Musings

Looking up at the west entrance to Badbury Rings hill fort. These tend to have begun as Neolithic enclosures, later modified into Iron Age ring/hill forts. This entrance has several rows of deep ditches/high berms to control access or impress non-locals.

Its wildflowers are these little yellow ones.

Street view, Dorchester.

Homemade parking lot sandwich: cheddar and rocket on a stale bun. Mmmmm!

Our lunch view: the giant Maiden Castle, similar history to above, with even more complex berm-ditch entry area (west end). Note grazing sheep.

Sheep are an easy way to maintain these grassy archaeological pastures. Twin lambs should make the farmer happy. Dorchester in background.

Archaeologists(?) have revealed this Celtic-Roman temple atop Maiden Castle…the altar is in the far room; these two small rooms (foreground) were where its tender lived; the treasure was here, including a piece of metal with Minerva on it (so, a Minerva temple?). We saw this pattern in Rome, too, where the gelt was kept in separate rooms.

Jurassic cliffs bordering West Bay, aka Broadchurch for you fans of British television. En route, we passed the turn to Chesil Beach, but didn’t take it. Choices, choices.

Small church, West Bay.

DI Hardy’s house, the blue-blue one with the narrow double doors and colorful floats/bumpers, West Bay, just up the river channel from the marina, and behind the bathing gulls.

Blackbury Camp is a much smaller fortification above Sidmouth (mouth of the River Sid, eh?). The late-day light was stunning, with the leaves not yet out.

The most prominent flower here: bluebells. Very Broadchurch, second season.

That’s it for hill forts for a while. Conclusion: with the great ascent of Maiden Castle in the mix, average ring-fort ascent is about 25 Fitbit flights (otherwise, much less, thinks the cynic).

Post-dinner perambulation past fancy waterfront Sidmouth hotels….

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Hillfort-wildflower combos, etc.

We heard rain all night, and into the morning. We’re still on not-quite British time, so I made coffee a bit late. Then we headed downtown to secure a parking space (tricky), and walked to the cathedral to be wowed by the craftsmanship and immense enclosed space, while simultaneously ignoring the awful things the Catholics and their daughter-clan, the Church of England have done.

Without a doubt, the interior space is stunning, all those vaulted arches, the stone imported from afar(?), and carved stone and wood details.

Here’s the ceiling under the spire, which is atop the crossing of the transept. The supporting columns are no longer vertical from the great weight they shoulder. We saw the little tags that the historic preservationists use to monitor small movements (targets for laser-measuring devices).

The quire. I don’t know if singers are a quire also, or a choir.

Up near the altar, inserted with access from a side aisle, is a little enclosure, the Chantry Chapel. Here’s a detail of the ceiling. Much of the paint is gone from the rest of the church, so it is a surprise and refreshing here.

Here’s a detail of life and death tangling on the ceiling above the Cloisters perimeter walkway.

My eyes kept drifting toward this pair of evergreens in the middle of the Cloisters—otherwise there was no attempt at a central garden.

Of course we went in the Chapter House to see the 1215 Magna Carta (one of four), in a little dark room that reminded me of the breast-feeding or milk-expressing pod I saw at the airport in size and lack of windows. This CH is circular, with arm-chair width niches surrounding the room, and a carefully needle-pointed cushion in each. I’m assuming the notables actually perch on them, which seems rather strange to me—as each had the name of a saint (mostly male), with floral details repeated in the surround. This one was for Teresa of Avila, and says “The Way of Perfection.” There’s a potentially hugely stressful approach to life….

Instead of thick stone walls, this Neolithic henge became an Iron Age hill fort, using ditches and a high berm to provide safety. The henge is the central ring-ditch, surrounding the village area, and is specifically a causewayed enclosure (it seems). The later occupants dug a second ditch farther out, and used the fill to create a circular berm, making two ditches. The entrance are to the east and west (not exactly), and the west break in the wall faces Old Sarum exactly. Must be deliberate. It can just be seen in the distance. Must have been the plan. Some speculate that cattle would have been kept nightly in the space between the inner ditch and the berm. (From left to right: outer berm (outer ditch not visible); Iron Age flat area; Neolithic henge ditch—perhaps deepened by later peoples—and inner village area.)

