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@philolithia.bsky.social

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Prehistoric landscapes, skyscapes, cosmology, folklore & nature. Meirionnydd #StandingStones PhD researcher Bournemouth Uni. Cymraes dw i. (She/her).

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[email protected] @philolithia.bsky.social · Feb 23

Another covert portal guardian for #StandingStoneSunday

A tall stone, half covered by a taller hedge, stands as a gatepost for a galvanised farm gate onto a minor country road with view to distant mountains. It is high summer and the different greens of the grass and hedge are vibrant, the mountains purple and the sky bright blue with a spray of white clouds.

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[email protected] @philolithia.bsky.social · 15m

Happy Birthday 🎈

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Dr Sue Oosthuizen @drsueoosthuizen.bsky.social · 5h

'Thor's stone' rising above Thurstaton [=Thorstein+tūn] Heath (Wirral), the latter used for common grazing since time began. The stone’s encircled by a broken ring of peaty ponds, the result of quarrying - but I can't help thinking of other monuments where the juxtaposition was deliberate

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Des @desdelboy.bsky.social · 1d

Morning all.

Photograph by Martin Parr, Isle of Rhum in the background, Isle of Eigg, Scotland, 1998.

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Des @desdelboy.bsky.social · 2d

Painting by Kevin Hughes ‘Lane to the Sea.’
Watercolour on paper. Dimensions: not publicly listed

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Annie Worsley @annieworsley.bsky.social · 1d

The stones of Calanais... brooding, magical, other-worldly... a remarkable place especially on a wild Hebridean day.

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Dr Toby Driver @drtobydriver.bsky.social · 28d

Is it #FindsFriday already? 😮

Spectacular La Tene bi-metal plaques unearthed by picnickers in 1963 from under a boulder on the slopes of Cader Idris mountain in north Wales. Pretty lucky!

Part of the spectacular Late Iron Age Talyllyn hoard 🤩. Now on display in National Museum St Fagans

📷 My own

4 ornate metal plaques decorated in the Celtic style, in a museum case

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Dr Toby Driver @drtobydriver.bsky.social · 21d

For #FindsFriday the extraordinary Late Bronze Age Arthog bucket, a huge & rare 35 litre vessel discovered at the foot of Cader Idris mountain in Eryri/Snowdonia in 1826 🥰

Now on display in the St Fagans archaeology galleries of National Museum Wales

🤔👉 museum.wales/collections/...

📷 My own

A tapering bronze bucket in a museum display

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[email protected] @philolithia.bsky.social · 2d

Oh no - the Banc Tynddol sun disc was in the cabinet - that must be returned 😭 (obv along with everything else that was taken - but that is one of my favourite finds 😭)

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Dr Ross Barnett @deepfrieddna.bsky.social · 4d

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Art meets archaeology in new exhibition about Wiltshire landscape - BBC News

Artist and archaeologist Dr Rose Ferraby's exhibition aims to show Wiltshire's influence on art.

www.bbc.co.uk

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maxmoran.bsky.social @maxmoran.bsky.social · 5d

Ring of Brodgar, Orkney, Scotland 05.11.22

#StandingStoneSunday #Stunday
#scape #landscapephotography
#photography #photographersofbluesky

10 standing stones from the Ring of Brodgar on a heather and grass bank on Orkney, Scotland..

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The Megalithic Portal Ancient Sites & Stones @megalithic.bsky.social · 5d

Druids Circle (Penmaenmawr): This fantastic ring of around 30 stones #StandingStoneSunday stands on the headland of Penmaenmawr above Conwy, close to a prehistoric trackway and three other stone circles.

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Kevin Wilbraham @kpw1453.bsky.social · 6d

The remains of the Roman amphitheater at Cirencester (Corinium). Built during the 2nd century AD, it is estimated that the amphitheater would have held around 8000 people. 📸 My own. #RomanSiteSaturday #RomanBritain #Cirencester

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Folklore Centre Todmorden @folkloretodmorden.bsky.social · 7d

Meet Bob. That’s what we call him here- our resident ‘cursed stone head’. When the couple who found him bought him into the house, their children started seeing ghostly apparitions… #FolkloreThursday

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[email protected] @philolithia.bsky.social · 8d

I remember a primary school visit (age about 7) to Kew Gardens where we were shown this tree festooned with strawberries and told they were edible but we weren’t to eat them… so obviously I had to try one - and the one I had was delicious.

[email protected] @philolithia.bsky.social · 9d

An important plant in Ireland’s history, with fab mythological associations too - see Skeffington, M. S., & Scott, N. (2022). The strawberry tree in Ireland. Archaeology Ireland, 36(2), 24–29. www.jstor.org/stable/27198...

