Review of Megalithomania 2008 by Maia of Sheldon

MEGALITHOMANIA 2008 has recently been getting some marvellous reviews. Below is ony by Maia of Shaldon, who submitted this review to www.megalithic.co.uk:

Back home, reeling again – not with the pint of Hobgoblin I have just consumed with my supper - but with pleasure from another amazing weekend with Megalithomaniacs.2008. This year I attended the conference, and the two Tours to local sites.

Well done Hugh and crew, this well attended conference in Glastonbury met entirely my high expectations, and it was evident that many others thought so too. Someone said at the intro that this conference was not from the academy – but I was struck by the rigour of the research, the professionalism of the presentations, and the genuine support and respect all the speakers showed each other. Most showed this by being there in the audience to hear each other's revelations. And things were truly revealed.

Pyramids in Bosnia? I nearly went shopping – but am I so glad I stayed! These massive structures need the entire world's attention, and Sam Osmanagich from Sarajevo deserves all the help we can offer him in his mighty task. I had heard a whisper about them in the Fortean Times, but I had not taken it seriously. Just 'google' for it, and you will see what we have seen; the largest man-made structures in the world. Equally enthralling and totally unknown to many of us were the Basalt Islands in the west pacific. I reckon myself to be quite informed on the world's wonders, but these lectures left me mouthing quietly to myself, "how could I have missed knowing about these fantastic megaliths?"

Now I have to go to Bosnia, after I have been to the Basalt Islands, and Kate Masters showed me parts of France I have missed. David Furlong persuaded me to look again at counties nearer to home, and Nick Mann made me want to rush out and go up Windmill Hill just to feel his excitement from his personal discovery of the use of the Tor. Mind you, I'd have missed Sam from Sarajevo then.

We saw crystal skulls, and heard their stories. We were drawn into the web of local, national and international alignments, culminating with cosmic alignments of old, new and a hint of what is to come. I have a great personal interest in this area, and we were not disappointed. We heard about new discoveries from Michael Bott and Peter Marshall, who demonstrated to us the importance of travelling for comparison purposes. And then there was Tom Graves and Hamish Miller – two men with the ability to be like overlords. I did not know whether to laugh or cry. They gave me confidence that my own work is valuable to the larger picture.

The trips to Stanton Drew, Stoney Littleton, Stonehenge and Avebury were friendly and informative. I know these sites well, but it is so much nicer to be in the company of like minds. The joy of being in the Henge in the blue of the morning sunny skies was heavenly, as was Frida singing for us. I had to leave, but only after Frida and I had laid a dead crow to rest in the roots of a tree at Avebury. A surreal end to a stunning weekend.

So many people are working very hard to recover old knowledge, and Hugh and his team know who they are, and have brought them to us. Just look at that line-up. What will they do next year? I am certainly going to be there to find out ….. after Bosnia, Peru, Mayenne, Malta…….

Maia of SHALDON

Megalithomania was held on the weekend of  the 16^th and 17^th of June 2008 at the Glastonbury Assembly Rooms in Somerset England .Megalithomania is a conference dedicated to the study of ancient cultures and their monuments. Glastonbury is the prefect venue for such an eclectic but focussed conference on ancient civilisations and their monuments. Glastonbury/Avalon/Ynis Withrin itself is to many an ancient place of spiritual sanctity and power attracting mystics, visionaries and seekers from all religious and philosophical perspectives. Above the small county town with its ancient buildings and ruined monastery (where Joseph of Arimethia is reputed to have founded the first Christian church in England and the grave of Arthur and Guinevere is alleged to be sited) stands the original sacred hill of Glastonbury Tor, below which - nestled in a sheltered and sunny valley - sits the spirit of the place in Chalice Well (a must visit if you ever make it here). The town itself has a fine array of shops, and is well known for its new age, Wiccan bookshops and emporiums as well as fine food (vegetarians well catered for) and groovy cafes.

The spirit of the 60s still burns strong here but in no way could you describe Glastonbury as anachronistic. So a perfect venue that looked lovely in the early English summer. The fields around the famous Glastonbury Tor were covered in apple blossom (another name for Glastonbury is the Isle of Apples oh it used to be an island as well!) Fields of Buttercup and Cow Parsley nodded to me as I passed…magical. Apple Cider is a local delicacy and much of the alcoholic sort was consumed and enjoyed by myself and others. I will say no more…go discover!

I sallied forth direct from work on the Friday afternoon through the macho weekend traffic with its brain-dead mediocrity. I could feel the temple of Avalon drawing me down into its warm, wicked womb. I left the madness of the motorway as soon as possible and cut across the Somerset Levels; reclaimed from the sea, crisscrossed by streams, dykes and picturesque villages; their gingered sandstone walls glowing in the honeyed evening sun. Buzzards wheeled overhead and blackbirds chased each other through the lanes. The stress began to dissolve away like raindrops in a lake….