Posted at 3:49 PM | Comments Off on Architectural security

One thing I hoped we could do on this trip was walk out from Stonehenge, and today I got my wish. It was kinda sunny and pretty darned windy. The ground was damp and no more—not squishy at all. That horizontal grey scar “before” Stonehenge is a employee service center that was under construction last year. Most people who just walk to the stones will not notice it; however, from here: pretty obvious.

We walked a loop that took us to the Cursus barrow group, then down the Cursus, along the Avenue (very indistinct), into the King barrow group, then back, with a chance to look from the Avenue into Stonehenge (to see that alignment). We walked with the sheep. (And didn’t do that jog to the east in the “yellow” field—shown was the plan, not what we actually did.)

Along the old road next to the King barrows, we admired these gnarly trees. We’ve been admiring gnarly trees this trip, beginning in the grounds around Windsor Castle.

Then we visited the land of the miniatures, aka a model train show.

And the Guru found a “silly” tucked in this field of dairy cattle.

Serendipity can lead to amusing moments like this…we followed a back road that my “nose” thought…unlikely, but GooMaps indicated we could drive through…nope, only foot traffic could cross the river…look what we did find!

Posted at 10:22 PM | 1 Comment »

We were slow this morning, jet-lag slow. On the other hand, we did pretty well after we got going. We returned to downtown, parking above the Boston Tea Party mentioned yesterday, and went straight to the Salisbury Museum. The ambitious crew there has been updating the displays and presentation of the institution, and they are doing a fantastic job. We met two fellows from here last year, and so the SM was tops on our list for this trip. Unfortunately, our friend is away on leave, but he kindly left our names at Reception, so we breezed in. People can be so nice! I loved their new-as-of-2014 Wessex Gallery (of archaeology), and the Guru admired their handling of type and general museum-ing.

This photo is of some fine-quality beakers. Beakers are a vessel form with relatively straight/vertical sides, and often a slightly everted rim. (I think.) The earliest beaker-users in this area also kept domesticated animals, including cattle. This meant they had to do the whole pasture thing, and keep the cattle safe from human and animal marauders, a significant undertaking for the few individuals an extended family or residents of a hamlet. They also grew crops, and used wild foods.

There is another class of artifacts dating back to ancient times, also Bronze Age like the beakers, which I have seen called “precious cups.” They are precious because they are made of very special (meaning unusual/rare) materials, including amber, gold, silver, and these of shale. There are very few precious cups known, and the shape may relate to a general tendency towards what some have characterized as a “drinking culture.”

I didn’t know shale could be worked like this. Note the decorative details inscribed into the surface and handle. Such craftsmanship!

Here’s a detail of a very large vessel, a burial urn (held cremated human remains) with a bi-conical shape. The widest part is the ridge near the bottom of this shot. The size of this ceramic vessel meant its maker(s) knew how to handle clay and firing.

The above all date to the Bronze Age, which obviously was a time of people who used bronze, but they were also adept at crafting, building, wood-working, and making stone tools. Let’s jump forward in time….

There’s a huge and distinctive flat-topped conical landform a few miles north of Salisbury. It had an Iron Age fort atop it, which was supplanted by Romans both atop and around the foot, living in a community they called Sorviodunum…. They had several roads that met near this human-modified landform, so it was an important place. Later peoples added the tippy-top area, making what became in William the Conqueror’s time the king’s castle. This model shows the tower/keep that was the most fortified place within this already fortified place was to the right in the upper, central area. The main entrance was from the left. Residents of the lower tier even built a cathedral-sized cathedral (consecrated in 1092), that huge building what was a typical church/abbey complex in the lower right quarter of this view. It is difficult to gauge the scale of this fortification with just the eye; however, it wasn’t big enough (or something), and movers and shakers set about re-locating the community so that their new cathedral was consecrated in 1220, and the old cathedral dissolved in 1226. Sometimes I mention the abandonment of former important macro-regional centers of political economy—the story of Old Sarum fits neatly into this topic.

