is associated: http://www.megalith.ukf.net/ From that site this map of Megalithic Britain - there are a lot of stone circles and other alignments out there!

OK, England's back on line and awake (actually it's mid-afternoon!). Drats, I thought I'd discovered stonepages.com only to find you already knew!!! In the above map it's the clusters that interest me. Why? Is there any connection with the geomagnetism lines? Is the pattern continued in mainland Europe? I've got a book somewhere on early settlement patterns, maybe there's a connection somewhere.

Maggie, I have been at this for more than 5 years...I began with a Commodore 64 where everything was done is Dos, you used lynx to surf the web and emailed using Pine. I can still do all of that, but how primitive it all is! However, I discovered some more good new URLs last night when I was posting all of the above, so Keep finding them and letting me know. I am always delighted when you find new things or discover ones which are truly worthy which I already knew about. I was having trouble figuring out which place to post that map. Perhaps I should post it both places? From the Bronze Age onward the tin in Cornwall was much sought after to harden the copper found on Cyprus. That's why the Romans needed Britannia. More on that after breakfast...

Cyprus and Cornwall, we're kind of back to the Minoans. Yes, well a lot of Bronze Age people sailed out of the enclosed Mediterranean, hugging the coast of Western Europe, to Cornwall. Britain was the tin island. I'm a bit partial to the Minoans as they were extraordinary artists, and even had indoor plumbing. Seriously, what survives of Minoan art is remarkably beautiful. About the face on Stonehenge -- it may be a face, but it looks as though it might be a natural formation in the rock. Seeing a face there might be analogous to seeing pictures in the formations of clouds. Only clouds are fleeting.

Of course, those faces are tricks of lighting and good imagination. Be sure to check the link I posted ("stonecentrics") at Geomagnetism. Very odd, indeed. He even admits to retouching some of the pictures. Go figure! Those who WANT to see them will see them everywhere!

Who can we recruit to check it out?! Mark? Maggie? Mike, how about a weekend at the White Hart in Salisbury?

i know i know this post refers to one from way back: what's a petroglyph? *grin* oh, and they should've brought me along on that stonehenge thing, i would've seen the face right away (good imagination, i guess).....love the pics!

Like a heiroglyph or any other sort, glyph means carved work. Petros is Greek for rock (thus St Peter) It simply means rock carvings. They are all over Hawaii, as well. New Grange (In Ireland)has spectacular ones and the Aborigines in Australia have theirs, as well as Amerindians, theirs. I think even we have them on our public buildings...! Love to get you to Stonehenge You'd feel vibes and all kinds of fun things!

imagine what a child would feel in a place like that? you know, children are so oblivious to adult rules (no ghosts, can't see angels, etc.) that they'd be bound to feel something there. one day, i'll see stone henge in the flesh!

thanks for the definition, that's the idea i had but wanted to make sure!

...thanks for being interested and asking *Hugs* I know you will feel things all around Stonehenge and Salisbury Plain which is one huge antiquity which the military should get off while there is still something there. I told you the experience David and I had...it was palpable the feeling that we should not be so close to the stone and not to touch it. They drive tanks all over the place there and fire live ordnance for practice. I know it is important to practice and our guys go into the saddle between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea to do it - where there is just about nothing but bleak lava fields.

usually they practice out in the deserts and such. didn't know stonehenge was in the middle of such a field. i certainly hope the practice is for those in the know and not beginners who'd be sure to knock a stone or two over. geez!

Tell me about it. Some General wanted the stones removed so he could build a runway there during WW2. Britain is small, but they don't need to do that. Sheesh! Just lucky the Gods were looking over it. Between the sledge hammer renters and the generals...I am amazed that it is still there. Remember Avebury? The Huge Henge with the village inside of it? Guess where they got the stones for all of those houses, the church, walls everywhere?! Arrrrgh!

Seems like a lot of significant archaeological sites have been destroyed through sheer ignorance. Happened a lot in Greece and Turkey... The experience you and David had at Stonehenge sounds really eerie, Marcia. Can't get close enough to the stones to feel anything like that now, though. I was also thinking that those faces are more tricks of lighting and imagination than anything else, like the face on Mars. I think we have a natural tendency to look for patterns in things, anyway. Isn't that how our brain tries to process and organize the sensory input we receive?

I agree with you, Ginny, but we are pragmatists and scientists. Others may be more sensitive to other things we cannot even imagine. My ESP does not even work.

My ESP has never worked, either...though I admit that sciense doesn't have a clue what the human brain is fully capable of. The temple of the sun at Tiwanaku in Bolivia had some very definate faces carved in the walls, but I don't think that site is as old as Stonehenge.

The temples at Malta are the oldest Megalithic structures, as I recall with the Boyne Valley 'tombs' in Ireland of which New Grange is the best restored are also very old. 8000 years old. There in one on Cornwall which just might be as old...More tomorrow on Ballowal.

Unlikely to make it out to Salisbury Plain myself for a few months - don't think one can get close enough to the stones to check out the "sculpting" anyway. On Newgrange, I was listening to a phone-in at Christmas where as recently as the Sixties, members of the public could just borrow the key to the gate off the farmer who owned the field with the passage burial-chamber, and go for a look. It wasn't till 1975 or so that a professor of archaeology suddenly wondered about the winter solstice, and went to camp out in the burial chamber for the longest night. Lo and behold, come the dawn the place was flooded with natural light for the first time that anyone modern had ever seen.

Incredible! I do wish they had a better name than passage burial-chamber or chambered barrow or whatever. I think there are just a few of them in Ireland and a few on Anglesey (which you also had to go to the farmer for the key when we were there in the late 70's and early 80's). Just as St Paul's Cathedral is not a chambered passage tomb, neither is Newgrange or its ilk. I shall post pictures and goodies about the Boyne Valley "tombs" as soon as I awaken and catch up with the overnight posts. Thanks, Mark!

