Kindest Regards Wade!
as far as I can tell, some of it may be quite well researched, as it seems to be validated through the excellent book "The Tomb of God".
I haven't heard of this book before.
Actually, I've decided to double-major in both Religious Studies (in a dept. which would be appropriate for a Wiccan] and Anthropology (which I believe both compliment each other) and minoring in Psychology. Whew...wish me luck, because college is dreadfully expensive!
This sounds to be an admirable pursuit! I wish you the best in your endeavor! I am giving thoughtful consideration to possibly pursuing some form of religious studies myself, preferably in an historical and/or psychological vein, if I can find a local university that will accept my credits and allow me to continue at a Master's level.
Yes, it is true (well, surely mythically, with regard to local legend). He buried the Holy Grail in Avalon and struck his staff into the ground near the Chalice Well complex (Weary Hill propper, which is how it got its name, from those coming with Joseph on the ship), which took root and blossomed forth as a Hawthorn Tree.
I did neglect this component to the story, my humble apologies.
An aside perhaps, but somewhat on the subject, are you at all familiar with tales of Giants in the Cornwall region? I understand there is a wall built, attributed to a (benign?) giant. I also hear that the original Lord Cornwall enjoyed hunting giants. Are there stories that support this?
The Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny was one of the 4 holy treasures which were brought with the Tuatha De Dannan to Ireland, from their mythic cities. It is said to either sing or scream when the true king sits upon it. Some speciulate that the Tuatha De Dannan brought it with Them from northern Germany.
I was not aware of other treasures besides, other than the staff of Joseph and the Grail cup (which came with Joseph, not Jeremiah). The other three then would be? I have heard of the Tuatha de Dannan, but in fairness I have forgotten how the name figured into the context. My understanding of the travels of Jeremiah could well have taken his entourage through Germany, certainly through France, before sailing to Ireland. I understood an oceanic route, but a land route may well have been the road traveled. I was not aware of the stone singing, but in light of other British Myths concerning objects indicating the true King (Excalibur in the stone comes to mind), it does not surprise me.
The British Isl;es most likely get their name from 2 sources, one is from the Brythonic speaking people, or the P-Celts, which include speakers of the following languages: Welsh, Breton & Cornish. However, the most likely instance, in that countries in the British Isles were frequently named after Goddesses, it surely gets its name from Brigantia ["High One"].
I was not aware of these competing claims of origination, but as linguistic matters can get easily tangled that far back in history, it comes as no surprise to me. I also have to wonder, and I emphasize this is strictly conjecture, that some of the wandering tribes of Israel settled Europe, becoming what are commonly called "the Barbaric tribes" that gave Rome such fits. I would assume this to include those you named, which potentially links Celtic tradition with that of the Semites. Echoes of this link are in claims I have heard (I wish I could recall where) that the British Monarchy has familial ties to King David, supposedly through the half tribes of Ephraim and Mannassas. Jeremiah brought the princesses from the tribe of Judah, which would tie the Irish Kings of Tara to that tribe. Again, conjecture, I cannot support it at the moment, and information is exceptionally sparse, but very intriguing.
It is easy to dismiss such out of hand. But one must consider that the "Jews" of today are not the "Jews" and/or "Israelites" of long ago. The 10 Israelite tribes were ousted for taking on "foreign" gods (seceded, according to the Bible), which can be drawn to equate with Celtic mythology and symbolism. The 10 tribes of Israel were conquered and disbursed by Assyria. The tribe of Judah (with Levi and the remnant of Benjamin) were conquered, some time later, by Babylon.
I can find no evidence that she so-translated the stone as such. *shrugs*
Try this link;
http://economics.sbs.ohio-state.edu/jhm/arch/loslunas.html
How interesting. What books has he written?
I don't believe Dr. Murray has written any books as such. Bear in mind, he is a Bible Scholar. And I want very much to be careful here, because I am familiar with the common reaction. He is, for lack of a better term, a televangelist. I know that term evokes immediate dismissal by most, including myself. I can get along just fine without the Pat Robertsons and Billy Grahams of the world. What is different with Dr. Murray's approach is that he reads the text from the King James (as he says, chapter by chapter, verse by verse), and then offers insight from his studies in Linguistics, drawing from the ancient Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. He was a student of Ginsburg, a Christian scholar who was allowed to learn the "secrets" of the Massorah (the "fence") used for centuries by the Jews to preserve the structure of the Old Testament during handcopying. Because Dr. Murray is ethnically Irish, he has an interest in Irish history and Ogham (he can actually read Ogham). By far the bulk of Dr. Murray's efforts are in sharing the Bible as a scholar with scholarly students. On rare occasions he shares some of his discoveries pertaining to Ogham (most sites that I am familiar with are in areas commonly used by Native American peoples in the past. The Bat Creek Stone is but one example.)