Glastonbury Tor as a landmark that can be seen for miles around. It sticks up out of the levels like a giant breast of the Earth Mother complete with abandoned Christian nipple provided by the ruined tower of St Michale 's Church (the rest was knocked down in a medieval earthquake). As you approach - from whatever direction - at some point the Tor rises up and smites your senses with its majesty.

 I parked up and did a quick bit of shopping (organic chamomile, oris root and patchouli leaves; some Starchild Summer Solstice incense, Indian doop sticks from Dalloway and Dalloway, managed to resist buying any books) before settling into my B and B - there is a whole counter story running parallel with the conference concerning this place but I will not bore you with it suffice to say my generous host Diana invited me to her book launch  at the Phoenix  Project that night and I met many interesting and creative people! Glastonbury is also full of poets, writers, musicians and artists. 

Megalithomania Part 2: Standing with stones and Pete Marshall’s Europe’s Lost Civilisation

Saturday morning and registration at the conference. The Assembly Rooms were nearly full as we mingled around the exhibition of megalithic art which was all of the highest quality. The first presentation of the day was by Michael Bott director of Standing With Stones an intriguing documentary of British megaliths.

  It looked very interesting and I have a copy that I will review in another blog. He described how the project came together and the journey which started in Cornwall and ended at Callanish at the full eclipse of the moon (a pure coincidence but so typical of my serendipitous experiences when "standing with the stones"). They also revealed a discovery undocumented anywhere else about the burial chamber of Bryn Chelli Ddu in Anglesey Wales. At the centre of this restored and very beautiful passage grave (complete with circle of stones outside, even more ancient Gorsedd near by and many other interesting details that I will post in another blog) stands a lonely worked standing stone. According to Bott this is a petrified log that shows evidence of being worked by humans when still a piece of wood. Apparently, recent Japanese research shows that petrifaction can take thousands rather than millions of years, but this fact must have been astonishing to the Neolithic peoples that chose to inhume it. I have discovered myself a property of this rock that is not documented in any of the research (I have read all of it) concerning the acoustic properties of the site and related to an important burial there. I will post this information in due course. This was an interesting and visually sumptuous start to the conference and we all settled down for the next presentation.

 And so to Peter Marshall and Europe 's Lost Civilisation. The questions he was addressing were; who built the megaliths and why? What light do they throw on our origins and ourselves? To answer these questions, Peter sailed with photographer Liz Ashton Hill in a small boat from Scotland to Malta , visiting all the major megalithic sites on the way. The illustrated talk recounted the exciting 4000-mile voyage and argued that there was a sophisticated pan-European civilization in megalithic times linked by the sea. One line intrigued me and it sums up his thesis - the truth of it seems obvious when you think about it. "Ancient humans raised the sail long before they mounted the horse". It is this sea born connection between sites as disparate as Skara Brae in the Orkneys,   the stones of Carnac in Brittany France, Minorca , Sardinia , Tunisia , Libya , the temples of Malta and beyond

Skara Brae

Malta

  He made a convincing case for the connection (although this is nothing new) quoting the Greeks who said of ancient Cornwall that it was a civilised place due to its trading links – especially for tin. What he also brought to the debate was the knowledge and experience of visiting many of these ancient Neolithic sites in a similar fashion and at the same speed as those who traded and travelled between them at 4 knots. He spoke of many sites and what connects them, particularly the maze or spiral carvings found all over these places.

 He argued that these symbolise the spiritual journey within. Many have a straight line to the centre and this represents the quick but dangerous route to spiritual enlightenment. His argument in a nutshell was that the ancient builders of Neolithic temples throughout the western European seaboard were a pan-European civilisation linked by the sea that had mathematics, astronomy and engineering as well as a complex culture and religion. The lack of fortifications in this era point to a peaceful, egalitarian/anarchic society that worshiped the female goddess deity. They were probably matriliner and attuned to nature and the landscape in a way that has been lost to our culture. It was excellent. To find out more visit here. www.petermarshall.net

Megalithomania Part 3: Stonehenge is a map of neolithic exploration!

Peter Marshall's talk led on nicely to the next thoroughly academic presentation on ancient carvings or petroglyphs by Jay Wakefield and Reinoud de Jonge to promote their book  How the Sun God Reaches America.  Reinoud de Jonge (a Dutch chemist) and Jay Wakefield (an American biologist) have specialized in the study of megalithic culture. They present their analysis of a dozen archaeological sites, showing how many petroglyphs are geographic maps. They show how megalithic monuments provide numerical data revealing megalithic religion and ancient sailing discoveries in the Atlantic . For example, numeric picture writing at Loughcrew , Ireland , deciphered by the authors, reveals that these people gave up their efforts to cross the Ocean west of Greenland in 3200 BC. However, decipherment of the petroglyphs at Dissignac, France, shows that they next explored the Earth to the east, where they discovered Alaska . Subsequently, they found routes across the Atlantic , and built Stonehenge , the monument designed as as a record of the discovery of America .

