We have our copy of the video, and after visiting your site, I went to Amazon and bought the book! It's beautiful. Now, how to get it signed?

Kevin,

Good to see your replies. I apologize for the long time since I've been here!

Bucky

Dear George,

Interesting suggestion that people have linked in their muddled thinking rock art and "trance." (And I'm not at all clear what is meant by the vague term "trance.") Thanks for enumerating the various exedra examples. I'll have to look at pics of those; didn't realize there were as many of them as you've told me. Is this along the lines of The Mind in the Cave? I may be misunderstanding you, but I would agree that having to invoke "trance," however induced, to explain art is not very imaginative on the part of the explainers. Plenty of teetotal artists around.

On the other hand, in addition to Patrick McGovern, I also like http://ethnomycology...gurineIntro.htm . I fully believe a lot of the inspiration for ancient religion/art/megalithic building came from --ahem-- mind altering practices of one kind or another, both communal and private.

As far as acoustic effects go for altering minds, I'd also have thought Coves (Avebury, Stanton Drew, are there others?) would be a better candidate than the somewhat erratic and flattened "forecourts" of WKLB or Wayland's Smithy. Those few forecourts we've seen in Great Britain seem to me more like facades than actual exedra as in Sardinia. And as such, wouldn't be very effective at amplifying or concentrating sounds. But that may well be my ignorance and limited visiting!

Thanks for helping me along!

Yours,
Bucky Edgett

OK, George, as you say. Mike said, "The megalithic tombs that were a feature of the British and Irish Neolithic may help to shed light on people’s attitudes towards death and their apparent belief in an afterlife." I don't see anything in his subsequent posting that limits his analysis to WKLB and Newgrange. Those may be the two examples he evinces, but that's different. The inference is clearly that he's talking about some large number of examples.

As far as I can find, the majority of passage graves etc. are oriented to somewhere between extreme sunrise and extreme sunset, with many all the way in between. Mike Hoskins himself is very careful to label them as sunrise/sunrising, sunset/sunsetting. NOT to any specific event, just in the range. I do not know of any authority that claims any majority of orientations (British, French, Portugese, etc.) is to specific sun or moon rising/setting. I'd be glad to have pointers to anyone having statistics to back up such a claim!

You are correct, and I apologize, that ringing in Sardinian examples takes the discussion out of Mike's original brief. However, didn't you yourself imply we don't know what Newgrange's original exedra may have been? Or did I misunderstand your comment "We don't know what the entrance to Newgrange was like at all , have you seen the pre-excavation pics ?" So instead of the forecourts of "megalithic tombs that were a feature of the British and Irish Neolithic" we are left with one potential example, Wayland's Smithy. And anyone thinking those few rocks have some marvelous acoustic properties is just spinning moonshine.

Now, I've been down in Pech Merle and the Cave of Niaux. Seen in the former stalagmites with marks on them that may be from percussive events. Heard in the latter the weird echoes in the farthest, most decorated chamber. Those places may be candidates for powerful sounds. But if Patrick McGovern has anything useful to say, "trance" was most often induced by alcohol. My money's on the booze.

Or just dragged a little way?

http://brian-mountai...-collected.html

Weren't the exedra (forecourts) added later to existing and usually blocked barrows? I'm pretty sure the exedra of the Sardinian tomba gigante were Bronze Age additions  (more or less contemporaneous with the nuraghe) to Neolithic barrows. And that the same is true of West Kennet and Wayland Smithy, e.g., although those might be later Neolithic and not Bronze Age additions.

Solar/lunar "orientations" are so all over the compass that they're pretty meaningless, I'd say. Plus pretty difficult, lacking any identified backsites, to truly establish.

Dear Anakin,

Thanks for sticking with this. I've been back over my notes and see that I never did manage to get a location for KT. Or at least, no better than "near Sogmatar/Yagmurlu." Please post any more information that you may find!

Yours,
Bucky Edgett

Try posting at http://en.sanliurfa....r/mayors_office for details on visiting KT. I will contact our tour operator as well, but that may take some time.

Dear Anakin,

My wife and I were just a few weeks ago in Sanliurfa, to visit Gobekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe. From what we could gather on the web (including having looked at the PDF you reference), KT was an abandoned site, open to wandering. However, when we were in Sanliurfa, our tour operator told us the site was now under excavation, and required a visitor's permit. Supposedly this could be obtained at the museum in Sanliurfa, but when we visited there to see the Balikli Gol Snowman, the office told us we would have to visit the Tourist Office. We gave up!

I will try to contact our tour operator for more information and contact numbers/email addresses, etc.

Yours,
Bucky Edgett