Here’s the view from the King’s Castle keep, looking across the flattened remains of the cathedral. Most of the building stone was left at Old Sarum into the 1500s, when official permission was given to take it. Only some foundation stones remain in the upper castle, with upper approximations of the walls made of mortared flint cobbles that had been in the wall-fill, and too small to be of interest to the long-ago stone-takers. The cathedral and buildings of the lower terrace were easier to get to, and they are mostly gone. The outline is only partly existing foundation stubs; the rest have been added in modern times. This area is happily used by dogs and dog-owners; we saw dozens playing and running/walking (dogs/people) as we overlooked the terrace from the remains of the king’s apartments.

Here’s the modern wooden footbridge that crosses the ditch (and what a ditch!) from the east, providing access to the inner, upper castle area. Note how the weather is changing…the bright sky of the previous shot shows grey clouds accumulating. We got back to the car just as the raindrops arrived. The rain didn’t last long, and we had plenty of sun until darkness set in about 8pm. (And there’s now a crescent moon.)

Info on beakers and beaker-making people from the Ashmolean. Details on similar from a Somerset source—Somerset is the next county to the WNW.

Posted at 3:30 PM | Comments Off on Ancient and merely old (Wiltshire version)

Mahonia spp. I’m used to yellow flowers and blue “fruit,” but this one has yellow fruit.

Yesterday I encountered a word I hadn’t remembered encountering before, but of course I had…and forgotten. The word is carnyx. Synonyms are war trumpet and Celtic horn. Apparently it was ritual instrument used in warfare. Only a very few have been found—and only one in the British Isles: the Deskford carnyx.

I saw that carnyx in a display at the National Museum of Scotland, along with a reconstruction (with a tantalizing red tongue). And I saw the word carnyx in the accompanying explanatory materials.

However, I focused on getting a decent memory-photo (bad reflections), and thought about how big it was—serious mixed media and complex metallurgy techniques, it seemed to me—still does.

The Gundestrup caldron, found in northern Denmark, has a panel showing a trio of carnyx players (Open Commons photo). This helps us know how it was used. Read more on this page by acoustics professor Daniel A. Russell. He also details many of the times illustrator Albert Uderzo used versions of the instrument in the Astérix series.

Holding those tall pipes must have been tricky while walking. The much later, stubbier bagpipes made music-while-marching much easier, I would think.

I’m guessing carnyces fit into the group of instruments that create vibrating columns of air.

Posted at 6:32 PM | 1 Comment »

I got fascinated with archaeological features of Cornwall and figured out how to call up Ordinance Survey maps that note them. Turns out there are standing stones, stone circles, barrows, ring forts, promontory forts, the whole assortment that are known from the Neolithic landscape elsewhere in the British Isles. And beyond. Those Ancient Ones were busy-busy.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on More on Neolithic built environment

More unexpected blooms…pretty darned early to find phlox. Love ’em, though.

Strolled by this 20th-C church on Degress Avenue just as it was catching the late-day light. Apparently the building is a remodeled house. It’s on the hilltop that was ground zero for the Battle of Atlanta on 22 July 1864, at least in the version portrayed in the Cyclorama (currently being restored at the Atlanta History Center). Love the capitals atop the skeuomorphic (right?) columns that are really small-scale buttresses if you look behind the bushes.

Posted at 5:47 PM | Comments Off on Sunlit finds

We had sun for a while…in the morning and again in the afternoon…with rain in between. This is from sunny-interlude-number-two. KW, it’s a clematis, right?

Just wanna note that the Egyptian burial pyramids are mostly solid, with very little open space inside (chambers and a few passages); not at all likely to be grain silo-pyramids.

Posted at 8:16 PM | 2 Comments »

A little agriculture…lots of irrigation around here, not all productive row-crop fields, but most, it seems to me. And the product must move to the consumption area. Not many alternate farm roads, so we travel the US highways with tractors and combines….

Three long views…different colors. The third is the heights of the southern Bighorn range. Note the surviving snowpack, in the last half of AUGUST, kids.

Midground color variation…red/green (not the man/show), and the grey rocks of the cliffs on one flank of the Bighorns.

I didn’t check it, but the crossing from Ten Sleep to Buffalo seemed to have long, grinding climbs/descents, just as we found east of Greybull. I don’t know if they were 10 miles, but they are close. This runaway truck ramp, really some cable-gates, I thought, is on the descent into Buffalo. (Will they change their name to Bison? Is there even a movement afoot?)