Newgrange and the Bru na Boinne Newgrange is a passage-grave that overlooks the valley of the Boyne river in County Meath, Ireland. It is widely considered to be one of the most significant archaeological sites in Europe. In Irish tradition the Bru na Boinne (the Gaelic for "Valley of the Boyne") is sacred in and of itself, a reason why several other passage grave complexes, such as Dowth and Knowth, were built there. Newgrange, though, is special. Newgrange is the only passage-grave ever excavated that is aligned so as to allow the light from the Winter Solstice sunrise to enter and light the main chamber deep within the mound. This has significant spiritual meaning, as the Winter Solstice is the time of the longest night, and the sunrise after this night (as the Druids would have celebrated it) would mark the beginning of the return of light to the world. Building a passage-grave so that the light of the beginning of the sun's annual resurrection may fall on the remains of the ancestors is a powerful symbol, and serves to show the ancient Celts' considerable theological, astronomical and architectural sophistication. The purpose behind the construction of Newgrange remains, to a degree, a mystery. While the excavation of the barrow earlier in this century revealed the remains of several individuals within the central chamber, whether interment was the initial and sole intent behind Newgrange is uncertain. The alignment with the Winter Solstice and the white quartz facing of the monument suggest that this monument was constructed with more than burial in mind, but the inner chamber is too small for more than a handful of individuals to witness the brilliant Solstice sunrise. Would the highest of the Celtic elite celebrate the holiday within, while others gathered outside for a group ceremony? Or could Newgrange have been constructed for the exclusive use of a very high-ranking noble family, as a private catacomb and worshipping space? The remains found had few grave goods to support the second theory, but unsupervised access to the mound for decades before the excavation could explain the lack of luxurious artifacts. The state in which the remains were found also leads to some speculation, a mix of burnt and unburnt bones, in some disarray. Were all of an individual's remains brought here, or just part? Were remains left here forever, or were they circulated yearly, removed after the Solstice light had imbued them with the spirit of resurrection? Unless some startling resource is found, speculation may provide the only answers to the many questions. In Irish mythology, Newgrange is the home of Aenghus mac Og, god of love. He won the site from his father, the Dagda, by means of a trick. Aenghus had been away when the magical places of Ireland had been parcelled out to the various gods, and upon returning, begged his father that he might have Newgrange for only the space of a day and a night. When twenty-four hours had passed, the Dagda returned to claim his own, only to have Aenghus refuse to give up Newgrange, claiming that all of time could be divided into the space of day and night, and that Newgrange was therefore His until the end of time, by the terms of the agreement. Aenghus is supposed to have lived quite happily there for some time, with his wife, Caer Ibormeith, whom he wooed and won in the form of a swan, as she was enchanted into that shape. Newgrange is well worth visiting, and is a very popular site with tourists to Ireland. There is a waiting list for as long as ten years for the privilege of being inside the mound at sunrise on the morning of December 21, the Winter Solstice. The freedom to walk within this sacred monument is now in danger, however, as moisture from the breath of the hundreds of daily visitors has been found collecting on the stones inside the mound, risking irreparable damage - the monument is as weatherproof as the day that it was built, but the pervading humidity from tourists' breath was not a force that was forseen or engineered against.

Winter Solstice Sunrise at Newgrange by Will Hurley Many years ago, my maternal grandfather led me into a large man-made earth and stone mound, in county Meath, Eire. Being raised in the U.S.A. and only 14 at the time, I did not appreciate where he was taking me or why. During the previous eight or nine years, he had often told me he wanted to show me a wonder of the ancient world. Every morning before sunrise on the solstices and equinoxes he would wake me up and make me go outside with him. For most of those years I would whine and complain about it -- I wanted to stay in bed, it was cold outside, I didn't feel like getting up so early. But he made me do it anyway. We would stand facing east to watch the first rays of the sun. The first year he had me stand in a specific spot, and he wrote in a notebook exactly where the sun appeared on the horizon. He also had me watch other spots on the horizon, by holding my thumb upright while closing one eye and then the other. When I reached the age of ten, he made me write the notations. Each year afterwards, he had me compare the previous years' spots to those of the new year. The first couple of years I did not see a difference. Maybe I really didn't notice a difference, or maybe I was too young to care. Then I saw that the point where the sun touched the horizon was slowly changing. It was not something I could compare between sightings year to year, but over a few years a change was noticeable. Granddad finally explained the earth science reasons that were behind this, and said he would take me on a long airplane ride to show me why he had made me get up all those mornings. The night before we were to go into the mound, Granddad seemed very depressed. When I asked him why, he told me the morning might be overcast, and we might not be able to see the sunrise. I learned in later years he had called in many favors from his youth in Ireland to do this with me. After a while he decided that we would go to the mound anyway, just in case. We met several other people just before we entered. Everyone seemed quiet to me, but I sensed a great deal of excitement. We entered the mound about an hour before sunrise. The first thing that I noticed was the odor. It wasn't a bad smell, but it seemed old to me, like a mix of a stone cellar and a damp forest all at the same time. We used flashlights to find our way to the rear of the passageway. The floor was not smooth, and someone could have tripped and hurt themselves without the lights. It was very dark after everyone turned off their lights. Completely dark. For a while this made me uncomfortable. I knew I was standing next to Granddad, but I could not see him or anyone else. I tried to calm myself down by taking slow measured breaths (an exercise he had taught me). I began to hear the others breathing. Someone began to hum softly. Others joined in. I realized it was a tune Granddad often hummed or whistled and I knew how it went, so I joined in as well. About twenty minutes later, while everyone was still humming, I noticed it was getting a little lighter. I could just barely make out the shape of the people who stood between me and the door. Then everyone went silent. A glow had begun to appear at the front of the opening, over the door. Soon a ray of light was on the wall. I thought someone was outside, shining a floodlight through a small hole. The light slowly kept moving toward us. Then I realized what Granddad had been doing all those years. He had been preparing me for this very moment. The sun was slowly making its way to the innermost chamber of the mound, and finally reached it. The emotions of observing and participating in this age old event are indescribable. Even though we had been prepared for disappointment if it had been an overcast morning, this millenia old event had occurred again. All too soon the sun had lit up the inner chamber and now it was beginning to dim. Feelings of regret that nature and man's light show was over were nothing compared to the awe of this marvel. Over the years I have often remembered that morning. Through study I now know that this only happens on the winter solstice. Occasionally the same effect can happen the day before or the day after. What is amazing is that this has been happening every year for over four thousand years. Built over a thousand years before the Egyptian pyramids, the inhabitants of prehistoric Ireland created a monument to man's ingenuity and nature's never-ending cycles.

More of Newgrange

way kewl! *grin* back to maggie saying scientists don't know much about our brains, i've read that humans use only 10% of their brain. can you imagine what we'd be capable of if we used 20%, 15%? kinda creepy. well, i think clairvoyance comes from a glimpse into that area. and because humans only want logical answers to everything, we logically call those folks crazy. we do seek patterns so things make sense to our brains, but i could never doubt that there IS a face in that stone! i like patterns so this rock appeals to me, love the swirls! reminds me of snail shells or nautilus shells....

