Brit-Am Megalithic Bulletin Update. 22 November 2024, 21 Cheshvan, 5785.
22 November 2024, 21 Cheshvan, 5785.
Contents:
1. Great Orme (WALES).
2. List of megalithic monuments in Ireland.
3. Carrowkeel, Sligo, eclipses predicting.
4. Ireland- Brittany (France) Megalithic Connection -
5. Newgrange, Co. Meath - An example of a passage grave:
6. Wedge shaped tombs.
7. Alternate Translation for "High Heaps"
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1. Great Orme (WALES).
Boom and bust in Bronze Age Britain: major copper production from the Great Orme mine and European trade, c. 1600-1400 BC
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 October 2019
R. Alan Williams
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/boom-and-bust-in-bronze-age-britain-major-copper-production-from-the-great-orme-mine-and-european-trade-c-16001400-bc/
Extracts with Brit-Am Commentary (#).
The Ross Island mine in south-west Ireland provided Britain with most of its earliest copper supply. Opening c. 2400 BC, the mine is associated with Beaker pottery, which suggests a link with the migration from continental Europe of people who spread the Beaker culture and introduced metallurgical knowledge (O'Brien Reference O'Brien2004). From around 2200 BC onwards, there was an apparent wave of exploration, possibly originating from Ireland, which gave rise to copper mining in north Wales at Parys Mountain, in mid Wales at Cwmystwyth and in central north-west England at Alderley Edge (Timberlake Reference Timberlake and Clark2009). In addition, Cornish/Devonian tin in south-west England was probably also discovered around this time, as Britain rapidly switched from copper to full tin-bronze (around 10 per cent tin) c. 2150 BC, much earlier than most of the rest of Europe (Pare Reference Pare2000). All the known British Bronze Age copper mines appear to have been relatively small and had closed by c. 1600 BC (Timberlake & Marshall Reference Timberlake and Marshall2014); Great Orme, however, continued in use for another seven centuries (Figure 2).
# Great Orme dated?
Nineteen radiocarbon dates suggest that the mine was probably worked for approximately eight centuries (c. 1700-900 BC), from the late Early Bronze Age to the Late Bronze Age (Williams Reference Williams2018).
# radio-carbon not reliable. They sometimes take repeat tests till they get the results they expected.
The Great Orme is a prominent Carboniferous limestone headland on the north Wales coast above Llandudno. A series of mainly north -south-trending veins in dolomite contained primary chalcopyrite (copper iron sulphide) that had mostly been converted by supergene weathering into secondary green malachite (copper carbonate hydroxide) and brown goethite (iron oxide hydroxide). Archaeological evidence indicates that Bronze Age miners worked these secondary ores, which are much easier to smelt than the primary iron-rich sulphide ores (Williams Reference Williams2014).
# Near Anglesy - Druids and Dolmens,
Artefacts recovered include over 2400 hammerstones, over 30 000 pieces of bone, many used as tools, and also abundant bronze fragments from tools (James Reference James2011; Jowett Reference Jowett2017). Fragmentary remains of a small smelting site at Pentrwyn, 1.2km from the Great Orme mine, are consistent with simple 'hole-in-the ground' smelting of secondary ores, and date to c. 900 BC, very late in the mine's life.
Indications that early forms of Acton Park palstaves overlapped with the Arreton metalwork phase (1700 - 1500 BC) suggest the most probable start date to be c. 1600 BC (Burgess Reference Burgess and Renfrew1974; Schmidt & Burgess Reference Schmidt and Burgess1981; Field & Needham Reference Field and Needham1985).
# Acton equals Arreton also found in Canaan and ONLY there. (Kristiansen).
How far did Great Orme metal spread across Britain? Having established a correlation between Great Orme metal and nearly all analysed Acton Park artefacts, the findspots of the characteristic artefact types from this phase indicate the probable distribution of Great Orme metal. Figure 7 shows the distribution of shield-pattern palstaves, which are widespread across Wales and lowland England.
The evidence for connections between Great Orme and continental Europe is also revealed from the distribution of shield-pattern palstaves (Figure 9). Three sites in Brittany, South Holland and Sweden show typological, chemical and isotopic data matches with Great Orme. These matches increase the probability that the shield-pattern palstaves at these continental locations originate from the Great Orme, rather than being local copies using metal from elsewhere. There is also chemical, isotopic and (after this study) chronological evidence (c. 1600 - 1500 BC) for some Great Orme metal in Denmark, although typological evidence is lacking (Melheim et al. Reference Melheim, Grandin, Persson, Billstr�m, Stos-Gale, Ling, Williams, Angelini, Canovaro, Hjorthner-Holdar and Kristiansen2018).