If I remember correctly, they also found reprisentations of the Horned God, too. But, I'd have to check, again. Although, I am not one to really rely on the Web, when scholarship really comes into play (I like to cite my sources). Does anyone know of any well researched (unbiased) books about Serpent Mound?
If I am not mistaken, I believe there is a link from Ms. Farley's site to a site dealing with the Serpent Mounds. I know there are books that address the matter, but I would not know any names offhand. I chose the site I did concerning the Decalogue Stone because it is associated with a university. I appreciate your concerns about using the web to gather information, and I am automatically critical in considering information, from the web especially. But I generally hold .edu sites in a little better regard. Ms. Farley's site has extended references.
Doreen Valiente disusses this in one of her books,
I am not familiar with Ms. Valiente. I did consider the adventures of Thor Heyerdahl, (even on his own admission, his work did not prove ancient societies did navigate the oceans, only that it was possible). I also consider the ongoing work of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, who have regularly been sailing hand built open canoes throughout the Pacific Islands, from Hawaii to Easter Island to Tahiti and Pitcairn and beyond, and back, with no modern navigation equipment, since the late 1970's!
How do they know it's a human, and not merely another primate? And, frankly, what I've always wanted to knoiw is why (as far as I am currently aware) there are no cave paintings depicting dinoaurs???
Thank you for not dismissing the concept out of hand. Other Simians have prehensile big toes. Their toes are like our thumbs, whereas they have no prehensile thumbs. The tracks I looked on had no prehensile big toes. Even if they were not "modern" man, they were definitely from somebody very close on the family tree. Those I saw looked like somebody stepped in deep mud, and withdrew their feet, while walking. At one point, the stride increased, which implied to me that the person picked up the pace and began to run. Shortly after the tracks ran into the river bank and were lost to view. As for cave paintings, I cannot say. Perhaps dinos were not living in Europe in the regions where cave paintings are commonly found. But they seem by some to have been frequent in South America, and deep Africa, and in these regions to have been contemporaneous with man. Did the men of these regions have access to, and social need, to live in caves? These areas tend to be jungle, and tropical.
I suppose I must stress the bulk of what I am familiar with are sauropods, "veggiesaurs". A common misgiven mental image is of a T-Rex chasing down a screaming human. This does not seem to be the case, and least not commonly. There are carnivore tracks at Glen Rose, but they are smaller in size and number than one might think. The South American pottery did not display carnivores, as I recall.
It is right that I give credit to the source of this information. When I first heard of the Glen Rose find, I made it a point that I was going to find it and see for myself. It took three trips across the US, and finally access to the internet to locate the place. I went there in '99. I have oodles of pictures I took. And I went to the Creation Evidence Museum I mentioned. They do have a website, by the way. But my monetary resources were limited, so I had to really focus on what it was I wanted to come away with. I picked a basic book eliciting the discoveries by the Museum, and I chose a video tape, "Coexistence of Man and Dinosaurs, Depicted in Nazca Burial Stones, Ceramics, Pottery, Textiles, ca. 500 AD", speaker Don R. Patterson, Ph.D. It has been a while since I have watched, so I am certain I have forgotten elements covered. But I have not found anything to back it up (in fairness, I haven't taken the time to look on the web concerning this). One video tape does not a mystery solve, I am prepared to accept, but it does raise some interesting points of discussion.
Thank you very much for engaging me in this discussion. It is a source of fascination to me, dragging anomalous archeological finds into the mainstream view. As long as such things remain outside of authoritative scholarship, we grunt scholars may never really know actual historical truth.
.) Three books mentioned in the article that remind me of the "Bloodline of the Grail" tome are Witta by Edain McCoy, Faery Wicca by Kisma Stepavich and 21 Lessons of Merlyn by Douglas Monroe. Each book (according to the author of the article) made some blatantly questionable assertions in the text, including one where (according to one of the authors) England was covered in pumpkin vines during the Celtic era and another claimed that the ancient Irish worshipped the potato (might have been the same author.)