Spirals are some of the oldest petroglyphs (Yes!) known...and they occur all over the world in all cultures. Sacred dances are done sunwise directions and mazes in hedges (as well as the maze in the tile on the floor of Chartres Cathedral...they are very old, indeed! This more properly goes in Geomagnetism but is fascinating anywhere.

Did I really say that? sounds too profound for me!!! *lol* I think there is a LOT that we don't understand. The more I see and hear about how people used to live, the more I feel I don't understand human life. At times it seems like an immense amount of knowledge has been lost, despite all our computers and technology and stuff. I don't think it's wierd metaphysical stuff either, but aspects of these brains of ours that we don't understand and therefore despise. (I'm not saying I despise it just that ....) I'll shut up for now.

Well said (and please, don't shut up!) You did mention that when commenting on my suggestion that we had probably forgotten more of what we originally knew than we remember... No wonder we have problems if we are only using 10% of the available space. There are some people I know whose brains must be smooth and unwrinkled...

I was the one who made the comment about the human brain, and I have heard that same statistic, Wolf. I've always wondered what it would take just to tap into another 10% of our brainpower. Maybe that's what geniuses like Einstein were doing...just wish we knew *how* they did it! I can totally believe that I have forgotten more of what I've learned than I can remember! I've tried ginko biloba, but it hasn't helped.

Wail'll you get some age on you! Sometimes all we remember is stuff we do not need. It is most aggravating!

i'm sorry about the mix up of who said what *grin* i do that a lot! (talk about memory)....

http://www.paddynet.com/island/newgrange/ancient.html Covering an area of one acre, Newgrange is one of the most impressive prehistoric monuments in Europe. The entrance, which is almost sixty feet long, leads to the main chamber, which has a corbelled roof and rises to a height of nineteen feet. The traditional name for Newgrange and the grouping of tombs to which it belongs, was Brugh na B�inne; and it was regarded as the otherworld dwelling of the divine Aonghus Mac �g - Aonghus the Youthful. Older than Stonehenge, the giant megalithic tomb of Newgrange was probably erected about 3,200 BC (in calendar years). It is one of a group of 40 passage tombs including Knowth and Dowth, that are enclosed on three sides by the river Boyne. Passage tombs are generally found in clusters giving rise to the theory that they were ancient cemeteries, perhaps for leading families. They consist essentially of a round mound or cairn with a long, stone lined passage leading from the outside to a chamber within. As with Newgrange, which can still be seen by the naked eye from the Hill of Tara, some 15 miles away, they tend to be situated on hill tops and commanding sites. The mound is enclosed on the outside by a circle of standing stones of which twelve remain. This gives the impression that the monument was built and designed to stand out from the landscape - perhaps as a beacon for pagan worship. The present day reconstruction, aimed at restoring the site to its pre-historic appearance, gives this theory further substance. Many have likened it to a grounded flying saucer; and it is the subject of much controversy. However, during the Newgrange excavations between 1962 - 1965, much research focused on the original shape of the cairn. This information was drawn from the accounts of those who had visited the monument in the preceding centuries: all of them commented on its flat top. And the positioning of the white quartz stones that reinforce the front of the mound is based entirely on meticulous engineering analysis of the cairn collapse. The white quartz gives the monument a particularly startling facade and it is worth noting that this was only positioned at the front of the cairn, facing the sun. White quartz is known for its energy-dispersing properties and it may, therefore, have been used to absorb and channel its life-giving energy, or it may simply have provided further visibility to those wishing to reach the site. In addition, there were large numbers of oval granite boulders found amongst the collapsed quartz facade. These have been scattered randomly through the reconstructed facade, without acknowledgement to any possible use for these dark stones as patterning elements within the quartz. The twentieth century restorers were not prepared to risk a spiral pattern. The reasons for the use of quartz and granite, and their design, must have been of consequence because the builders of the Newgrange went to great lengths to put the stones there. They are not found locally. The nearest place that they could have collected the quartz was from the Wicklow Mountains to the South; and such a journey would have taken them seven days going by canoe along the Boyne and down the coast. The granite was probably collected around the Mourne Mountains, some days to the North. The cairn itself is reinforced at its base by a continuous circle of stones, called kerb stones. Many of these are ornamented. The most spectacular of these are the entrance stone, and the stone opposite the entrance on the other side of the mound. There is much speculation as to the meaning of these complex designs and many consider them to have solar symbology as sun worship was the most widely spread cult in pre-historic Europe. One of the most interesting features of the mound, particularly in view of the fact that it is a feature unique to Newgrange, is the roof-box above the entrance to the passageway. It consists of two low side-walls, a back corbel and a roofstone; and it is through this gap that the dawn sun beams on the winter solstice. Its purpose is unknown, but some have speculated that the builders: must have held the sun in such high regard that they gave it a separate entrance. Entering the passage tomb is a remarkable experience: the corbelled roof extends to 19ft and the central chamber has three recesses which contain massive stone basins that are thought to have been receptacles for cremated remains, but they may also have had other ceremonial functions. Many of the orthostats or standing stones lining the passage-way are decorated. The eastern recess shows the most decoration and once again this points to sunworshipping as the sun rises in the east. The pre-Celtic inhabitants had no written language. This has lead to the thinking that the artwork at Newgrange, comprising mainly of three-dimensional geometric designs, must have described the world in which they lived. Their complex patterns of loops, spirals, diamonds, zig zags and lozenges reveals a concern for harmony and balance of pattern, rather than with anthropological / representational art; and in this sense, it seems quite spiritual in nature. Some interpretations of the symbols give substance to the argument that its builders were probably sunworshippers. The suggestion that Aonghus was a sun deity lends further support to this interpretation.

