Archive for the 'Related discoveries' category
I’m extremely grateful to Yvonne Whiteman for sending me the above photograph. As far as physical geography’s concerned, you can discern the white houses of Westbury-sub-Mendip in the distance; when you reach the top of the Mendips, you cross the Mendip Way and walk in a straight line over the fields to Priddy, which is the place where many legends specifically locate Jesus “in ancient time.”
As far as Yvonne’s perception of this site is concerned, it is a special place, a description that is more than adequate for me. I’ve been fortunate enough to find many such places in my time, in Britain, Europe and Scandinavia, while I wrote in some detail about the tranquil and at the same time uplifting sensation I experienced at Nine Barrows Lane in Priddy some years ago. I’m certain that many other readers of Eternal Idol will have had experience of other places that possess at atmosphere or aura that is difficult to accurately convey in words, whether that atmosphere be benign or malevolent, but I’m naturally intrigued to learn of the existence of one so close to Priddy.
I’m also very impressed by Yvonne for accomplishing something that has thus far defeated me, by managing to acquire an opinion from a senior member of the Church of England on details of ‘very early Christianity’ in Britain; once again, I’m grateful to Yvonne for being willing to share this with everyone else.
In the summer of 2009, Yvonne was chatting to one of the Canons of Westminster Abbey and she asked the lady in question how the Church of England regards the myth of Jesus coming to England. The Canon replied that they think of it as “a pretty legend.”
Yvonne then asked how they regard the myth of Joseph of Arimathea coming to Glastonbury, and received the reply that “they take this rather more seriously”.
Absolutely fascinating, but I’ll leave you to ponder all this for yourselves and to draw your own conclusions.
In recent months, I’ve concentrated my attention on Stonehenge and on the nearby Iron Age hill fort named Vespasian’s Camp. In my view, the two structures precisely fit the description of a notable temple and city, sacred to Apollo, as recounted by the ancient Greek mariner Pytheas of Massilia, after he visited Britain in the middle of the fourth century BC.
Judging from the number of visits to this site, as well as the extensive media coverage and the many messages I’ve received, this investigation into the enigma of a remarkable ancient temple has captured the imagination of people the world over. While this is extremely gratifying, all credit must of course go to Pytheas himself, because if this daring and visionary man had not taken the trouble to record the wonders he observed during that far-distant time when he ventured north beyond the relatively safe waters of the Mediterranean, we would have no tantalising mystery to ponder over and our lives would very much the poorer as a result.
All the evidence suggests that Stonehenge was in active use as a temple of Apollo when Pytheas saw the place in 350 BC, which is remarkable when we consider that from the standard archaeological viewpoint, it had fallen into disuse around thirteen centuries beforehand, in or around 1,600 BC. Be that as it may, it does not follow that Stonehenge had always functioned as a temple, as we can see from the following point made by Professor John North in his book Stonehenge, Neolithic Man and the Cosmos, when discussing the possibility of chariot races having taken place on the Cursus:
Show me more… »
Terribilis Est Iste Locus?
11:52 pm
For those of you not fortunate enough to have participated in an official excavation in the Stonehenge landscape, or for those who don’t live within reasonable travelling distance of Stonehenge, an alternative that was once unthinkable is now freely available, because you can study the region at your leisure from space.
Show me more… »
As I’m sure I’ve made clear before now, my technological abilities are pretty much limited to being able to type and turn my laptop on, but every now and again, I get to look at the statistics for this site. My aim from the very start was to present detailed and hopefully engrossing original material on Stonehenge, but I was warned that most people’s attention span couldn’t cope with more than two or three short sentences before they went elsewhere for stimulation.
Show me more… »
When I first published the original story on Inigo Jones’ lost Altar Stone from Stonehenge, I presented what I thought at the time was the bulk of the evidence for a convincing case. I did not seriously expect further evidence in favour of what I had to say to come in, but to my surprise, it has continued to do so at a surprising rate.
Show me more… »
If there is a faint but not inconsiderable chance that the stones at Berwick St James once stood at Stonehenge, then in my opinion, they deserve to be investigated to the fullest possible extent, using any and every means at our disposal. If there is a faint but not inconsiderable chance that they once constituted a single stone described by Inigo Jones in the seventeenth century as an “Altar Stone”, then it is difficult to overestimate their importance to us all.
Show me more… »
When dealing with something such as an investigation into the origins of the stones at Berwick St James, no piece of evidence is too small or insignificant to be overlooked; all that matters is that we continually add to our sum total of knowledge on the subject. Earlier today, I received two extremely interesting emails from Jim Fuller of Amesbury in Wiltshire, who had read about the story of the Altar Stone in the Amesbury Journal.
Show me more… »
The late, great Carl Sagan once wrote, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof”, which is of course an admirable philosophy especially when it comes to investigating apparently contentious matters pertaining to Stonehenge. However, Sagan’s quote derives from an earlier observation made by Pierre-Simon Marquis de Laplace, a French mathematician and astronomer, who suggested that: “The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness.”
Show me more… »
