[Stones] Bodmin Moor Cairns

[Andy Burnham]

from
http://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/secureframe.html

The Megalithic Odyssey
1983
Authors: Christian & Barbara Joy O'Brien

"The Pyramids - The massive earthworks of Avebury and Silbury Hill - The 
first stages of Stonehenge - The early Mesopotamian ziggurats - The 
sophisticated cities of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa in the Indus Valley…

All these immense structures were constructed over a span of only two 
centuries in an unprecedented period of precision building that suddenly 
flowered from primitive peasant cultures.

How can this sudden intellectual and imaginative leap be explained? This 
pioneering and controversial book persuasively argues for the appearance 
in prehistory of an advanced elite, a race of master builders, who 
traveled the world guiding and directing indigenous populations with 
godlike assurance."

How patronising to our ancestors!

Hmmmmmm - cue for a rant I think - care to start Rich :)

There's a word for theories like this...

Looks like they are not British prehistory experts so I would go along 
with M&K's guess that they are looking at hut and cairn circles etc.

While on Bodmin, a quick mention of one of my favourite sites, King 
Arthur's Hall. Completely strange.

http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=550

Andy

Tom Murphy wrote:

>Hi all.
>
>I have been a member of this list for a while but this is the first time I
>have posted!!!   
>
>Although my real interest lies in the field of Ancient Egypt and all
>things "Egyptological" I hope my question is relevant to the group?
>
>I am currently reading Megalithic Odyssey by Christian O'Brien (has anyone
>else read it?   If so, what did you think of it?).   
>
>The first half of the book details his "discovery" of very many stone
>circles, and a vast array of cairns, on Bodmin Moor (some of the cairns
>apparently contained around 15,000 tons of stone).   He details all of the
>alignments that he thinks he has mapped between them.
>
>The second half is the beginning of his theory of who built these sites
>and where they might have originated (he follows this book up with two
>further works - his basic premise being that these astronomical
>circles/cairns were the result of teaching and instruction from a
>"superior" group of individuals - The Genius of the Few - who originated
>in Mesopotamia/Sumer and travelled throughout the world - including
>Ancient Egypt).
>
>I have not, as yet, had the good fortune to visit Bodmin Moor to see these
>structures for myself but until I do, my question is: Were the stones that
>were used to create these structures worked or cut in any way to fit
>together, or just "piled up" together?   Given the great quantity of
>material used and the supposed timescale in which they were built I would
>find it even more extraordinary if the stones were shaped as if building a
>wall!!!
>
>Does anyone have any info/pics I might find useful?
>
>Best regards,
>Tom
>
>"Only knowledge, then, is power and freedom; and the only permanent
>happiness is the pursuit of knowledge and the joy of understanding."
>--Will Durant
>
>
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>


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