These decipherments shed light on a number of mysteries in American prehistory, such as the origin of the Olmec civilization, the Michigan copper mines, and the stone chambers of New England . This is the only book providing solid evidence, reasonable explanations, and comprehensive dating for megalithic petroglyphs and monuments. The authors illustrate the predictive power of these decipherments in several instances. This book will fascinate anyone interested in old religions, little-known petroglyphs, ancient seafaring, voyages of discovery, and the prehistory of Europe and America .

More than two thousand years before the start of the Egyptian civilization, the peoples in the Old World already believed in the SunGod, who knew everything that was going on in the human mind. In this time period in Europe and Africa they discovered that all the land ceased in the west, and that at that side there was an enormous sea, the Atlantic Ocean . Political and spiritual leaders told them that the Earth was a big sphere, just like the sun and the moon. They said that all the known land was surrounded by sea, and that in the west there was the empire of the dead, at the other side of the Earth. Impressed by this story people tried to cross the Ocean. They wanted to do that at the level of the Tropic of Cancer at 23° N, this in honour of the SunGod. From South to North, but also from East to West, they divided the surface of the Earth in latitude lines, and in similar distance lines. One after the other they discovered the Canary Islands, the Cape Verde Islands, the Islands of Madeira and Rockall, the Azores, the Faroes, Iceland and Greenland (c.3200 BC). But they did not succeed in crossing the Ocean. All these discoveries were fixed down in the geometry of megalithic monuments;  in passage graves, stone circles, and the alike. For that reason we call these people the Megalith Builders. They made a few thousand geographic petroglyphs, too. They argue that the passage graves were in fact pre-christian churches of the SunGod. Most of these are situated in the west of Western Europe , and they are oriented to the west. So in fact, these are a kind of mission churches.

Still later, they discovered the islands of Ascension and St. Helena in the Southern Ocean. At one's wit's end they decide to explore the Earth to the east, and they discover Madagascar ( East Africa ), Australia , and America via the Bering Sea . Then they realized that the story of the SunGod was true indeed, and in South England they build Stonehenge , the monument for the discovery of America . They argue that many of the measurements and angles at Stonehenge mirror these discoveries. For the first time and with the aid of a compass, they cross the Atlantic 2497 BC. With wind and current in their back, they sail via the Southern Crossing from Africa to South America , but also via the Upper North ( Greenland ). From North America , they still discovered the important islet of Bermuda (c.2200 BC). The return route was always sailed via the Azores and Madeira . Almost all these routes and discoveries were fixed down in dated monuments and petroglyphs. Slowly in North and South America the colonization of the peoples of the Old World is starting. In New England (US) a small megalithic colony is developing, that is involved in copper trade from the north east (Michigan), in trade via the big rivers (the Ohio) with the American hinterland, and in support for the returning ships of the Old World. With the aid of the governmental experience of the Egyptians, the civilization of the Olmecs is starting in Central America (the holy land of Punt). Finally, with the discovery of all the land on the planet Earth, the Megalithic Culture finishes 2000 to 1500 BC.

Painting by kind permission of Kathryn Gerhardt at eireart. com

This was a pretty breathtaking presentation that dealt with big ideas that I have never come across and was very intriguing. Some highlights included the statements that 95% of petroglyphs are geographic representations – that is maps! That the ground plans of many megalithic sites – especially passage graves and Stonehenge – have geographic information coded into them. For instance, the four station stones at Stonehenge create the "holy number" 23 degrees (Tropic of Cancer) angle with each other diagonally. Also the angle between the horizontal line drawn between the two southern station stones creates a 60 degree angle with the Heel Stone, the latitude of the Azores. What is more they mentioned sites as disparate as Loughcrew in Ireland,the Orkney Isles stone circles and my top megalithic site in Europe (I have not been to them all) the chambered tomb of Gavrinise in Brittany as having geographical information coded into their groundplans and construction. For instance the must visit Gavrinise consists of the magic number of 23 decorated stones – the 23^rd being of white quartz.

There was much more of this and it was fascinating not least as it was coming from academics.

