Mên-an-Tol

Mên-an -Tol ( cornish for perforated brick ) is a 3000 to 4000 year old Megalithformation from the early to middle Bronze Age and is located in the county of Cornwall in England. The plant was formerly known as Crick Stone or Devil's Eye. A similar formation forming two menhirs in Staffordshire in the West Midlands region, referred to as Devil's Ring and Finger ( Devil's Ring and Finger ).

Location

The prehistoric stone monument located near Penzance in the former Penwith District between Madron and Morvah. You come to him on a 1 km long path that turns off on the road to Madron 2 km behind Morvah to the left toward the northeast.

Nearby are other megalithic sites:

Construction

The formation has three upright granite blocks: a central, annular outer and two pin-shaped. The stones are three meters apart. Their height is between 1.1 m and 1.5 m. The diameter of the rock ring measures 1.3 m and the opening width of 50 cm. The megaliths lined up almost exactly along a line from southwest to northeast. Before the southeastern Menhir another brick plugged flat in the ground, and two are located a few meters to the west. Other stones could be located below the surface.

Myths and rituals

Mên-an -Tol has spawned a wealth of folklore and traditions. Thus, a woman who rose seven times backwards through the hole at full moon, supposedly pregnant soon thereafter. It was formerly also told that the one who crawled through the hole, would be healed of back problems and body aches. Children should be protected from disease when they are handed through the hole of the stone. The plant were also used for divination and defense against curses.

History of Research

1749 was the formation of William Borlase, who also anfertigte the plan shown, first investigated archaeologically. As is easily seen, the megaliths were not like today in a line, but formed an angle of about 135 °. The position of the stones so must have been changed. Presumably, the ring stone was placed exactly between the other two. Borlase also reported that farmers had already taken away from the environment, some menhirs. He wrote first written records of myths and rituals. He also hired first speculate as to what the system could have been used in prehistoric times, namely for initiation rites and sacrifices.

Middle of the 19th century made ​​the local antiquary John Thomas Blight on several etchings of stone formation and spoke for the first time a presumption that the megaliths could be the remains of a stone circle. William Copeland Borlase 1872 delivered, a great-grandson of the elder Borlase, a more detailed description of the entire area and reported that stones were fed by numerous dolmens around other uses. Use for rituals apparently kept the Mên-an -Tol in front of a removal.

1932 wrote Hugh O'Neill Hencken first modern scientific view of the archaeological site. He assumed that the position of the stones is not the prehistoric arrangement, but has been significantly changed. The perforated brick in his view, part of a destroyed grave system. He was even told that local farmers had crawled through the hole in stone back or limb pain, to relieve their pain. And derives its designation as Crick Stone ( dislocation stone).

In 1993, the Cornwall Historic Environment Service published a detailed discussion with the latest research results. Thus, the cylindrical standing stones originate from a stone circle from the Bronze Age, which consisted of 18 to 20 stones, one of which could be localized to now 11. The stone ring, however, could be part of a nearby portal tombs from the Neolithic period, because graves were in some cases in the immediate vicinity of stone circles and formed with these ritual districts. However, it was a stone ring with such a large opening has not yet been detected as part of a grave chamber. It is possible that the hole stone was at the center of the stone circle and served for aiming at specific points on the horizon. Contradicted by the fact that such a use of a perforated stone is not known so far. However, is located very near the stone circle of Boscawen -Un, which has a central stone, so that the central positioning of the brick will not appear completely absurd.

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