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| Stoney Littleton Long barrow, and though you cannot see it, one of the stones at the entrance is an ammonite stone. |
I can't resist it! Pat has just mentioned her Langdale Axe found on the farm. Part of my life was devoted to prehistory. The old heavy stones hauled from quarries to stand in lines or circles, or to build a Neolithic tomb, they excited me. It was the immense old age of the stone first used by man as a tool or covering for their dead. They stood on the landscape, enigmatic, holding the secrets of the past.
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| A polished greenstone Langdale Axe is a thing of great beauty. |
So Pat's mention of an axe brought to mind Michael Botts and Rupert Soskin's epic journey round this country visiting prehistoric sites. I have sat quietly spell bound on the Preseli Hills knowing that this was one of the pathways from Ireland to England that our ancestors trod. I will believe quite happily that the bluestones of Stonehenge came from this area, how they hauled the stones to the sea is beyond my comprehension.
Stonehenge, Avebury and Stanton Drew I have wandered round, in all kind of weathers, one favourite just outside Bath is Stoney Littleton Long barrow a place of retreat for me when home life got too much. There are thousands of sites around, and if you would venture to Europe, as far away as Russia or even to Japan you would see the same fashioned cromlechs that you find in this country.
So a 'blooper' short video of the two above. A blooper video by the way Pat is all the bad 'takes'. As someone who has dug in all kind of weathers, traipsed over moors in cold and rain I know exactly how Rupert Soskin feels. Though I expect he has never stood on Hadrian's Wall with a kicking baby still inside him as I did, and wondered if I was about to give birth in the cold.
Standing With Stones, the long movie is also there as well, with the funny bits cropped. It never made it as a television programme, but the two of them seemed to have a good time in their camper van. The Langdale stone quarry is difficult to get to, and is featured at 9 minutes into the Blooper video, in the mist.
Thank you for these two bloopers Thelma. How exciting for the woman who found this little Bible - there is a photograph of it in the palm of a hand in the times today. It is exquisite and so beautifully engraved. As to the axe - Favid's dad found it long before I came on the scene - what excited me was how wonderful it must have been to be the first hand to touch it after all those years, the beauty of the workmanship and the fact that stone age man walked that far and would meet other people. How the past fasinates.
ReplyDeleteYou set me off on a memory journey Pat. Finds from the past are always exciting, though of course such treasures being sold privately and not shown in museums makes me cross. Beautiful things with history still gives us a sense of wonder.
ReplyDeleteHow do you feel about returning the Benin bronzes? If we returned every looted item, the museums would be half empty.
ReplyDeleteWell rather than be 'woke' on this subject I think I will go to sleep. In fact of course as a country we have stolen far and wide, though some would argue that safely encased in museums such artefacts are better off. Greece has been quiet the last few years over the Elgin Marbles. Ownership is of course a very difficult subject, that is why we have the Treasure Act.
Deletehttps://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/smithsonian-national-museum-of-african-art-repatriate-benin-bronzes-1234609163/
DeleteA great way to remember the heritage of man. YOu are lucky to live so close to such history. That axe is jaw-dropping and looks a little dangerous to use, but I am sure it fit tighter back then.
ReplyDeleteI did a course at the local Museum in Devizes many years ago and would draw these beautifully shaped tools in pen and ink but the smoothness of the stone is something you don't forget Tabor.
ReplyDeleteYour comment to my holiday dilemma definitely made me smile.
ReplyDeleteConrad was a lovely man Tabor, he would sit at the head of the table, often overseeing some trick he was playing on the English vicar - who was never amused by false dog turds or mustard pots, or the rock solid cake he nearly broke his teeth on. If the family erupted into argument he would just sit there with a napkin over his head muttering S.I.D, the grandfather not the vicar of course.
ReplyDeleteSo many stories that are lost forever. We will never know them. That little bible is amazing!
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