Aha. And the geology. An igneous island amidst eroding sedimentary formations. Or the twenty-second wonder of the world, something like that.

Despite the many signs in the parking lot and along the trails below Devils Tower preaching sensitivity to this place that is sacred to many indigenous Americans, as in, they wish you wouldn’t climb it, the splash page on the NatPkServ website is all about what a wonderful climb it is. Doesn’t even mention the deer, turkeys (no photo), and prairie dogs you may see.

And this deer, in the low ground inside the bend of the river…better photo than the one we saw at DT, and a pretty river to boot!

And now my back posts are caught up! Yay for connectivity and energy…in conjunction. Thanks for waiting for me, Gentle Reader.

Posted at 11:46 PM | Comments Off on Short stories

The most scenic view was OUT the cave….

We began the day by checking out one of those minor mysteries of the world. In this case, there’s a river rushing down a mountain, and it gushes into rocks where it has carved a shallow cave, and, in the back (of course), it disappears from view!

The name of the river, and, of course, its canyon…I had a hard time remembering how to say it correctly if I looked at the way it is spelled. The pronunciation (if I have it right): poe-POE-zhuh*. [Yes, scroll down* if you want to see the WhiteMan spelling that I found so troublesome, but get the pronunciation in your head first.]

Pretty fish.

About a quarter-mile down the canyon, there’s a large spring-pool…which the Powers That Be have stocked with trout, with a handy trout-food vending machine on the overview deck (25 cents). And the critters rise with gusto even if you just make a tossing motion with your arm. Great fun, teasing fish. And these are well-fed, unculled, gigantic, yummy-looking trout!

Enterprising scientists have put dye in the cave-water, and discovered the does indeed feed the lower pool…. The mystery is that it takes a full two hours for the dye-water to appear below.

These places are called the Sinks and Rise.

With that curiosity burdening our minds, we continued up the drainage to where the road turns to sidewind up the canyon wall and leave the drainage. There we parked in a trailhead lot, and began to ascend on foot.

The whole climb, both in car and on foot, one side of the canyon is tree-covered and green, while the other is comparatively sere. The green side is north-facing, and retains the moisture from its snow-load longer and better, allowing far more robust vegetation to thrive. A display claimed that there is more biodiversity on the dry side, however. Where the trail runs.

I kept thinking of that as we climbed. Insects. Heard some birds. Saw no rodents, mammals, even lizards. Maybe because I found the walk so taxing. It was. We climbed. And at a good altitude for us flat-landers. Still, we stopped when there was shade, and sometimes even in the sun. Pant pant.

Our reward, or at least where we turned around…a split in the river, with waterfalls on each side. Actually cascades over rounded boulders. Not as dramatic as we were expecting. Still, we are quite proud of ourselves for making the hike. [Fitbit gave me 67 flights for our altitude gain (GoogleMaps and our GPS track suggests it should have been 82); I think it shorted me on minutes of effort (only 74; felt like WAY more).]

The sections of running water left and right in this photo are the two parallel river-sections.

We shared the trail with horses, and even saw three enter our route a few minutes ahead of us as we began to descend, and from afar heard the squinching of the leather saddlery. They seem to leave road apples in the same spots, at least sometimes, so you can see several stages of desiccation at once (science). And, if you ask me, the animals disproportionately chose trail-narrowings to make their deposits. I’m sure that’s my bias, developed as I stepped around the apples….

We took Forest Service drive through the southern Winds, as this range is affectionately called, which has as its spine the continental divide. We did cross the divide at the southern margin, and saw the trail-crossing at the historic town of South Pass City (some 30 still standing structures from the 1860s–70s), which also has a less-historic part where people still live.

Carissa mine, near South Pass City.

While many white folk crossed the pass and moved on, some stayed and mined. Yet, the immense scale of the building complexes is dwarfed by the landscape.

If you’re into naming, and humans as a group are, could you really name this other than Red Canyon?

* And the way it is written: Popo Agie. The “A” kept erroneously invading my pronunciation….

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Up, down