# Orme - Brittany (west France), South Holland and Sweden
Estimating the amount of metal produced by any mine is always difficult as it relies on several assumptions, including the average ore grade and losses from ore-processing and smelting. Estimates for the copper metal produced from all the Bronze Age workings of the Great Orme mine, using interdisciplinary mining geology expertise combined with fieldwork observations, range from 232- 830 tonnes, based on optimistic and pessimistic assumptions (Williams Reference Williams2018). Most of this production (202 - 756 tonnes) came from the two richest areas discussed earlier that probably provided around 200 years of high-output ore production
(c. 1600 - 1400 BC). This equates to roughly one to four tonnes per year over two centuries, equivalent to about 2200 - 8900 palstave axes per year. The apparent widespread distribution of Great Orme metal across Britain and into continental Europe suggests major production levels, probably for commodity trade rather than simple gift exchange. Even higher total outputs have been estimated for the Mitterberg region in Austria, reaching up to 20 000 tonnes of copper between the sixteenth and thirteenth centuries BC (Pernicka et al. Reference Pernicka, Lutz and Stollner2016).
In north-east Wales, various indications of wealth, with implied social hierarchy, have been found (e.g. the Mold Cape with amber beads from Flintshire), and suggestions have been made of a direct link with the Great Orme mine (Lynch et al. Reference Lynch, Davies and Aldhouse-Green2000), or indirectly from the control of the metal distribution routes (Needham Reference Needham, Britnell and Silvester2012).
The start of major copper production at the Great Orme (c. 1600 BC) coincides with major changes in copper metal supply sources across Europe, and these were possibly linked to wider cultural changes involving long-distance trade/exchange networks (Roberts Reference Roberts, Fokkens and Harding2013; Radivojevi et al. Reference Radivojevi , Roberts, Pernicka, Stos-Gale, Martinin-Torres, Rehren, Bray, Brandherm, Ling, Mei and Vandkilde2018). The change in Europe to full tin-bronze-termed 'bronzization' by Vandkilde (Reference Vandkilde2016), also gathered pace c. 1600 BC, spurring an increasing demand for copper and tin
After the initial centuries of Irish supply from Ross Island, supplemented by some continental sources, there was input from several small British mines. By c. 1600 BC, these had all probably given way to the rich and easily worked ores of the Great Orme mine. What followed was up to 200 years of the Great Orme copper 'bonanza', when Britain was probably self-sufficient in copper for the first and only time in the Bronze Age (Northover Reference Northover1982).
The European distribution of Great Orme metal, from Brittany to the Baltic (the latter possibly linked to the amber trade), suggests that there were active, long-distance exchange networks in place.
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2. List of megalithic monuments in Ireland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_megalithic_monuments_in_Ireland
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3. Carrowkeel, Sligo, eclipses predicting.
O'Flanagan.
http://www.carrowkeel.com/
The great megalithic complexes of South Sligo are Carrowkeel, Kesh Corran, Heapstown cairn and Moytura. Carrowkeel is a spectacular megalithic complex high on the northern plateaus of the Bricklieve Mountains. Several of the chambers within the passage-graves at Carrowkeel are illuminated on important seasonal events by the light of the sun and moon. I led the pioneering research into the roofbox at Cairn G, the only other example known apart from the later and more famous version at Newgrange. The Carrowkeel roofbox is at least 300 years older than the Newgrange example, and the monument is oriented to capture the light of the extreme setting positions of the winter full moons and the lunar extremes, and the mid-summer sunsets. Many of the Carrowkeel chambers are oriented to extreme setting positions of the moon, and it has been suggested that the Carrowkeel roofbox could have been used to predict solar and lunar eclipses.
