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PREHISTORIC STONE MONUMENTS OF THE BRITISH ISLES: CORNWALL.

By William Lukis - 1885.



Sample text :-
HOLED STONES.

WEST CORNWALL.

PLATE XXXIII. - ST. BURY AN, SANCREED, ST. JUST, WENDRON, CONSTANTINE.

The holed stones represented in this Plate vary in their forms and in the mode by which they have been pierced. Some resemble gate-posts, to which use they are now applied in a few cases, as Nos. 2 and 3; others are circular, Nos. 5 and 6 ; others, again, are broad slabs of irregular outline, No. 1; one is quadrangular, No. 4; and No. 7 is rudely triangular. The method of piercing has been in the greater number of instances, Nos. 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, by counter-sinking; and Nos. 2 and 4 have been drilled cylindrically. With the exception of No. 7, the holes do not vary much in dimensions. They are from 3 inches to 5 inches in diameter where the counter-sinkings meet in the middle of the stones. Nos. 3 and 5 show that the boring from opposite sides was not carefully directed, and the result has been that the hole has taken a curved line.

No. 1 is a remarkable collection of such stones at a short distance from one another. They are five in number, the fifth being to the west of these, but I missed seeing it, not having been aware of its existence, and all are prostrate. Erom their arrangement in a line, north-east and south-west, I conclude that they all formed together one monument.

No. 7 is a slab of large dimensions, having a hole 16^ inches in diameter bored through its centre. The section shows that the hole was made by picking away the opposite sides equally. The stone has been shifted from its original site by the tenant of the house, behind which it stands, in order to obtain room for a pathway to his back door. Within memory it has been used superstitiously for curing infirm children of their diseases by passing them through the aperture. All these monuments are of granite.

PLATE XXXIV. - MEN-AN-TOL.

This monument, which takes its name from the hole through one of its stones, is situated on the moors at a short distance to the right of Lanyon Earrn House, in the direction of Karn Galva. It consists of a granite block, rudely circular, 3 feet 9 inches high, 3 feet 10 inches broad, and 12 inches thick. The hole is not a perfect circle, being 21 inches in diameter in one direction and eighteen inches in another. It stands exactly mid-way between two high stones, which are in the same line with it, in a direction corth-east and south-west. The stone B is 4 feet 4 inches in height, and the stone A 3 feet 3 inches, at the foot of which there is a prostrate stone 4 feet in length. At a distance of 32 feet to the north-west from A there is a standing stone 3 feet high, and 2 feet 5 inches broad; and about 10 feet from it a fallen stone. The hole has been made in the same manner as that of " The Tolven" (Plate XXXIII. No. 7), with this difference, that the countersinking is not equal. It is obvious, from a consideration of the section, that this was intentional; and the deeper of the two sinkings is on the eastern side of the stone. This suggests that its use, whatever it may have been, was from this side, and, if so, that sun-worship had nothing to do with the ceremony, for the actor would have to turn his back upon that luminary..... '


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