Well, I think our ancestors might be primitive, but that doesn't mean "stupid".
Some of the ancient monuments, like pyramids, Inca fortresses and of course, megaliths, are a puzzle for modern people. For example, a friend of mine who is an architect had to admit one day that he wouldn't be able to build a Gothic cathedral using medieval tools and machines. Of course, if you give him a number of cranes, trucks, bulldozers and all that stuff, he would! What's lost is the master stonemason secret, for example how to raise big stone blocks to a vault using only "medival machines" and human/animal power.
I think that megaliths were built by our ancestors, using the available means in ways we can't guess because we simply don't need them as a basic survival ability.
Well, otherwise, we can join people like Von Däniken and claim that megaliths were built by little green men flying big shiny UFOs. But if that's true, they could have built something more... huh... technologic?
galician's Content
There have been 3 items by galician (Search limited from 11-February 12)
#2850 Muscle Power Or Brain Power?
Posted by
on 28 April 2005 - 15:36
in
Megalithic forum
#2778 Spanish Eclipse 2005
Posted by
on 22 March 2005 - 01:30
in
Just Conversation
Have I read that you're planning to come to Spain?
Great! Perhaps before the end of this year there will be a "Spain" section in this site! There are wonderful megaliths here, but... Be careful! Most of them, especially the less known, are difficult to locate because of the lack of signpost. Or they put a first signal pointing a side road and then, in the next crossroads, they give no other clues of the correct course. It happened to me hundreds of times! Last time, about two weeks ago when searching for a Celtiberian hillfort near River Douro. I couldn't find it!
Get a good book and the Army maps of the zone you want to visit. And sometimes, our secondary roads are very bad, or you got to enter mud roads to visit the megalith, so perhaps a Twingo is not the must suitable vehicle! I have a SUV and sometimes I have to stop and walk because the roads gets too broken, narrow or muddy. So my advice is to get a small 4x4 or otherwise, wear a pair of good, comfortable boots!
Great! Perhaps before the end of this year there will be a "Spain" section in this site! There are wonderful megaliths here, but... Be careful! Most of them, especially the less known, are difficult to locate because of the lack of signpost. Or they put a first signal pointing a side road and then, in the next crossroads, they give no other clues of the correct course. It happened to me hundreds of times! Last time, about two weeks ago when searching for a Celtiberian hillfort near River Douro. I couldn't find it!
Get a good book and the Army maps of the zone you want to visit. And sometimes, our secondary roads are very bad, or you got to enter mud roads to visit the megalith, so perhaps a Twingo is not the must suitable vehicle! I have a SUV and sometimes I have to stop and walk because the roads gets too broken, narrow or muddy. So my advice is to get a small 4x4 or otherwise, wear a pair of good, comfortable boots!
#2706 Vandalism
Posted by
on 8 February 2005 - 03:36
in
Sites in danger
Hello again!
That's a very interesting question. Here in Galicia (NW of Spain, for those who don't know, the green "Celtic" corner of Spain) vandalism is also a problem. When I visit any megalithic site, I usually find some graffiti on the ancient stones, telling us that a bastard called Juan was there or a stupid called Pedro loves Marķa, or other absolutely uninteresting information! Sometimes, the sites are also full of garbage, because people use the sites for weekend picnics, and even sometimes somebody mistook the megalitic chamber for a public W.C. And sometimes (usually not very often) some drunken hooligans have demostrated their manhood and strenght by knocking down or breaking one of the stones of the megalith. Not related to this, but also a problem for megaliths, from time to time any local farmer using heavy farming machinery hits a megalith in a foul maneouvre and knocks it down. It happened, for example, with one of the few standing stones documented in Galicia, the "Pedra Alta" of Antela, near Xinzo de Limia.
What can we do to avoid this? Sorry, I don't know. Megaliths are usually in the middle of nowhere, far away from any inhabited place. This is, of course, a part of their charm: the ancient tomb in the middle of a forest, and so on... But this also makes much more difficult to protect them. Fences? Not a problem for a vandal: a fence will make it even funnier. One of our megaliths, the Dolmen of Dombate, has been excavated and after that, they've put a fence around it. It totally killed the charm of the place! Cameras? As somebody said, those cameras will be broken by the vandals, or even stolen! Guards? You have to pay them, and that's too expensive. Our politicians don't think that megaliths are so important. They don't put permanent guards in our Gothic Cathedrals, so why should they put them in those ugly roughly-cut stones?
Megaliths will be safe only when all the people know what they are, an important part of our heritage. Education is the key. But no matter how many people you inform and "convert" to our cause. You only need a stupid with a paint spray to spoil a megalith!
I think that the only thing we can do is to keep an eye on our megaliths and clean the graffiti and replace the knocked down stones as soon as we know of them. Of course, "we" means the Government Agencies in charge of that, an irresponsible cleaning action of a graffity by some goodwilled amateurs can be as harmful as the vandalic act itself!. I remember whe some amateurs were put in charge of cleaning a Romanesque monastery here. They made a good job cleaning the walls... Including some Medieval paintings!
Oh, yes, there's another method... Our host's ancestors developed a good way of telling people that breaking the law is not a good idea: Crucifixion! But I'm afraid that you'll consider those radical methods out of place in our modern world...
That's a very interesting question. Here in Galicia (NW of Spain, for those who don't know, the green "Celtic" corner of Spain) vandalism is also a problem. When I visit any megalithic site, I usually find some graffiti on the ancient stones, telling us that a bastard called Juan was there or a stupid called Pedro loves Marķa, or other absolutely uninteresting information! Sometimes, the sites are also full of garbage, because people use the sites for weekend picnics, and even sometimes somebody mistook the megalitic chamber for a public W.C. And sometimes (usually not very often) some drunken hooligans have demostrated their manhood and strenght by knocking down or breaking one of the stones of the megalith. Not related to this, but also a problem for megaliths, from time to time any local farmer using heavy farming machinery hits a megalith in a foul maneouvre and knocks it down. It happened, for example, with one of the few standing stones documented in Galicia, the "Pedra Alta" of Antela, near Xinzo de Limia.
What can we do to avoid this? Sorry, I don't know. Megaliths are usually in the middle of nowhere, far away from any inhabited place. This is, of course, a part of their charm: the ancient tomb in the middle of a forest, and so on... But this also makes much more difficult to protect them. Fences? Not a problem for a vandal: a fence will make it even funnier. One of our megaliths, the Dolmen of Dombate, has been excavated and after that, they've put a fence around it. It totally killed the charm of the place! Cameras? As somebody said, those cameras will be broken by the vandals, or even stolen! Guards? You have to pay them, and that's too expensive. Our politicians don't think that megaliths are so important. They don't put permanent guards in our Gothic Cathedrals, so why should they put them in those ugly roughly-cut stones?
Megaliths will be safe only when all the people know what they are, an important part of our heritage. Education is the key. But no matter how many people you inform and "convert" to our cause. You only need a stupid with a paint spray to spoil a megalith!
I think that the only thing we can do is to keep an eye on our megaliths and clean the graffiti and replace the knocked down stones as soon as we know of them. Of course, "we" means the Government Agencies in charge of that, an irresponsible cleaning action of a graffity by some goodwilled amateurs can be as harmful as the vandalic act itself!. I remember whe some amateurs were put in charge of cleaning a Romanesque monastery here. They made a good job cleaning the walls... Including some Medieval paintings!
Oh, yes, there's another method... Our host's ancestors developed a good way of telling people that breaking the law is not a good idea: Crucifixion! But I'm afraid that you'll consider those radical methods out of place in our modern world...
