The Healing Stones of Dyfed

This is an exploration into the origin of the bluestones which were brought to the circular enclosure of Stonehenge from a numinous shrine and quarry of Carn Meini ("The Cairn of Stones") in the Preseli Mountains in Dyfed (Pembrokeshire) in Cymru (Wales) long before the raising of the trilithons during the Third Millenium B.C.E.

Evidence for prehistoric and later exploitation of the stone at Carn Meini has been found despite the site's remoteness.

Two nearby chapels and many houses in the area were built from Carn Meini stone.

The east end of the Preseli ridge in Pembrokeshire is believed to have provided the 80 or so stones taken 250 km south to Stonehenge in Wiltshire soon after 2600 BCE.

The Carn Meini outcrops on Mynydd Preseli have become famous in archaeological literature as the geological source for the Stonehenge bluestones.

In 1923 petrological examination confirmed the scattered outcrops of Carn Meini on the south-west of Mynydd Preseli as being the source of the distinctive blue-grey spotted dolerite with large white spots used in some of the earliest phases.

In Pembrokeshire, a number of prehistoric monuments, including a ruinous cairn at Carn Meini and Gors Fawr stone circle to the south, are also composed of this unusual rock.

The Banc Du Neolithic causewayed enclosure lies at the western end of the Preseli ridge and is the first confirmed Neolithic enclosure in Wales and the mid-west of Britain others no doubt await discovery.

Locally the stones were believed to contain curative energies which may be released when they are sprinkled with water from a sacred spring or holy well..

For this reason, Professor Geoff Wainwright, the archaeologist who has conducted this research believes that to the pre-Celtic Neolithic population of ancient Britain and Western Europe, the pilgrimage site of Stonehenge may have also been regarded as a Stone Age Lourdes.

see also :

Bluestone Henge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluestonehenge

- - -

Category:

Education

Tags:

• bluestones
• Penfro
• Dyfed
• Cymru
• Carn
• Meini
• Neolithic
• Stonehenge

[tryskelly]

.:.

Another piece of the puzzle seems to have been discovered fairly recently.

Bluestone Henge on the River Avon

see the Wikipedia entry entitled Bluestonehenge

.:.

[Goetterhand]

Grüße aus der Oberlausitz!