Wednesday 7th November

Seamus Heaney catches the mood of the moment in his poetry.  There is a lot of Seamus Heaney's poetry on this blog, he did a degree in Archaeology, and occasionally I forget him which is a pity. This small verse taken from the link could address the fields of France as well.  As men go in search of long extinct battlegrounds, bones are uncovered from the last  but one World War.

                                                            A desolate peace. 
                                                             Our mother ground 
                                                             Is sour with the blood 
                                                             Of her faithful, 


A rich  burial of a Celtic Princess and her child at Bettelbuhl neocroplis in South Germany.

The grave was preserved in the water-logged soil. It is so intact that they have been able to put an exact date on the woman's death. The oak they found on the floor of the chamber was felled 2,620 years ago. Assuming they were cut down specifically to build the chamber, the princess died in 609BC. Also surprisingly the grave had not been robbed over the last 2,600 years.  taken from

The horses face plate is remarkable, in its beauty for a start, a shield in war.  Did she own the equivalent of an 'E type jaguar' in her horse, did she love this creature, were its bones found in the burial? as they are in the burials in Pocklington, East Yorkshire Iron Age 'square barrows' of the Parisi tribe.

a reconstruction

Sometimes the accoutrements of death in prehistory remind us of animals that were also respected and admired.  Valued as we today value the ownership of an expensive car.  More wayward than our automated four wheeled chariots though.

When we flit through the news of the day, with its wars and want, it is well to remember that history carries its own news as well, unearthed in the clay are the remnants of other lives, lived as richly as ours.  The Princess's amber and gold jewellry was also beautiful as you will see in this link.

Well I come back to my blog a couple of hour later, a friend has just brought us the plans of their ecohouse they plan to build on their two acre plot.  Great excitement for them, almost stymied by the 'great crested newt', doesn't half get around England that newt;).  But if Natural England gives them the go ahead on the five ponds on their land, then next stop is planning. A passive house, with a gassified boiler, I shall have to look that one up.