Natural Features Newgrange, on the ridge of Brugh na B�inne, lies between the valleys of the Boyne river and the little tributary river Mattock. On the ridge, each mound is set on the top of a knoll, as it may have been necessary for ritual purposes to set the mound on a high point. The site is a splendid vantage point looking straight down on the Boyne, which is one of the great rivers of Ireland, flowing through a fine fertile valley. Newgrange was first brought to broad modern attention after 1699 by the Welsh antiquarian, Edward Lloyd. Until then, it was simply a huge, yet somehow 'magical' grass-covered mound. The landscape of Ireland is peppered with many such mounds, also known as S�dhe. The Valley of the Boyne is effectively the Northern boundary of the Central lowland plain of Ireland. To the North lies the undulating hill country of County Louth, and the line of drumlins which mark the borders of old Ulster. The drainage basin of the river Boyne coincides with the fertile pastureland of County Meath where, today, grazing cattle, coppiced woodland and prosperous farms help to create a scene not unlike the Cheshire Plain on the opposite side of the Irish Sea. But six thousand years ago, this was all forest. If we stand on the top of Newgrange and look about us in every direction, we overlook a basin of about 50 square kilometres before rising ground cuts off our view. Then if we imagine this basin as completely cleared of trees, we can get some idea of the kind of clearance that would have been required to produce a Neolithic farming community large enough to undertake the enormous task of building the complex of monuments at Brugh na B�inne. By about five thousand years ago, everyone working within this radius could either see the monuments, or feel that he ought to be able to see them, and could have a sense of devotion or commitment to these mysterious and sophisticated structures, which were constructed more than a thousand years before the pyramids of Egypt. http://www.paddynet.com/island/newgrange/natural.html#ridge

this is neat!

Never been there, but I most assuredly would like to go there. Wolfie, you'd love it!!!

Barrows, chambered tombs and other antiquities in Stonejeng's immediate area: http://www.amherst.edu/~ermace/sth/nearby.html In Stonehenge's Vicinity Although Stonehenge is a world-famous site, other "henges," stone (or wood) circles, and barrows abound in the area surrounding "the Henge." Here is a map of the area around Stonehenge. Barrows Barrows are ancient burial chambers. There are two main types of barrows: long barrows, built in the Neolithic Period (4000 BCE - 2500BCE) and round barrows, built in the Bronze Age (2000 BCE - 1000 BCE). Stonehenge I, the first stage of construction at Stonehenge, when it was just the Bank and Ditch (see map.), goes back to the time of the long barrows. However, Stonehenge IV, the "version" that is most famous today, was built at a time when the round barrows were on the declin e. Long Barrows: Long Barrows can be found in Wessex and Sussex, and also in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. They are most numerous in the immediate area of Stonehenge. They were used for the burial of important people. Excavation shows that the pe rson was kept above ground for a time, perhaps on top of a platform, until others died, and the bodies could be put in the barrow and the barrow covered over with earth. The Entrance to West Kennet Long Barrow Photo Credit: Emily Mace. Round Barrows: Round barrows, built at the time of Stonehenge IV, also surround the area of Stonehenge. In fact, within the Henge's Bank and Ditch are two round barrows. There are four types of barrows: bowl, bell, pond, and disc. As with the l ong barrows, round ones only housed important People buried in these barrows often had their possessions about them: daggers, bronze maces, stone battle-axes, in the graves of the men, and in the graves of women, bead necklaces and other ornaments. Origi nally bodies were buried in a crouched position, but later bodies were cremated. Clusters of Barrows: Normanton Down King Barrows Winterbourne Stoke cross-roads Henges Besides Stonehenge, there are three other monuments in the area which have earned the designation of "Henges:" Woodhenge, Coneybury Henge, and Durrington Walls. Nothing except marks on the earth remains of these barrows, but their existence has been disc overed by aerial photography, which revealed the post holes and the various ditches and embankments. Woodhenge: Today they have filled in the post-holes with cement posts about waist high. Like Stonehenge, it had an outer bank, which, like so many of these monuments, is very much flattened by ploughing. It was built about 2300 BCE. Inside the ditch were six concentric oval rings, which once held wooden posts. Near the center there is a small grave, in which the body of a three-year old with a split skull was found. Archaeologists think it was a dedicatory burial, and as such it would be t he only evidence of human sacrifice in Neolithic Britain. The original use of the posts, whether as supports of a roof, or otherwise, is unknown. Symbolic axe-heads found in two of the outer rings suggest that it was a temple. Woodhenge. Source: Atkinson, p. 33. Coneybury Henge: All that remains of this henge, too, is a bank and ditch surrounding post holes and other pits. Some pits contain pottery. It appears to have been used only a short time before it was abandoned, around 3500 BCE. Durrington Walls: This monument consisted of a huge oval bank 30 m wide, which too has been largely damaged by plowing. There were two entrances on opposite sides. Inside the circle were two circular timber structures, one to the north, one to the south. In the photos below, the left-hand drawing shows the northern structure, the right the southern. They are both only possible reconstructions.

The Durrington Walls structures look smaller by comparison with Woodhenge, but in fact they are huge. Woodhenge is intimate and would fit in one's side yard. Well, almost...

isn't it strange how they all use circles as their basis for construction? (does this play into it at all?)

speaking of side yards, on hgtv, one show visited a garden where the owner built a mini stone henge. he uses a lot of celtic influences in his garden. it was quite lovely.

The latest insult to Stonehenge - from The Times Good News: this page seems to have had an effect! Thanks to the effect of much campaigning and many letters sent through this page in 1996, the disastrous plans for Stonehenge have been dropped. However, an equivalently barbaric project is being carried out in America with regard to the traditional native Apache Indian peoples. http://www.wolflodge.org/urgentnews/apache1.htm has teh details. John Birchall writes to us to say "Independent p.3 on Friday (June 6) gave the new alternative plans for Stonehenge which involve Madame Tussauds paying for removal of modern accretions and grassing over of nearby road; new carpark; and in return Mdme Tussauds would get the right to run a commercial 'interpretation centre'. Access to the monument to be free of charge and unrestricted; the Independent billed it as a populist move motivated by the new government. I am sure your faxes were worthwhile - it is important for us to constantly remind quango's (English Heritage included) that they are under public scrutiny, even if unelected. I am writing to The Chairman of English Heritage to express support - this should also help to keep them up to the mark! July 20 1996 GENERAL NEWS Stonehenge to be �163.65m theme park STONEHENGE is to become a �163.65 million theme park using private investment and lottery cash. The plan includes a visitors' centre with a virtual reality tour, shops, restaurants and a monorail to the stones (Peter Foster writes). For the first time, English Heritage, which is responsible for the monument, will use the Government's Private Finance Initiative under which business puts up part of the money. The centre, with 8,000 square metres of floor space and parking for 3,000 cars, is expected to attract 1.8 million visitors a year, nearly double the present number. Finances permitting, work should start next year and be completed by the end of the decade. Opponents say that the plan will destroy Stonehenge's mystical appeal. Paul Sample, a Liberal Democrat Wiltshire county councillor, said: "This abhorrent commercialism is out of keeping." Click here if you want to write a letter of protest mailto:remote-printer.Department_of_National_Heritage_re_Stonehenge@441712116210.iddd.tpc.int,latrobe@mistral.co.uk,441719733001@faxaway.com to the UK Department of National Heritage and English Heritage. It will get printed on their fax machines: remember to give your snail mail address or fax number for reply - Please mark it re: STONEHENGE - and ask for a reply! click here to write a letter of protest to the UK Department of National Heritage and English Heritage. latrobe@mistral.co.uk Mark it Re: PLEASE FORWARD - Re: STONEHENGE and I (David Pinnegar) will manually fax it to them - remember to give your snail mail address or fax number for reply - and don't forget to ask for a reply!