Photo of text which says: we have evidence for a direct migration of a plant species from northern Iberia to south-west Ireland, consistent with ideas suggested by archaeologists for the movement of copper-mining and Beaker culture into Ireland.
MYTHOLOGY
Furthermore, references to this plant introduction appear to be included in the Fiannaíocht or Fenian cycle of legends. In the pursuit of Diarmaid and Grainne, Oisín and the Fianna arrive at Glenflesk. The River Flesk flows through Killarney and into Lough Leane near to Ross Island. There they encounter the Tuatha Dé Danann already ensconced around the lake. The Fianna abandon plans for a game of 'goal' and decide 'to go back'! Then it says: Agus as é lón tugadar leo as Tir threabhar-ghlain Tharrngaire i. cnó corcra agus ubhla
caithne agus caora cumhra ('And the provisions they brought with them from fair-cultivated Tír Thairngire were crimson nuts and strawberry tree berries and sweet berries ...). In the Lebor Gabála Erenn, the Irish Book of Invasions, the Tuatha Dé Danann are listed as the fifth of six peoples to invade Ireland.

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Kevin Wilbraham @kpw1453.bsky.social · 9d

Portable altar to the Roman goddess Minerva which was found at Lemington, near Morton-in-Marsh in Gloucestershire. Now part of the collections at Chedworth Roman Villa. 📸 My own. #ReliefWednesday #RomanBritain #RomanArchaeology

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Durotriges Dig @durotrigesdig.bsky.social · 9d

An absolute corker of a book (which everyone should buy!)

👇👇👇

Dr Toby Driver @drtobydriver.bsky.social · 9d

Crikey it's #HillfortsWednesday 🥳

...& 2 years this week since 'Hillforts of Iron Age Wales' launched with Logaston Press 🛖🎂

It had to be reprinted a couple of months later after being featured on BBC Wales News 🎥

Hopefully the book has helped everyone discover the hillforts of Cymru/Wales! 🍻

Many copies of Hillforts at the book launch

Hillforts on the cover of Current Archaeology

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Fiona Robertson @stonelands.bsky.social · 10d

At Michaelmas, the people of Iona used to race their horses around the Sithean Mòr (big fairy mound) – probably an old animal-blessing ritual. There seems to have been a prehistoric cairn at the top of the hill but it's long gone. This is also the mound on which St Columba discoursed with angels!

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Oscar Lozada @oz-of-the-ancients.bsky.social · 11d

#StandingStoneSunday Part of Cefn Coch Stone Circle in North Wales on a dramatic day... such a wild landscape up there

#archaeology #wales #photooftheday 🏺

A standing stone embedded in rugged mossy moorland under a dramatic sky

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Mark Rees @reviewwales.bsky.social · 11d

Welsh folklore tells us to take care tonight:
"Michaelmas Day was credited with uncanny power in Wales. There was an old superstition that on this night the Cistfaens (warriors' graves) were illuminated by spectral lights for the ghosts of ancient warmen were engaged in deadly fray."

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[email protected] @philolithia.bsky.social · 11d

Happy Michaelmas Day!

Merchant Adventurers’ Hall @merchantshallyork.org · 13d

Today is an important day for the Merchant Adventurers.

We are celebrating Michaelmas (slightly early) which is the Feast of St Michael and All Angels.

St Michael was the badass angel who defeated Lucifer in the war in heaven. Here he is in an illuminated manuscript (from the British Library).

We are looking at a section of an illuminated manuscript showing the Angel St Michael holding a large cross in one hand whilst balancing scales. The large cross is piercing the mouth of a two headed dragon creature.

[email protected] @philolithia.bsky.social · 11d

I used to love fly fishing exactly for this reason - never caught anything! (that would be too stressful)

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[email protected] @philolithia.bsky.social · 11d

…and another photo of this stone with the rest of the stone row (towards sunset this evening) #StandingStoneSunday

Photo of a yellow sun setting towards a calm sea and bathing the foreground green field with two standing stones in a golden light. Between the two standing stones there is a fallen or recumbent stone. The sky above the sun is blue and a distant hill burns an autumnal russet colour. The standing stone that takes up nearly half of the picture is covered in patches of white lichen and has a sinuous line that marks the edge between a stone face that is flat and a face that isn’t.

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Fiona Robertson @stonelands.bsky.social · 11d

Kilmore stone row (aka Dervaig B) on the Isle of Mull. A dreich kind of day a few years ago now, when the pine plantation was in the process of being felled, leaving the ground raw and stubbly but also revealing what may have been the stones’ original views to the horizon! #StandingStoneSunday

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[email protected] @philolithia.bsky.social · 12d

… and here’s a 3D scan (just missed a tiny triangle on the top):

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