Posted on 05/12/2009 8:57:45 PM PDT by JoeProBono
He was a giant of a man, a chieftain who ruled with a royal sceptre and a warrior's axe. When they laid him to rest they dressed him in his finest regalia and placed his weapons at his side. Then they turned his face towards the setting sun and sealed him in a burial mound that would keep him safe for the next 4,000 years. In his grave were some of the most exquisitely fashioned artefacts of the Bronze Age, intricately crafted to honour the status of a figure who bore them in life in death. For this may have been the last resting place of the King of Stonehenge - and the treasures that are effectively Britain's first Crown Jewels. Now the entire hoard, recovered from the richest and most important Bronze Age grave on Salisbury Plain, is set to go on permanent display. But 21st-century Britain has thrown up a problem that never troubled ancient man. The artefacts are so rare that they have been kept in a bank vault for the past three decades because they are too precious to put on show without extensive security. So today the Wiltshire Heritage Museum at Devizes is announcing a £500,000 appeal to fund a secure gallery.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
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Thanks Perdogg. Been a while since we had something about this. |
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I took the shuttle from Cozumel to Playa Del Carmine and then the tour bus to Tulum. 45 minute drive but certainly worth it. People bathing naked down on the beach, looking from the ‘watchtower’.
"There were two male skeletons, the most important of which was interred in a timber-lined grave on its left side, facing north. The legs were curled in a fetal position, common in Bronze Age burials. An eroded hole in the jawbone indicated that hed had an abscess; a missing left kneecap was evidence that hed sustained some horrific injury thatd left him with a heavy limp and an excruciating bone infection. A man between 35 and 45 years of age, he was buried with a black stone wrist guard on his forearm of the kind used to protect archers from the snap of a bowstring. Scattered across his lower body were 16 barbed flint arrowheads (the shafts to which they presumably had been attached had long since rotted away) and almost 100 other artifacts. The archaeologists started calling him the Amesbury Archer, and they assumed he had something to do with Stonehenge because the massive stone monument was just a few miles away. Because of his apparent wealth, the press soon dubbed him the King of Stonehenge.
(Page 2 of 3)
"But forensic archaeology has revealed some telling details. One of the most sensational came straight from the archers mouth. To scientists, a persons tooth enamel is like a GPS for pinpointing his childhood home. The main ingredient of tooth enamel, apatite, is composed of calcium, phosphorous, oxygen and other elements. The composition of the oxygen molecules in apatite depends on the water a person drank as a child, and that, in turn, can reveal a great deal about where he grew upfrom the temperature of rain or snow to the distance from a coast and the areas altitude. Using a laser scan to determine the makeup of the oxygen in the archers tooth enamel, a team at the British Geological Survey led by geoscientist Carolyn Chenery concluded that he grew up in a cool region of Central Europe, most likely somewhere close to the Alps or present-day southern Germany.
Work on Stonehenge began around 3000 B.C., with a ditch circling wood posts.
Goloring Circle, Koblenz, Germany.
Goseck Circle reconstruction, Germany.
There was a lovely little restaurant across from the town square. I believe it was in a hotel.
I agree...a very pleasant town.
My goodness! How in the world did I miss the nude beach? lol
I loved Playa Del Carmen!
Some of the thousands of studs from the dagger. Each stud is thinner than a human hair. They were set into the wood at a density of over 1,000 per square centimeter to create a zig-zag pattern. [Wiltshire Museum, Devizes]
The body “facing west” captured my attention. Recall reading the phrase, “he’s gone west”, signifying death many times in English literature from my teen years on. Avalon of the Arthurian legends was also to the west. So it appears to have ancient origins.
[snip] was the same ancient fever in the Isles of the Blest
that our fathers brought with them when they went West
it’s the blood of the druids that never will rest
The Giant will rise with the Moon. [/snip]
Stan Rogers, “The Giant”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skbnjd6_tBU
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