More Africa archeology - and Stone Heads!!! Stone heads recall Africa's forgotten past By: Matthew Bunce Broadcasted on BICNews 10 February 1998 GOHITAFLA, Ivory Coast (Reuters) - When Bernadette Vouinan tripped over a rock with eyes and a nose in 1982, she unearthed one of the first of more than 1,000 ancient stone head sculptures to emerge from Ivory Coast's pre-historic soil. The origin of the heavy granite and laterite stones of up to three feet high and 2,000 years old remains a mystery. But some villagers have no doubts, even challenging theories on East Africa's Rift Valley as the cradle of mankind. ``We believe they were created and placed in the earth here by God,'' said one farmer in the remote Marahoue valley in central Ivory Coast where many of the heads have been found. Such lore attributes flattened rocks found there to the creator's footprints as he stepped back to heaven. Farmers are often less star-struck, selling any heads they find to tourists for a pittance. Ivorian anthropologists staging an exhibition in the commercial capital Abidjan this month hope to dispel myths and spur a wider interest in promoting Africa's forgotten past. ``It means we have had art for a long time,'' said leading anthropologist Georges Niangoran-Bouah, chief researcher on Marahoue. ``And where there is art there is civilization.'' The problem is that West Africa's tropical climate means clues to history often rot, leaving only rich oral tradition. GOD'S TEST-BED FOR HUMANS ``We Africans say man was not made in a day. And the most important part of man is the head,'' Niangoran-Bouah told Reuters. Folklore says the myriad facial designs -- many Marahoue heads have no mouth, nose or eyes -- are but one sign of God's use of Marahoue as a human test-bed. Later carvings with busts and full figures show man's head at one third rather than one seventh of his height. ``African artists think God must have made a mistake,'' said Niangoran-Bouah, holding a giant-nosed head nicknamed Charles de Gaulle, one of his garden collection of 200 stones. The faces, once used in mask rituals, are said to have been buried by God to protect women and children from seeing them. But some village wives have more pressing domestic concerns. ``They are very good. They withstand the heat,'' said one cook who was using three around a fire to support her pots at Diacohou. BEFORE OUR ANCESTORS The heads have yet to be accurately dated but similar stones in Senegal date back as far as 2,000 years. ``No one knows what role the heads played in ancient times,'' Niangoran-Bouah said. ``They are not the work of men known to us or our ancestors,'' said Ta-bi-Tra, a hunter at Gohitafla, now inhabited by Ivorian President Henri Konan Bedie's ruling Baoule tribe. Baoule warriors arrived there under Queen Abla Pokou in the 17th century, displacing Gouro tribes who in turn had pushed out the Wan culture in the 15th century. ``The Wan consider them to be ancestral objects,'' said Niangoran-Bouah, citing the stories of nearby Wan descendants, including a theory that the heads betrayed them to the enemy. The heads are also seen as grave charms for Wan warriors, homes for dead mens' souls or guardian spirits and talismans. ``We make offerings for a safe voyage, to find a good partner or fight off evil sorcerers, eaters of souls, jealous people and poisoners,'' said one soothsayer. ``We trust them.'' Animal sacrifices in cult rituals ensured successful childbirth and stone heads still play a part in ritual exorcisms and purification of adulterers. One man described being inhabited by a spirit from stones surrounding his house. ``I have 13 children, they all come from the stones.'' Prehistoric stone heads have been found around the world, from Africa to Europe and America. Marahoue's are thought to be among the largest and oldest along Africa's Atlantic coast. Ivorian standing stones are larger than average and found deeper in the ground than similar African examples, suggesting a greater age of up to 7,000 years, Niangoran-Bouah said. Such African megaliths weighing between half a ton and 15 tons are found in a northwestern strip on the Mediterranean and pockets in a wide west-east sub-Saharan band between Senegal and Kenya. Villagers showed Reuters a 19-foot rock said to be one of the largest African megaliths. In Mali, to the north, anthropologists have been baffled by the Dogon culture's ability to predict cycles of an invisible satellite of the star Sirius, which appears every 60 years. The Dogon, whose God Amma is said to have thrown a ball of clay into space to create Earth, is just one example of deep civilization in Africa often brushed over by colonists. ``This civilization before the pre-colonial period honorsour country,'' Niangoran-Bouah said. ``During colonial times the stones were probably kept hidden in the forest. The whites did not see them.'' That, for better or worse, is no longer the case. � Copyright 1998, Reuters News Service

Amazing stuff. Maggie! Are there pictures anywhere that you know of? Or shall I make myself useful and search for them?

I haven't found any pics to go with this yet - there weren't any on the site.

Guess I'd better get on it...whilst you get on with exorcising, exercising or just plain doing your PhD stuff (technical talk gets me all excited for the hunt for stone head pictures...)

(actually I've been trying to earn some money! Maybe I'll be able to get a good camera to take nice pics with)

Make it a digital and you will have the best of both worlds without having to worry about running out of film! (Still trying to get on your web thingy so I can join and give you credit, but I cannot - they are overhauling their website and told me to come back later.)

(I should be getting check from them soon - maybe it'll save my marriage! oops the phone bill's enormous again) I'm a bit wary of getting only a digital camera not an ordinary one - I think I need both, oh yes, and a camcorder, wish, wish, wish

*Sigh* Yes, I know...!

Fascinating about the stones in Africa! I had never heard of Newgrange before, either. Still learning a lot around here... A digital camera and camcorder are on my wish list, *after* a negative/slide scanner. I have a lot of prints/slides that I want to scan in to put on my web page, but the hand scanner I have is such a pain. It also doesn't give as good an image as the ones scanned from the original film. I still love my old SLRs, especially while digital cameras and photo quality printers are still evolving.

