The BBC and the Daily Mail recently carried features on Doggerland, the sunken landmass that once surrounded what is now the British Isles. This news has already been posted elsewhere here on Eternal Idol, so it makes sense to create a new post where those who are interested can discuss or else contribute to this matter.
I was as interested as anyone else by the suggestions of underwater monuments and I look forward to hearing more details in the fulness of time. For now, however, two points immediately leapt out at me, the first being that I found myself wondering if Stonehenge’s location acquires any greater significance in light of the above map. I mention this, of course, on account of the famous Mesolithic pits just north-west of Stonehenge and because of the vast amount of discoveries from the Mesolithic period that were recently made near Vespasian’s Camp, matters that have been discussed elsewhere on this site.
There’s also the matter of the name ‘Doggerland’, which I understand derives from a mediaeval Dutch word for a fishing boat. This uninspiring name might well remain in use, but I cannot help thinking that this sunken Mesolithic realm and the undoubted treasures it contains deserve a more accurate and evocative title. In all fairness, the name Stonehenge seems to derive from the Middle Ages, but there’s an alternate name for the ruins – the Giants’ Dance – that may be far older, at least as far as the idea’s concerned. In my view, Christopher Chippendale went one better by suggesting “The Giants’ Round”, a name that conveys the shape of Stonehenge and the notion of dancing.
So, it seems to me that there’s more than ample scope to anoint the sunken realm around these isles with a far more accurate and enchanting name than ‘Doggerland’. It’s something I’ll be applying myself to, while I would of course be very interested to read any suggestions made by others, along with an explanation or justification if they care to supply one.
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The name I would personally propose for this lost land is “Submercia”. If any explanation’s required, the original Mercia was a huge, ancient British kingdom and its original rulers were pagans, so both these aspects seem fitting as a new name.
Furthermore, the original meaning of Mercia was the “boundary or border people”; when we look at the map above, we see that this land once encircled what are now the British Isles, so it seems accurate to describe it as a former border or boundary of sorts. Strictly speaking, this place is also sub-Mercia in the sense that it lies further down, or lower than the original Mercia, while the name Mercia is still in use today to describe a region in Britain.
Then we come to the word-play element, because “Submercia” is an obvious pun on ‘submerse’, meaning to go or to put under water. A few other ideas in this broad vein have occurred to me, but I’ll see what anyone else comes up with first.
Dennis
I would recommend Mesoland as a more suitable moniker from the Greek meso or “middle”. This would refer, jointly, to its location and to the fact that it seems to have been a richly populated, fertile land before it got the deep six from rising sea levels.
The Lost Land of Lyonesse.
I propose Tanddwr — Welsh for “Underwater.”
Greater Britain?
If it was a Mesolithic activity, then they got more than they bargained for?
Synchronicity strikes again.