Deciphering the Pagan Stones

a reply to: Wifibrains

That does look suspiciously like an uncle, or so...
I've got to head out, but I'll be back!!

Just spotted this on the news:

The area around Hadrian's Wall has been mapped from the air by English Heritage but amateur research has also thrown up some surprising findings. Ancient camps, ovens, rubbish pits and ditches show up from the air as crop marks, where plants grow differently - often invisible from the ground. Work on Emperor Hadrian's wall began in AD122. Archaeologists believed soldiers had settled in a nearby fort - Vindolanda - from about AD85.

But another photograph shows something Dr Andrew Birley from the Vindolanda Trust believes is a fort built ten years earlier, 50 years before the wall. "As we started excavating the ditches we were getting more and more evidence to suggest that this actually could pre-date anything on this part of the site that we'd previously known about," he said. If they find the timber fort gates - and it might take years - the rings on the wood could lead conclusively to a construction date.

It might prove the Romans established their frontier long before the history books currently say.

BBC news

a reply to: beansidhe

Well I hope no one was under the impression that they started building the wall as soon as they got up there or around there. The wall was simply the result of the conclusion to the northern problem.

a reply to: Logarock

There is a suggestion in the article that everything was really ok, and that the Picts quite liked the Romans really. Hmm, very suspicious! I'm going to keep an eye on this story and see where it goes, because it has got my attention. I've got some bits to add here, in a wee while

a reply to: beansidhe

Maybe they did like the Roman. Just not those big stuff type, like Severus, that thought it was there mission to humiliate them.

a reply to: Logarock

Remember Cartimandua looked to the Romans to save her? Maybe you're right - I mean, nothing is black and white, there would be all shades of gray inbetween. I'll keep updated on that dig, it could have some surprising results.

I came across this Dacian horde and I have been searching for what seems like days now, but I cannot find anything that tells me what this item is:




Wiki Celts in Transylvania

I've been looking at the Basque culture because of something you said, Log. And look at this!



Those are Iberian 'eyed idols' found from Neolithic sites across Spain. Notice the double discs/eyes. There's a brief discussion about them here - Eyed Idols and I found a very interesting article on the Megalithic Portal:

One such case, from the southwestern Iberian Peninsula, involves engraved stone plaques from megalithic tombs dated from 3500 to 2750 BC (calibrated age). One widely accepted theory is that the plaques are ancient mnemonic devices to record family genealogies. The new analysis from Daniel García Rivero and Michael J. O'Brien uses a tree-building computer program to perform a Phylogenetic reconstruction, looking for common ancestries in the data set.

The results demonstrates that this popular genealogies hypothesis is not the case, even when the most supportive data and techniques are applied. Rather, the authors of the paper suspect there was a common ideological background to the use of plaques that overlaid the southwestern Iberian Peninsula, with little or no geographic patterning. This would suggest a cultural system where plaque design was based on a fundamental core idea, with a number of variable elements surrounding it. Read the paper at Plos One

Plos One



The suggestion that these were clan-specific patterns has been mooted, but I'm wondering if the double discs could be a left over from this? Rather than the name of a specific family or blood line, they represented " a cultural system where plaque design was based on a fundamental core idea, with a number of variable elements surrounding it". So a motif brought over which would be understood to represent a cultural norm, rather like we might use the thistle or maybe bagpipes as a symbol packed with cultural associations today?

a reply to: beansidhe


Southwest US

a reply to: beansidhe


The patterns brought Argyle to mind. You know?

a reply to: Logarock

Yes!



They are like that figure on the rocks, it's important in both that the eyes are prominent. He seems to have horns, too?

originally posted by: beansidhe
I've been looking at the Basque culture because of something you said, Log. And look at this!



Plos One

The suggestion that these were clan-specific patterns has been mooted, but I'm wondering if the double discs could be a left over from this? Rather than the name of a specific family or blood line, they represented " a cultural system where plaque design was based on a fundamental core idea, with a number of variable elements surrounding it". So a motif brought over which would be understood to represent a cultural norm, rather like we might use the thistle or maybe bagpipes as a symbol packed with cultural associations today?

New Grange. I just saw this looking for Basque symbols.

a reply to: Logarock

Yes!! Well in! That's where I've seen diamonds and spirals together! Same era as well. And we know there was a bronze age movement from Spain to Ireland, from DNA and from the books. I need to head soon, but I will be back!

a reply to: beansidhe

I remembered that because my dad loved his Argyle socks. Got to have those Argyles.

a reply to: Logarock

Getting back to some old info we looked at. The Boar or the boar being hunted seems to be something of a greek mythological idea.

Boar Myth

Caledonia or Calydonian as the Greeks used. The idea was apparently imposed on certain Celts. The idea demonstrated on the Pict stones then may certainly indicate some outside non organic intrusion which has also been demonstrated by other symbols on the stones.

a reply to: Logarock

Calydon (/ˈkælɨdɒn/; Greek: Καλυδών; gen.: Καλυδῶνος) was an ancient Greek city in Aetolia, situated on the west bank of the river Evenus. According to Greek mythology, the city took its name from its founder Calydon, son of Aetolus. Close to the city stood Mount Zygos, the slopes of which provided the setting for the hunt of the Calydonian Boar. The city housed the important Aetolian sanctuary known as the Laphrion, dedicated to Artemis Laphria and Apollo Laphrios. In 31 BC, the Roman Emperor Octavian removed the population of the city to the new colony of Nicopolis, founded to commemorate his victory at the Battle of Actium earlier that year.

This is worth digging into again. It was the Romans who called them the 'Caledonians' - it's quite a specific name, for it just to be another coincidence. Especially as they both have such strong links to boars. I'm going to go and read up on this

a reply to: beansidhe

Check out these Hawaiian tattoos.

a reply to: Logarock

They're very Argyle!
I came across this bronze age amber dice, housed in a German museum, but I don't know where it was found.
Look at the diagram on the left hand side:





Museum Albersdorf

a reply to: beansidhe

Well in LOL! Looks good.

a reply to: Logarock

Well in! A fine phrase!
Yep, I'm still searching for some more....

a reply to: beansidhe

Over here its "He shoots he scores!".

So what does that look like? I know its hard to say but it may have something to do once again with the equinox. Would like to see all sides of the dice.