He looked at a drawing he had made of one of the spiral designs on a stone at Newgrange. It was so stark and pure. It could be a symbol of something, maybe time as circular and coiled, maybe the cycle of life, or the cycle of each day or the seasons. Who could tell what it meant? But it did reveal something that no archaeologist would be fully comfortable speculating about. It revealed an imagination that was both simple and sophisticated, that dealt in ambiguity and suggestion as well as clarity and directness.
