Further to my recent entry about polishing stones -- with the pic of the one on Fyfield Down -- I came across this photo in my archive of the strange grooves cut along a crack in the dolerite tor of Carn Enoch, not far from Dinas, Pembs. The grooves are clearly man-made -- but are they some sort of script? Something ornamental, done by some distant ancestor just to pass the time of day? Or are they "sharpening grooves" on a rock surface used for smoothing stone axes and improving their cutting edges?
I sent this photo ages ago to the Dyfed Archaeological Trust with a request for enlightenment, but they never bothered to reply.......
Addendum: just discovered that my friend Robin Heath thinks these marks are prehistoric "tally marks" used for recording the number of days in a year. Maybe there are 365 notches or grooves? Must go back and count them one day.
10 comments:
Brian, very interesting picture! What is the scale to these markings? Is the horizontal cut across these in the middle man made too? What in your opinion identifies these as man made and not nature made? How high is this cliff? Is it vertical or more flat? Is there an easy access to these markings?
Constantinos
Each groove is between 10 and 20 cm long, cut at right angles to the long crack in the rock. The long crack is natural. the grooves have been cut on a gently sloping rock surface, easily accessible, at the back of a (Bronze Age?) hut site. The nartural rock surface and the slope of Carn Enoch gives shelter from the west and north, and there was a low wall made of boulders on the downslope or lee side. Can't tell whether there was ever a roof over this structure, or whether it was open to the elements. I have a hunch that there might have been a low roof maybe supported by a couple of wooden pillars and a lattice of branches. So the person who did this might have been reclining in his living room, chipping away at the rock surface, while he waited for the weather to improve!
Thanks for posting Brian. I was just posting on an archaeological forum about potential solar calendars and who one would need grooves to mark the progress of the sun. When I remembered seeing grooves on a stone at Stonehenge.
I was searching and came across yours.
You can get the idea on this article: http://mons-graupius.co.uk/index.php/archaeology/75-stonehenge-the-calendar
So, I'd be interested to know if the stone were facing west/east and whether it could have had the rising/setting sun's shadow fall on it.
I have seen these in 2018. The same boulder has similar tally marks to the left and right of the more pronounced ones photographed by Brian. The number of lines on one side of the line seem to add up to 29 or 30 and on the other side 12. Rather than a day calendar, I think it is the dipping moon that is being observed on Mount Leinster in the Wicklow Hills. There was an Enoch Calendar and the boulder outcrop is called Carn Enoch. These observations may have been done before the Calendar Stones at Newgrange were carved. There are many other cup marks, small circular marks on the nearby boulders. Plenty there to keep one happy for a lifetime's study. Tom Bennett at Happyfish42@hotmail.com
Hi Tom -- glad to see you are keeping in touch. I'm as mystified by those marks as ever.... theories proliferate....... Hope all is well over there in distant parts....
I visited Carn Enoch a few days ago and created this 3D model using around 200 photographs and photogrammetry software.
https://skfb.ly/onptE
The bare shaded model without the colour render perhaps makes more features visible also.
Regards,
Nick Russill
Nick -- thanks for the comment. However, the link does not work. Can you please check it and post it again? Many thanks -- Brian
Here's another link - hopefully this will work:
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/carn-enoch-mynydd-dinas-rock-carvings-a20765edc1bf4262816c10ac7a17a138
Thanks Nick -- that's better! Fabulous images. Still not at all convinced that these are "rock carvings" -- I now think they are entirely natural, caused by weathering of foliations within the dolerite. You can see that some of the marks are not associated with the cracks or fractures at all, but are visible on the smooth rock surface.
YES I have noticed the cracks on the smooth surface but also rings on the lower rocks. The estuary of Newport is visible from this location and I think they are are some kind of tally mark made in the Neolithic period, associated with the height of high water at Newport.
I don't think they are sharpening marks, as they are not in a suitable position. There is a sharpening rock 60m to the east end of Carn Goedog. Even if these marks are natural, there are other petroglyphs on Carn Enoch, including a carved circle which I think only shows itself well when the moon is bright and is shining directly down on it. A Lunar observation post.
Cheers Tom Bennett
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