You can't beat the old SLR's for sharpness, septh of focus and versatility. Iki's digital is about like an SLR and he has taken incredible pictures with it. I am delighted to see you tonight...I was talking to myself for a while!

Thanks, Marcia! Things were quiet at work for a little while, but now it's back to the usual hectic pace. (I just found out that Lucent is spinning off my group and a few others as a separate company. Looks like end of Sept. timeframe. I'm not sure if that's good or bad, yet.) I'll try to check in on weekends, at least...when I'm procrastinating from homework. (I'm taking a C++ class that ends in May. It's fun, but it keeps me busy.) I love all the info about the different henges! It's almost 2am here, so I guess I better sign off for now. 'Night!

G'night Ginny! Henges are my fav topic! Later!

Four miles north of Hereford, adjacent to the River Lugg, a tributary of the River Wye, are the Suttons. Two small villages, located a mile or so to the south west of the Iron Age hillfort of Sutton Walls, they have long been associated with King Offa of Mercia, who ruled this powerful Saxon kingdom from 757 to his death in 796. Offa�s Dyke, the vast earthwork that marked Mercia�s western borders, is just a few miles away. And there is historical evidence to suggest that, three years before the end of Offa's reign, he came to a royal vill, or palace, in a place called Sutton. But no archaeological proof of its precise location has ever been found. The area around the Suttons is rich in archaeological sites. The Sutton Walls hillfort has earthworks on a scale comparable with Maiden Castle. There is evidence of both Roman and Saxon occupation in the vicinity. And a medieval manor house, Freen's Court, complete with fishponds, artificial water channels, dams, a lake and a moat, is known to have existed on the site -- giving landscape expert Stewart Ainsworth more than his usual share of exciting �lumps and bumps� to get worked up about when he arrived on the scene. Then, perhaps most exciting of all, there were the tantalising results of an aerial photographic survey carried out in 1990. This produced some remarkable pictures of previously unrecorded parch marks on the grassy meadow next to the River Lugg and adjacent to the former manor house structures. These showed what appeared to be a series of post holes or stone pads on which posts would have been mounted to support a large aisled building. This could have been built of timber or stone and appeared to consist of up to nine bays, each approximately four metres wide. Next to this were further parch-mark outlines of a �multi-celled� building, up to 60 metres in length and 10 metres wide. Could either of these structures have been associated with King Offa's palace? Comparison with similar sites at Northampton and elsewhere suggested the structures may have had a Saxon origin. Certainly English Heritage was sufficiently convinced by the possibility to declare the whole area a scheduled ancient monument. With only a dozen Anglo-Saxon palace sites ever having been positively identified in Britain, the discovery of a thirteenth would have been a major archaeological find indeed. As so often in this series, Time Team was treading new ground with this programme. The Project Design -- basically a very detailed breakdown of the proposed investigation of the site, which has to be approved by English Heritage in advance of any excavation of a scheduled ancient monument -- had been prepared not by the Team but the county archaeologist, Keith Ray. Time Team had worked with him before in his previous post, at Plympton in the 1999 series, and he was to act as project director on this occasion. He also brought along his deputy, Tim Hoverd, as excavation director and a team of experienced local diggers to work alongside the Team's usual crew. An English Heritage inspector, Paul Stamper, was present throughout to keep an eye on things and ensure that the Project Design was adhered to. A diary of each day's dig, together with photos and details of some of the artefacts found was kept on the Timesite website [http://www.timesite.co.uk], which ran �live� with the excavations as they took place last October. Suffice to say here that, as ever, things did not run exactly according to plan. For a start, a geophysics survey carried out by English Heritage eight years previously turned out not to be as useful as it might have been because the all-important grid reference details to locate it precisely had gone missing. Then the long, wet grass resulted in confusing readings being produced by Time Team's own geophysics survey. And to cap it all, after a half-day delay before the first turf could be lifted, all the digging in the main trenches -- involving the shifting of 17 tonnes of material, it was estimated -- had to be done by hand because permission to excavate scheduled ancient monuments stipulates that no machines can be used. In fact, none of the excavations at the Suttons yielded artefacts or structures that could be definitively dated to the Saxon period. Trench One, a section cut through an earthwork bank, produced no finds at all, turning out to be part of a dam associated with the various water features that once stood on the site. Trench Two, when it finally got underway, quickly produced a stone post pad, but as Mick Aston suspected when it first emerged, it was of a later date. And Trench Three contained plenty of building material, nearly all of it post-medieval. The massive Trench Four was later dug on the site of a knoll some 300 metres from the main site, and two further trenches were later put in the area of an enclosure ditch and platform by the village church. It was not until relatively late in the excavations that Trench Two uncovered an early wall, which could be dated by the presence of a piece of an earthenware cooking pot to the 12th century or earlier. And Trench Two saved up its buried treasures until the very last, when the charred remains of a wooden floor were discovered late on the final day. These were radio-carbon dated to almost 1,000 years ago, about the same age as the pottery sherd from Trench Two and another found in Trench Four. Then, with the Team�s investigation winding down at the end of the third day, came the revelation that the post pads in Trench Two did not line up with the parch marks on the aerial photographs. In fact, there were signs of post holes on a slightly different alignment, something far more consistent with a high-status Saxon building -- such as a palace. There was no proof, of course, that this was what it was, but as Tony Robinson summarised, it was certainly �a strong candidate� for future archaeological investigations to focus on. The murder of Aethelbert and the founding of Hereford In the bloody and tumultuous times of the late eighth century, both murders and marriages were common among the conflicting royal dynasties of Anglo-Saxon England. The surprise Viking raid on the monastic community of Lindisfarne in 793 gave an added spur to efforts to bring together and strengthen the different kingdoms, and King Offa of Mercia was always seeking out opportunities to enhance his own position. In 792, King Aethelred of Northumbria had married Offa�s daughter, Princess Aelflaed. Then, in 794, King Aethelbert of East Anglia visited the Mercian court at the Sutton palace, with a view to marrying another of Offa�s daughters, Princess Aelfryth. There are various accounts of what happened next, ranging from the largely factual account in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to the heavily embroidered reports contained in the hagiographies of the saints, dating from the 12th century and later. What is certain is that Offa had Aethelbert executed. One of these Lives of St Aethelbert took up the story thus: �Aethelbert, the holy and Christian King of the East Angles goes into Mercia to seek the hand of King Offa�s daughter Aelfryth. He is lodged in the royal vill called Sutton [hospitatur in regia villa Suttun nominata] where he has a vision, prefiguring his martyrdom. Offa is persuaded by his wicked wife Coenfryth and an East Anglian exile Winberht, that Aethelbert is plotting against him and allows Winberht to cut off his head. Aelfryth, horrified, makes a vow of virginity and declares her intention to become a hermit at Crowland. �On Offa�s orders, the body is thrown into a marsh beside the River Lugg [in paludem prope ripam Lugge fluminis]. As a result of a vision, Berhtferth, Offa�s chamberlain, and his friend Ecgmund retrieve the body and take it in an ox-cart to a place called Fernlage, by the River Wye [ad locum qui Fernlage dicitur propter ripan fluminis Waege]. They raise and wash the body and, after a long search, the head, and take it on the cart as instructed by the vision, but -- as pre-ordained by God, the head falls off the cart at a place called Lyde [Luda]; a blind man stumbles upon the head, recovers his sight and chases after the cart, catching it at Shelwick [Sceldwica]. The martyr's body is buried in a place marked with a column of light, and a minster is built on the venerated site. �This place ... was once called Fernlage ... but the name was afterwards changed ... [and] ... was called Hereford.�

