Tuesday 8 March 2016

Cups and rings


I'm always saying how much I seek escapism, but I am running out of places to escape to. I think the Far North might be the only option left soon. What a shame that Scotland never became independent, but if they had, they might not have let me in anyway.

I'm always beginning sentences with 'some years ago...' too, and here is another 'some years ago...' beginning. I think I have at least a bit of a future, though I'm not sure what shape it will be.

Some years ago, I drove up to Scotland in a Volvo even older than the one I have now, and it broke down on the Shap Fell Pass - or the motorway section at any rate - a few days before New Year's Eve, with only one lane open because of snow. It was late at night too.

We got towed into Carlisle then carried on up by train the next day. Even further by bus, until we arrived in a remote area of Argyle on foot. The first thing we did was light a fire in the huge, rickety farmyard caravan that was to be our home for a week or two. 'The Galley o' Lorn' pub was to be our kitchen for the whole time we were there.

A longish bus-ride and a longish walk takes you to a rugged and wind-swept stretch of moor (Kilmartin) once peopled by early Christian, war-like clans, whose huge grave markers cluster together under a makeshift canopy that sits like a bus shelter in the middle of an unmetalled path to nowhere, but with no buses. The huge Crosses carved on them are - on closer inspection - inverted swords.

Walking in the Highlands, for about ten months a year, involves getting soaked to the skin one minute, then dried out by a watery sun and stiff breeze (understatement) the next. The other two months involve getting eaten by midges, or so I am told. I have only ever been to Scotland in the Spring and Winter.

For square miles in every direction, the hills and glens of Argyle have huge rocks dotted about the landscape, nestling in the heather where they have been since the Ice Age. I stopped and inspected every one that we passed, and they all had 'cup and ring' markings carved into them somewhere.

The only thing anyone knows about these mysterious carvings is that they were made a few thousand years before the early Christian clans arrived. That's it.

Whatever society which had cups and rings as a constant motif on their rocks, it was a very large one. Cup and ring carvings stretch all the way down to the Northern parts of England.

I suppose they could have been a well-travelled group of people - up in a remote area of Iceland which also has cup and ring carvings, they found Minoan pottery in a prehistoric burial mound. Maybe I could go back to Crete this Spring.


19 comments:

  1. Concentric rings are not only reasonably simple to carve, but also very pleasing visually. Whether this has anything to do with why we find them so often, I know not. To me they would represent the universe, and its centre.

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    1. Hmm. Could be. The Cretans had the maze carvings during the same period, as did the Irish in Long Kesh. Some of those cup and rings are very maze-like. They travelled more than we do now, I think.

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    2. No, 'Long Kesh' was the prison (another maze...), wasn't it? It's 'Long' something, I think.

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    3. And usually a path leading to the centre.

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  2. So is that a 'con-crete' plan?

    Sorry, couldn't resist.

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    1. I know you joke, but the word 'concrete' actually comes from the Minoan culture - or alludes to it - because they were the first people to make a lime concrete - in Crete - using lime and pumice. They had plenty of pumice thanks to the local volcano. The local volcano actually destroyed them in the end.

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    2. I'd actually remembered where the allusion originated. Just a note* It's horrid but true, puns appeal to my vulgar little heart.

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  3. I have never been to Scotland during midge time but I have experienced them in Canada - they are horrendous.

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    1. I remember them as a child in Surrey, but have not been bitten since. Maybe one advantage of being an old tramp who hardly washes his hair.

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  4. Hello Tom: Have never been to Scotland, but I have been to New Mexico a few times, and was able to take in the rock art there, esp at Petroglyph National Monument. Such a strange feeling, looking at the images - thinking about who could have made them, and trying to think of what kind of life they lived.

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    1. Yes - it's a problem best mulled over with a glass of whisky in front of you.

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    2. And a pipe of crack or two.... no, maybe not.

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  5. Looks like they were playing with one striker up front and a back four.

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    1. My god - I do believe I can almost read next week's Lottery numbers as well. I'm off to Scotland. You know it makes sense.

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  6. Well, Tom, before I read this post and the comments, I'd never before known about cups and rings.

    Thank you again for opening my eyes to something new to them, though quite old on the earth. I've now been googling and realize that these carvings are quite widespread.

    I'm guessing that the cup and rings motifs might enter my dreams tonight. I might even remember that in the morning.

    Best wishes.

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  7. I have spent many a happy time in the Galley o' Lorn and shall be revisiting in May. Shall I extend your regards?

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