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4. Ireland- Brittany (France) Megalithic Connection -
https://cpht.ie/trail/megalithic_tombs/
Much of the Irish art elements are found throughout Atlantic Europe, but in Spain and Portugal the art is found on small ceremonial objects (e.g. small cylinder-idols) and on pottery associated with the tombs. The Breton tombs however bear detail in many respects to the Irish art, with a few differences. Pictures of axes are found on French tombs but not found on Irish tombs. Despite differences, it is clear that Irish and Breton art are closely related because of so many similarities. These similarities, along with the tomb architecture and grave furniture suggests that the Gulf of Morbihan, in South Brittany as the possible and approximate place of origin of the Irish passage tomb series (O Nuallain, 1979). i.e. Vannes, 7. Alternate Translation for "High Heaps"
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5. Newgrange, Co. Meath, An example of a passage grave:
https://cpht.ie/trail/megalithic_tombs/
For those who have seen Newgrange in all its splendor, they can surely attest to the fact that it is a masterful piece of stone age engineering. The passage is aligned to a point on the distant horizon where the sun rises on what are usually the shortest few days of the year. On those few days, the sun shines for just over 15 minutes through a narrow slit near the entrance right into the back of the burial chamber. Newgrange is famous for its remarkable spiral decoration on its stones in front of its entrance, however it is the amazing achievement of capturing the sun's rays at winter solstice that has made Newgrange world famous (Ask about Ireland, n.d.).
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6. Wedge shaped tombs:
https://cpht.ie/trail/megalithic_tombs/
Wedge tombs are a relatively simple type of tomb. They were built by the last group of megalithic tomb builders who arrived in Ireland. Wedge tombs typically consist of a main chamber, often with a short portico at the front and sometimes have a small 'end chamber' at the rear. (O Nuallain, 1979).
Early metal workers and wedged shaped tombs:
The source 'Ask about Ireland' (n.d.) describes the connection between metal working and wedge-shaped tombs by saying, 'Metal began to be worked in Ireland before 2000 B.C., and one type of megalithic tomb that may have been used by these early metallurgists was the wedge-shaped grave, which consists of a long stone-lined and roofed gallery placed in a wedge-shaped mound of stones that narrows in width towards the back of the tomb. So-called Beaker pottery found in some of these tombs hints at links with copper-mining, particularly in Kerry, but other locations on upland limestone pasture, like the Burren, suggest that pastoralists, too, may have been involved in their construction. One of the finest examples is Labbacallee, Co. Cork, but they are also found in many other parts of the country.'
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7. Alternate Translation for "High Heaps."
cf.
Stone Trail. The Dolmen Path
https://hebrewnations.com/articles/megaliths/stone.html
Jeremiah (TCT Tanak) 31:
19 "Is Ephraim a son who is dear to Me? Is he a child who is dandled? For whenever I speak of him, I still remember him: therefore, My very innards are agitated for him; I will surely have compassion on him," says the Lord. :
20 Set up markers for yourself, place small palms for yourself, put your heart to the highway, the road upon which you went. Return, O virgin of Israel, return to these your cities.
Commentary: Source (TCT) translates "tamrurim" as "palms" (instead of "high heaps") after the word "tamar" meaning "palm."
This is incorrect. "High Heaps" or "guideposts" or "signposts" is more correct.
New American Standard Bible
31:21 'Set up roadmarks for yourself, Place guideposts for yourself; Direct your mind to the highway, The way by which you went. Return, O virgin of Israel, Return to these your cities.'
King James Bible
31:21 Set thee up waymarks, make thee high heaps: set thine heart toward the highway, even the way which thou wentest: turn again, O virgin of Israel, turn again to these thy cities.
Contemporary English Version
31:21 With rock piles and signposts, mark the road well, my dear people. The road by which you left by will now lead you home.
Jeremiah 31:21: "SET YOURSELF UP WAYMARKS, MAKE HIGH HEAPS: SET YOUR HEART TOWARDS THE HIGHWAYS; THE WAY YOU WENT IN: TURN AGAIN, O VIRGIN OF ISRAEL, TURN AGAIN TO THESE, YOUR CITIES.
"Radak" (Rabbi David Kimchi, 1157-1236) of Narbonne, France) says:
"SET YOURSELF UP WAYMARKS" (Jeremiah 31): This was directed to the Community of Israel, that in the generation when they would be exiled they should set up waymarks [i.e. "tsionim"] such as PILED-UP STONES OR STONE MONUMENTS. The purpose of these monuments was to mark the paths [of migration for the sake of future recognition]. The meaning was to say that even though you will be exiled, hope is not lost and you are still destined to return to these your cities. "MAKE YOURSELF HIGH HEAPS" [Hebrew: "tamrurim"]. The same message is repeated though the wording is changed since both "tamrurim" [i.e. "high heaps"] and "tsionim" (i.e. "waymarks") connote elevated-height [from the root "tamar"]...
The two key words in Hebrew are:
WAYMARKS - Hebrew "Tsionim" may also be rendered as 'signposts."
HIGH HEAPS - Hebrew "Tamrurim" - "high heaps" is good.