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LEFT UNSAID

Throughout this website I have steered clear from suggesting the estimated age of the original placement of stones. A possible way to date them is through carbon dating artefacts and human remains that may be buried beneath, or most often beside them. However, these prehistoric monuments have inevitably been repurposed and used for a myriad of purposes throughout the course of their lifetime; spanning many thousands of years. A menhir (longstone/standing stone) for example, which would have held great significance and magnitude within a tribe or community could well have been taken down to bury an important person beneath, and then be re-erected and so on and so on. With that said, and for interest sake, the ancient stones of Cornwall are generally presumed to have been placed between 10000bc - 1500bc.

Stone Circles are thought to be the most recently placed, with Dolmens the oldest. However, due to the fantastic discovery of Gobeckli Tepe (a highly sophisticated Stone Circle Complex within Southern Turkey) being dated to around 10,500bc, not to mention Stonehenge which seems to gain an extra thousand years in age quite frequently! It's obviously a tricky thing to exactly determine their age in general.

Another topic I have left alone (aside from this ramble) is in relation to the Druids. Unfortunately these masters of the arts and extremely attuned people (the early ones), have on the whole been given quite the negative reputation -hale Ceaser! As part of the Celtic civilisation the druids were ‘the knowledge’, they were like higher dimensional beings in comparison. They did not build these ancient sites (well not the original ones anyway) but were potentially the last of human kind who understood and used them as intended. One of their many forms of in-depth teaching was in having their students commit everything to memory. There are obvious and extensive benefits with this, namely their students had to be of an extremely high intelligence and completely live and breathe their teachings in order for them to make the grade; which span a mere 20year apprenticeship. However, without any written down accounts relating directly from source, all we have regarding their way of life are snippets here and there. With impartial (or nothing to gain) accounts relaying admirably, and enemy accounts relaying damningly, but victors write the history.. well most of it!

I have also shied away from including much of the folklore associated with the stones. Many of these are in essence horror stories, wrapped up as humorous fairy tales that attempt to detract from the true nature of these wonderful sites. What lies at the root of these stories is likely associated with the takeover of the Roman Catholic Church/Empire, and their quest in the abolishment of paganism. That of 'The Merry Maidens Stone Circle'; where young women are turned to stone for dancing on a Saturday night past midnight into the Sabbath, and the musicians also turned to stone for continuing to play. These may appear like harmless stories to us now, however, what went on during those times was quite a horrific affair altogether. These stories appear to be a small part of a larger, ill-conceived plan, designed to fear the peoples of the day and those that followed, to turn their magical and completely harmless sanctuaries into places of evil, with very harsh punishments put in place for those who continued to use and visit them.

In relation; Cornwall once had a great wealth of ancient literature, most of which unfortunately got destroyed by early Christians in their attempts to rule out all things pagan related. Fortunately for us they left their ever lasting impression for us to remember them by with their beautiful architecture in stone. And with such an abundance of it, was presumably too much an effort for the new rule to completely destroy after their ambitions had prevailed.

With that said, there certainly would have been far more sacred sites before this take-over. Many were completely destroyed and many churches for example where built upon original pagan sacred sites. You needn't look too closely when visiting many churches to see what has been left behind, or deliberately used within their constructions. St Eval Church in Cornwall is an example of this; at least four large and out of keeping quartz stones remain dotted around its perimeter, and there is also another (or part of it at least) visible within the actual buildings foundations. Originally, this was likely a very important site.



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