.. --

 www.howthesungod.com/reviews.html 

Megalithomania Conference Glastonbury 2008: Part 4 Tom Graves

Next up at the conference was dowser Tom Graves who book Needles of Stone started a new interest in dowsing at ancient sites... Needles of Stone, when it was first published in 1978, was a seminal breakthrough book in the field of dowsing megalithic sites. It proposed a genuine purpose for stone circles, standing stones and megalithic remains of all kinds, creating a vivid picture of the culture of ancient megalithic times. It drew a parallel between geomancy and acupuncture. It was also a fascinating book on dowsing and its results in earth mysteries research

Tom Graves is an original thinker. Well known both as a dowser and a computer programmer, he used to live in Street, the town adjoining Glastonbury, in SW England. Now he lives not far from Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. You can visit his Wyrdsmiths web-site at www.wyrdsmiths.com and his personal website at www.tomgraves.com.au.

His lecture laid out a few problems for researchers interested in alternative archaeology and related disciplines. He outlined 6 problems that researches need to deal with in order to keep the disciplines investigating alternative archaeologies credible.

First he pointed out the negative aspects of The Hype Problem where lunatic fringe theories dominate coverage due to their inherent news-worthyness distracting from real research. His second problem he called The Golden Age Problem a longing for a "lost" better past where the ancients had everything worked out. This again distracts from serious research. His next problem he described as The New Age Problem. He defines some of the more fanciful new-age mythologies as a "Disneyfication" of megalithic issues and part of The Hype Problem. This led to The Truth Problem where bogus theories muddle artistic/mystic truths with empirical truth that can be measured and proved. From these criticisms he called for the development of a Practical Methodology to distance the "New-Age-Sewage" from serious research. This leads into the Possession Problem or who "owns" the term "sacred site". He argued that as this is a culturally defined concept it binds us to partial truths and we need to deconstruct the term and redefine its meaning. Current archaeology suffers from the same problem. His last problem was The Reality Problem. For Graves there is no fixed reality that can be researched without a fixed method. Some of the claims from fringe researchers are completely inappropriate as they use flawed methods or have little or no methodology at all.

Having outlined his problems he offered some solutions. First and foremost for Graves is the centrality of fieldwork and the use of your senses to bridge the gaps between the different disciplines and their methodologies.

Megalithomania Conference Glastonbury 2008: Part 5 The Lost Cities of the Pacific

After Tom's interesting sojourn into the problems of credibility in the field of researching ancient sites came the Keynote Lecture from DAVID HATCHER CHILDRESS - Lost Cities of South America and the Pacific. Basically operating in the lost civilisations/Atlantis/Lemuria field he took the conference on an eclectic tour of the world's ancient civilisations making connections and arguing that there was a world culture that was multicultural and influenced the building of ancient monuments and statuary throughout the planet.

This was highly entertaining and interesting with many excellent slides of obscure and impressive lost civilisations and temples.

 Here are some of the claims he made during this rush through the ancient world…

Megalithomania Conference Glastonbury 2008: Part 7 The Bosnian Pyramids!

Suitably relaxed and recharged I ventured into what was to be one of the most intriguing and popular lectures of the weekend on "The Bosnian Valley of the Pyramids". I must confess to having already come across the claims of Bosnian researcher Sam Semir Osmanagich that an ancient megalithic culture in Europe built a pyramid complex that is larger and older than the pyramids of Giza and had dismissed it as an interesting but probable hoax. I am now not so sure as Sam gave a convincing account of his researches and a plausible explanation of why Bosnian and some international archaeologists have dismissed the claims.

 Apart from pyramids there are also many large carved stone balls (linking to Childress's claims of the previous day – stone balls found worldwide equals global megalithic culture) large megaliths and mysterious subterranean tunnels under the pyramids.

 These claims – if true – will rewrite the pre-history of this part of the world and as such are being fiercely resisted by the archaeological establishment (just as they resisted claims of alignments and sophisticated archeo-astronomy at megalithic sites 30 years ago).

 Sam's work claims that there are three main pyramids in Bosnia; the Pyramids of the Sun, Moon and Dragon. The largest – the Sun – is 220 metres; that is one third larger than the Great Pyramid at Giza. He also notes that the three form an equilateral triangle with each other. Sam claims that on or around the summer solstice the shadow cast by the Pyramid of the Sun touches the Pyramid of the Moon. The Sun Pyramid is also aligned to the cardinal points. Also there are around 66,000 megalithic "tombstones" in the area that are at least 40,000 years old. He also claims to have found evidence of writing here that is the oldest example in Europe. These are startling and important claims that will cause many a professor a headache if true!

At the end of this he received the warmest reception so far and he invited us to an international conference he is running this summer. I found his evidence of platforms and masonry convincing, they did not look like natural features. Also he has excavated the "join" between two of the sides on the Pyramid of the sun and found the expected stone right angle. He also presented satellite thermal images that show a differing thermal pattern as evidence of chambers and tunnels under the three main sites. Pretty amazing – if true! I for one will give him the benefit of the doubt on the evidence shown here and it strikes me as an interesting field trip that I will add to my list. If you wish to find out more visit here. www.bosnianpyramid.com/