[Northkeep] Stonehenge Once a Healing Sanctuary?
Marc Carlson
marccarlson20 at hotmail.com
Sun Dec 3 09:21:56 PST 2006
>From: "Amadeo Estevão" <RockMeAmadeo at gmail.com>
>A discovery.com article from November 30th on Stonehenge as a healing
>center.
>http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2006/11/30/stonehenge_arc.html?category=archaeology&guid=20061130103030
FYI: "an interesting idea, which cannot be ruled out as a possibility"
translates from British Academic Speak as "I think it's BS, but since nobody
really knows, just outright saying it's *wrong* in print could hurt my
credibility."
Personally, I hope that Professor Darvill has tenure, since if I were his
supervisor, I'd really have some questions about what he's teaching his
students.
Stonehenge was built between 4300, and 5100 years ago, over a space of 3
major cultural changes in the region, none of whom left any records. The
blue stones were added during the 150 year period between 2150 and 2000 BCE,
when the ancestors of the western Indo-European language speakers were only
first moving into eastern Europe (and therefore nowhere near Briton),
including the ancestors of the Welsh people who may or may not have actually
believe that the blue stones have healing properties.
For the record, this is what is known as the Early Helladic Period, during
which Greece was inhabited by the Myceneans. Delphi itself wasn't occupied
until around 1400 BCE, and the temple of Apollo wasn't built until around
650 BCE. And I'm not sure was at any time a healing center. To say then
that this Stonehenge was a healing center because a) modern people, who may
or may not be totally unrelated to the people who lived there then managed
to maintain an otherwise unrecorded oral tradition for over 4000 years and
b) that it's somehow related to healing site that may or may not have
actually been a healing site established 1400 years later is somewhat
sloppy. What this means is that taking this piece of ancient history, and
that piece of ancient history and slapping them together with the glue of
your doctorate is sometimes a bad idea. Typical of the sorts of crap that
appears in the media, mind you.
Thank you Amadeao, that was fun :)
Marc/Diarmaid
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