This is such great stuff. We Need to have this program in the US. I have been to Offa's Dyke. Re the Suttons, I expected Sutton Hoo to be nearby, but I was on the wrong side of the Island! Please check that link again. I could not make it work!

The URL is right, but it doesn't work. Try http://www.channel4.com/nextstep/timeteam/update.html The link to timesite is on there.

Oh Boy! That link works just fine! Splendid and there are all sorts of goodies on that webpage. Mahalo plenty!

If you have downloaded Quicktime, by all means go to this url and take a sweep around the diggings. It is fantastic! http://www.channel4.com/nextstep/timeteam/2000waddon.html

To all who have contributed on this page, I'd like to say "HI" to all those who share an intellectual interest in this subject and I hope to visit again and share anything of interest which I may find during my studying. I'm now off to watch Time Team. Let you know how it goes. Bye. From viola.

Hi viola, nice to meet you - come again soon!

oops - scrap that - it's maggie on viola's machine!!!

hi viola and maggie! how was time team? anything interesting happen?

Time Team found a Roman temple in sight of the Millennium Dome, near London. The Time Team dig gets underway in Greenwich Park, the oldest of Britain's royal parks and birthplace of Henry VIII: Henry VIII was born there, Elizabeth I played in its gardens and the meridian line runs right through it. Greenwich Park, in sight of the Millennium Dome in south London, is the oldest royal parkland in Britain, having first been enclosed in 1433. That means that, despite later landscaping, many archaeological features remain there, untouched by the buildings and other developments that have covered up most of the rest of London. Various earthworks are readily visible within the park boundaries, including a large number of Saxon barrows and a mound, surrounded by iron railings, that has long been associated with Roman remains on the site. These remains were the subject of excavations during 1902-3. But all that was visible to visitors almost a century later were a few Roman tesserae, or mosaic fragments, stuck together in a clump of concrete. The precise locations of the three trenches dug at the beginning of the 1900s had not been properly recorded, and many of the finds made at the time had since disappeared. Nevertheless, enough had been discovered then to indicate the presence here of an important Roman structure. One of Time Team's principal objectives was to try to find out what it was. The previous week's programme in search of King Offa's palace at the Suttons, near Hereford, had seen the Team's long-suffering geophysics surveyors joshed over their inability to give Phil a quick and exact location in which to dig his trench. One of their difficulties -- that the long, wet grass was interfering with the megnetronomy results -- led to one unkind visitor to the Time Team website forum asking whether this was geophysics' equivalent of Railtrack's 'wrong leaves on the line' type of excuse. Greenwich delivered further grist to the mill of those who like to tease John Gater, Chris Gaffney and Co when the geofizzers declared that on this occasion their readings were being upset not only by the metal railings that surrounded the few visible Roman remains, but also by the fact that the ground was too dry. 'Let's hope for rain,' they announced, to the general dismay of the rest of the Team. The railings were taken down, but nothing could be done about the dry ground. This resulted in Chris Gaffney resorting to an unorthodox, but effective, method of locating the line of Roman walls beneath the surface. This involved tapping on the ground with an upturned pickaxe and judging the presence of stone beneath the surface by the change in sound. Meanwhile, some cynics questioned whether geophysics was needed at all, since the 'parch marks' in the grass provided clearly visible evidence of underlying structures anyway. 'Just dig on the dry bits,' as Tony Robinson's new archaeological dictum had it. These marks indicated the presence of a substantial rectangular structure on the site. The nature of the finds made in 1902-3, which included more than 400 coins, high-quality pottery and statuary, had also suggested some sort of high-status building. Time Team wanted to confirm that the rectangular structure was indeed of Roman origin, and to find out whether the building had been a temple, a villa or a military or other establishment. Two finds in particular, both made on the third day, were to provide important evidence. A Roman roof tile was found in Trench Two, which had been set up under Carenza's supervision on the line of the rectangular enclosure and soon revealed a Roman wall not far beneath the surface. The tile was inscribed with the letters PPBR, standing for Procurator of the Province of Britannia. The beginning of the letter L, which also appeared on the edge of the tile, was thought to stand for Londinium. The procurator was the second most important official in Roman Britain, responsible for much of the province's finances, military supplies and transport. The presence of his stamp on the tile indicated that there had been an important public building on the site associated with Roman London. An even more significant find was made in the small Trench Five, on the west side of the mound. This comprised a piece of broken limestone on which the letters MIN and ILIV could be made out in two rows, one above the other. A further three letters CVS formed part of a third row underneath. The presence of the letters MIN led to immediate speculation that it referred to the Roman goddess Minerva. One of Time Team's Roman experts, Guy de la B�doy�re, was called upon to feed the letters into his computer database of inscriptions from Roman Britain to identify the words in which they appear most often. Minerva turned out not to be the most likely word. Rather the inscription in which the letters MIN were most likely to be found was determined to be ET NUMINEB AUG, referring to the spirits or deity of the emperors. The letters ILIV were most likely to be found as part of the name CAECILIVS, and the letters CVS as part of the name PRISCVS. Both were common Roman names and Mark Hassall, Britain's foremost authority on Roman inscriptions, explained that the stone had probably been part of a dedication to the gods, perhaps placed there by a wealthy patron by the name of CAECILIVS PRISCVS. Whatever the exact explanation, the discovery added weight to the other evidence from this and the 1902-3 excavations that this had been the site of a Roman temple. Because of its location on high ground on the line of Watling Street, the main Roman highway from Canterbury and the south east, it would have formed an important and readily visible landmark as that road approached London.

