Andy Burnham's Blog, page 102

Leven's Park ringcairn

The oldest evidence for the plague in Britain discovered in 4,000-year-old human remains unearthed at this bronze age burial site in Cumbria, and a site in Somerset.. Ring Cairn in Cumbria which began life as a cairn - both this and a second cairn which overlaps the first were incorporated into large ringcairn 25m in diameter.

High Park Stone

Happy Birthday to fellow standing stone aficionado Sir Paul McCartney,
81 today! Here he is in the early 70s at his Mull of Kintyre farm / stone High Park . This 3m tall stone was also on the cover of Paul’s classical album Standing Stone, and prior to Paul’s caretakership was claimed by Alexander Thom to have a lunar alignment.

St Oswald's Well (Kirkoswald)

Oswald was a Northumbrian King who toured the pagan north with St Aiden in the 7th century. The church which dates to the 12th century is built over the well. Also in the church is a Saxon grave slab and part of a cross arm dating from the 9th/10th century.

Cuckoo Rock (Dartmoor)

Half a dozen or so recently discovered cupmarks on the west face of a large granite rock near Combshead Tor, south-west Dartmoor. These must have been pecked in at shoulder height by someone stood on the boulder below them. The walk up from Burrator reservoir is well worth it, and can be combined with a visit to the Hingston Hill (Down Tor) stone row.

Ōzuka Kofun (in Fukuoka)

The finest decorative tumulus in Japan along with Takamatsuzuka Kofun:. 'Ōzuka' means the King's grave. The tumulus is in a typical keyhole shape, but it has a kaleidoscopic painting inside. Circles with tentacles, quivers, shields, tentacles (germs?) and numerous circles (stars?) & triangles are painted, and two horses on the inner doors remind us of the paintings of Lascaux or Altamira.

An Eisc Thoir wedge tomb

The eastern of two wedge tombs located in the townland of Esk East in Co. Kerry. On a spur of rock, in east facing rough mountain pasture. A wedge-shaped chamber aligned WNW-ESE. Two sidestones on each side lean to the north and support a single large roofstone which narrows slightly and slopes down towards the ESE end. The backstone leans to the west and is slightly out of position.

Northern Earth Issue 172 Out Now

In this issue: • Megalithic construction techniques: Trapezoidal long barrows - John Hill demonstrates how Neolithic builders may have approached the building of Capel Garmon and similar long barrows.
• Were the Wollaton Gnomes ‘intelligent light forms’? - This celebrated ‘fairy’ sighting is mysterious however you view it. Mave Calvert suggests another perspective.

• The Folkton Drums - Were these charming Bronze Age artefacts ‘for’ anything, or were they simply toys, as some have suggested? John Billingsley throws in another suggestion

Tyvhøi

This site has a long history. Originally a rather large round barrow, it was used as a place for executions during mediaeval and early modern times, until it was transformed into a memorial hill in the 19th and 20th Century. The name Tyvhøi translates as Thief's Hill, Kongehøjen as King's Mound.

Chapel Carn Brea Menhir

The current landowner claims he has found the destroyed Carn Brea standing stone and has re-erected it. However we are reliably informed the original stone was broken into three pieces in the 1980s. However the new stone is a pretty good match so a good outcome.. Standing Stone on the western slopes of Carn Brea which was pulled down by the farmer in the 1970s.
Jeremy Lavis writes: I have owned the field this stone is sited in for about the last 15years. The stone was missing when I purchased the field and I had been searching for it on and off over the years. I now believe I have found it in one of the surrounding Cornish hedges and (as of 6th June 2023) re-erected it as near as I can to its original position.

Archäologisches Zentrum Hitzacker

The Hitzacker Archaeological Centre is an archaeological open-air museum in Hitzacker, Lower Saxony. The focus of the museum is the depiction of Bronze Age settlements. The museum covers an area of ​​15,000 m² (1.5 hectares) with 40 archaeological locations, three reconstructed longhouses, a burial hut and a pit house, as shown by local archaeological finds.