Skyrim is by all accounts a fantastic game. I don’t dare even look at it – I’ve too much to do. My son acquired the game a few weeks ago and hasn’t been seen since. But to the point – apparently there are thirteen standing stones (but not standing stones as we know them, Jim) to be found in Skyrim and this video tells you how to find them and what benefits might be gained from doing so. Enjoy.

Husband and wife team Duncan and Linda Lunan have formed a new organisation, Friends of the Sighthill Stone Circle, to promote and further plans to renovate and complete the astronomically aligned stone circle in Sighthill Park, Glasgow, the first of its kind in the UK for 3000 years.

The Sighthill circle was designed by Duncan and erected by the Glasgow Parks Department Astronomy Project, as part of the Jobs Creation/Special Temporary Employment Programme, 1978-79. It was dedicated to four prominent experts in the field of ancient astronomy, all with close connections to Glasgow. Following the change of government in 1979 the circle was never completed, and it has never become the local and visitor attraction which was intended. Four unused stones lie on the site to this day, the stones are partly buried following incorrect landscaping in 1982, and there is nothing to tell visitors who put them up, to whom they’re dedicated or how the circle works.

Following a public lecture and mass visit to the circle at the summer solstice in 2010, the existing paths around the circle have been cleared by Land and Environment Services. The aim now is to erect the final stones, install a plaque to explain the circle’s origins and function, restore the stones to full height and provide better footpath access. This will highlight its links to the past and the future of the area and to other astronomical attractions in the city and beyond.

Duncan and Linda invite those interested in progressing this work to contact them at: Friends of the Sighthill Stone Circle, www.sighthillstonecircle.net or tel: 0141 221 7658 or to attend the next meeting in the Ogilvie Centre, 25 Rose Street, Glasgow G3 6RE on Wednesday 22 June 2011 at 7.30pm. This will be followed by a visit to the Stone Circle in time to see the sunset there and get an understanding of how the circle works.

READ ORIGINAL ARTICLE AT GLASGOW LOCAL NEWS

See the Modern Antiquarian entry for the London Stone here and the Wikipedia entry here.

By the way, as far as I know, despite reports in 2006 that the stone was due to be removed to the Museum of London, it is still in Cannon Street.

As a little addendum, this clip from the cutting room floor might amuse you …

Thankfully, I did have all the permission to film red tape sorted, so after a few calls to the City authorities, all was fine. Kudos to the police for being on the case.

“Cocev Kamen is one of the most imposing and significant cultural monument (with geographic coordinates N. 42o.05’. 024’’ and E. 021o. 59’ and 227’’ and an elevation of 481m). On the left hand side of the rock, near the entrance of the rock building, a cross, dating back from Bronze Age, was engraved in the cup mark context. As a matter of fact “Tsotsev kamen” is a significant prehistoric temple and observatory.

One of the two paths leads towards a natural cave, which was rearranged for the needs of Paleolithic and Neolithic inhabitants. Gea Mater, a bone, has been discovered near the cave which tells us that the cave was used by Paleolithic people. There were two rows of rock seats engraved inside the cave, which combined with the cave’s floor created a structure looking like a theatre. Above this, and until the Bronze Age, there was a smaller natural cave, where the spiritual leaders organized cave warming for spirituals needs. There were tubs with double space: smaller and bigger, similar to the tubs discovered in Pelagonium.

The question about the usage of these tubs has been answered: They did not have any practical usage, but one held ritual-ceremonial functions for the God of Wine and the God of Fertility. At the bottom of the cave one made rock engravings in the style typical of the valley, as well as the square type, associated with the God of the Fertility. The engravings (cup-mark associated with small channels) on the rock near the megaliths, suggested that the cave was used to worship the God of Fertility. One part of a broken offering was left in the cave while the other part was brought back home. The second space of the site is more impressive. In front of the throne there was a plateau of 51m2 for official people who followed the ceremonies. The excavation site represented a prehistoric observatory. In fact, near the throne there were a few seats built in the rock, which were part of a sophisticated observatory.

Megaliths were found more than four hundred meters to the east of these stone seats. There is painted rock art to the west of “Tsotsev Kamen”, the production of a developed prehistoric culture.

The presence of the world largest sun symbol made in rock confirms that this site represents an extremely important cultural, historic, written, ethnological as well as religious heritage.”

The full paper complete with photos is available here.

I first came across reference to Cocev Kamen at this blog. Well worth a visit – lots of fascinating entries.

This image found at The Earth Room at the bottom of a page dedicated to personal photos of ancient monuments and places of peace. Apparently this sign is at the Findhorn Foundation – the spiritual and holistic community on the North East of Scotland.