Spanna, we enjoyed Time Team, you should have seen it! All the info has been included on the page- Enjoy!

hi viola and maggie! how was time team? anything interesting happen?

hi viola and spanna!!

Imagine my delight as Mama of this site to find my baby has not only grown up but is walking all by herself! Welcome all - and most especially to the "Frieds of Maggie" club. I am counting on your on-site-in-Britain accounts to made immediate the stuff I can only copy from the web and gather out of my memory banks. Feel free to take shoes off and make yourself comfortable. Again, E komo mai - welcome!

Been to Greenwich and I am trying to imagine where this dig is happening. There are lots of open grassy spaces there abouts and it is quite lovely, even on a leaden-skied late May day with the dank chill coming off the Thames. Viola, Spanna...Most delighted that you share our interest in Antiquities and will help add to my knowledge of the local digs....*wishful sigh* (Maggie, you are too funny! Welcoming Viola from her own computer. *lol* I wondered if traffic was so slow in here that she had to welcome herself!)

i know, that's what i thought!! viola was talking to herself....

(Maggie sent me an email requesting I remove the Viola-to-Viola welcome, but by that time I had posted my comment and left it as she posted it.) Silly Me!

I forgot to log in - classic mistake, I felt really silly!!!. We were having fun! We posted the origianal message at uni then went off and watched time team and came back to uni and posted it in for you. We thought of you all as we paddled (well, they did - I'm too old and the sea was too cold!) in the sea at West Wittering (isn't that a lovely name *lol*). Lots of flint on the beach but no interesting fossils, although viola found a rock with a hole in it which has dark crystals glinting inside. We were looking for rose quartz. (wrong topic, but i thought you'd like to know!)

Viola found a geode. Merlin's Crystal Cave! How exquisite. I am envious! I need a beach with something beside lava granules. crushed coral or peridots all over it. You have to row to get to the nearest Telly?! (I know abut you, and NO WAY are you too old for anything!!!) Thanks for the teaser, though. Looking forward to more Time Team reports. Thanks, Maggie! *hugs*

Oh that's what a geode is, I never knew and meant to ask.

Geode is a cavity (often entirely enclosed) which has perfect crystals formed in that space. They range from tiny with minute crystals to ones the size of large tubs and larger still. I have several of differing size with all sorts of crystal (one type for each geode) - usually of the quartz family.

I remember seeing a beautiful geode in my grade school science class. It was about 6" across and filled with amethyst crystals.

They commonly are amethysts and two of mine are, as well. Plus parts of some which must have been absolutley staggeringly huge!

Staggeringly huge -- would that be anything like having your own cave if you had the whole geode?

From the merest hint of an arc on the largest one, I'd say yes - I am fairly small boned and can curl up into a small ball and tuck my long legs in, too. Not enough for a large man, I think, but Merlin in the Crystal Cave would have fit in just fine! Imagine finding one like that and opening it just enough to get inside! Incredible!

The boy Merlin would have fit; but if I remember the Mary Stewart books correctly, didn't he grow up to be rather tall?

Yes, but also some native Britain in him (Welsh) gave him light bone structure - much like the sort of Briton from which I spring. Of course, when the power was on him he rose to awesome stature...and paid for the privilege with a hangover of monumental proportions! I love those books, and I got shouted down by those posting with me in Books conf / Arthurian. *sigh* Those who must speed read and cast aside what which they cannot are missing out on so much!

I never knew what a geode was, either. Now I have a great picture in my mind of Merlin lying inside one... Marcia already knows I loved Mary Stewart's books, too. I didn't find her books difficult to read, but then I'm no speed reader by any means. Does that mean I can't talk about Stewart when I finally get to that Arthurian topic??

Ginny, you gotta talk on the Arthurian topic! I was the only one in there upholding the Merlin Trilogy (which I adore) and trying to get Amy to read them. John, who had already read them for course work in college, accused me of evangelizing...so outnumbered and alone in the disucssion, I quit. Please come back and let us discuss it!!!

David (my non-bookreading-for-pleasure son) and his father read them at the same time I did per my recommendation. We all loved them. Must be the speed readers of the world who cannot be bothered. They miss so much!!!

Oops I'm out of this - which trilogy?

The trilogy in question takes the Arthurian legend and tells it from Merlin's point of view. It is a well- researched work and gripping reading. The best of its sort extant, IMHO. The books are in paperback (she is a Scotswoman) and consist of "The Crystal Cave," "The Hollow Hills," and "The Last Enchantment" followed by another taking the Mordred theme, "The Wicked Day." Author is Mary Stewart. If you have time for reading frivilous things, this set is splendid! I have read mine so many times that they are falling apart!

Mmm read it many years ago - will look it out again. Have you read the stephen lawhead pendragon trilogy? Talliesin, Merlin, Authur. I have the first two.

NO!!! I shall look for them! Oooh, Goody!

I thought they were good. I had actually thought of sending them to you!!!!

If I cannot find them here I shall reimburse you and if that is alright, I will agree. But, let me hunt for them online and here in Hilo, first. Thanks, dear!

No time team report tonight - they've got technical problems and it won't be posted on the site until 27th. More bedtime reading: Earthworks Wiltshire between two worlds shared time, A suspended bridge circling ancient skyline, Mindscape myriad of standing stones, Shimmering spectres touched by pagan bones Retrospective following footsteps of mystic migration Ceremonial rites hypnotic chanting resonant vibration, Suspended past turning spiral helix DNA, Pay silent homage lost spiritual stairway, Echoed voices woven tapestry threads connect, Your tribe, my tribe earned respect, Existing mingled, merged juxtapose yet unresolved, Open book sentenced to be unsolved. (Nicola Fowler)

Oooh, I love that. Exactly how it is and how it feels!

Thought you would. I like poetry!

Wolfie has an entire conference dedicated to poetry...check it out sometime. Lovely stuff. John has written some excellent stuff he posted in there and he posted one in Geo2 for the first time seen anywhere. It was an incredible privilege!

Hi All, Thankyou for your messages. Yes Maggie, the sea was lovely. Thankyou for a lovely afternoon! By the way, there was a brilliant documentary on the other night about the infamous pirate Blackbeard and his sunken ship which they reckon has been found offshore. If I can download the info from the sight you can all have a look. Watch this space...