“There are many special places on the Earth where you can feel connected to the planet, whatever your beliefs. The ancient people understood the rhythms of the natural world and the energy grid (ley lines) and marked these sacred places with stones, mounds, barrows etc. Undoubtedly the most famous site of this kind in Britain is Stonehenge, in Wiltshire with it’s enormous stones and incredible energies. It has been turned into somewhat of a tourist resort of late, complete with shop, café, high entrance fees and no access to go right up to the stones”

Thinking of going vegan? Pay a visit to the main pages on this site – Vegan Family House.

“Kilmartin Glen, in Argyll, has one of the most important concentrations of Neolithic and Bronze Age remains in Europe. The glen contains at least 350 ancient monuments, many of them prehistoric, including burial cairns, rock carvings and standing stones.  But archaeologists have identified a period of almost 1,000 years in which no monuments were erected and the population there ‘diminished’.  They claim this period is marked by the start of a colder, wetter climate.

Dr Alison Sheridan, an archaeologist and head of early prehistory at the National Museum of Scotland, who has studied Kilmartin Glen for more than 20 years, said: “The earliest activity dates back to hunter-gatherers around 4,500 BCE, who left behind nothing more than a few pits, charcoal and some flint. It was a sacred landscape from at least as early as 3,700 BCE until as late as 1,100 BCE. It was a place for ceremony, for burying people and observing the movements of the sun and the moon. We are not too certain what happened between 1,100 BCE and around 200 BCE. A hoard of swords has been found and a few artefacts buried as gifts to the gods in the late Bronze Age between 1,000 and 750 BCE. But there are very few structures and no settlements. Certainly, in some parts it seems to have become colder and wetter after about 1,200 BCE, and the people may have moved away.”
Kilmartin Glen was home to self-sufficient and successful communities with links around the country and even overseas. Historic monuments include standing stones, a henge, a linear cemetery comprising five burial cairns and numerous cists, or stone coffins, which contained remains of adults and children as young as four. Neal Ascherson, visiting Professor at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, said climate change brought an end to “this strange, idyllic period of late Neolithic and Bronze Age in this area”. He said: “The weather, which was dryer and finer than it is now, seems to have come to an end around 1,000 BCE, when it began to change and the whole ecology began to alter. At the same time, culture changed. The capacity or wish to build these monuments and indeed to honour them or take account of them, died away. And in the Iron Age nobody took much account of these monuments and certainly nobody tried to build anything of the kind again. Instead, you get a quite different culture in which you get tiny fortified settlements and you feel everything is colder and more hostile. The population diminished heavily, but whoever was left seemed to fear everyone else.”
Sharon Webb, the curator of the Kilmartin Museum, said: “When the first people moved in to this landscape it would have been a landscape of plenty. It was a really rich place for the hunter-gatherer people to find enough resources to live.”"

Original article in The Scotsman

“Stone rows are a bit of a mystery and Dartmoor has the greatest concentration anywhere. There are over sixty of them dotted across the moor – and of such variety that they must have had many different functions.
I’m at Merrivale, right in the middle of Dartmoor and this site has a bit of everything: there are settlements all around – there’s hut circles over there – there’s a big stone circle with a huge standing stone over there – there’s cairns dotted all around – and these stone rows – right in the middle of it all.
And you want to see what’s in the middle of this row.
It’s only small, but this little funereal box, called a cist, does imply that this is the centre of a processionary pathway – so what do we have here?
A temple in the middle of a huge community?[See post to watch QuickTime movie] ]]> http://standingwithstones.net/oddities/merrivale-stone-rows/feed/ 0 http://standingwithstones.net/discoveries/scorhill/ http://standingwithstones.net/discoveries/scorhill/#comments Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:07:53 +0000 Michael http://standingstones.tv/?p=176 This magnificent stone circle is the first that we ever shot serious footage at for ‘Standing with Stones’. Sadly though, Scorhill does not appear in the final film. Why? Well, Rupert and I first shot ‘serious footage’ for Standing with Stones way back in 2001 – and then we were not filming for the DVD as we know it, we were filming for the original 10 minute pilot film that we conceived as a try-out for a broadcast series. You can see the pilot in the ‘Extras’ section on the DVD. Since filming there though, we discovered that the owner of the part of Dartmoor on which Scorhill stone circle stands is particularly touchy about people visiting the site, let alone photographing or filming it. As the land owner lives in estate right next to the walk up to the site, we thought it best not to push our luck when it came to making the DVD and therefore removed it from our plans.

However, if you click on the image below you will be treated to the opening sequence from the 2001 pilot – all shot at Scorhill stone circle.