Boscawen-Un

Boscawen -Un is a 3000 to 4000 year old stone circle from the early to middle Bronze Age. The stone circle located in the county of Cornwall in England and is one of the few with a central menhir. Also unusual is the good state of preservation of the plant.

Location

Boscawen -Un is located in South-West Cornwall north of St Buryan on the road from Penzance to Land's End. The stone setting is five kilometers on the left 300 m from the road. The position appears to have been carefully chosen because within sight are the stone circle of Merry Maidens and the two standing stones of the Pipers. Moreover, here there is a rare in this position overlooking the sea. In the surroundings there are three other stone circles

• Merry Maidens
• Boskednan
• Tregeseal

And several megalithic sites

• Mên-an -Tol
• Tregiffian,

Including quoits:

• Chun Quoit
• Lanyon Quoit
• Mulfra Quoit
• Zennor Quoit

Construction

The stone circle consists of an approximately central menhir and 19 ring stones, including 18 of gray granite and a light-colored quartz, describing an ellipse with axes of 24.9 m and 21.9 m. The position of the quartz stone in the Southwest probably indicates the direction of the full moon during the solstice. At the northeastern edge of the stone circle two stones lying in the soil, one of which should have axtförmige petroglyphs. Perhaps these engravings associated with the Waldrohdung that had been made ​​for the reclamation of the land. These engravings were the only of its kind in the UK. There is a wide gap in the west of the circle, which suggests the absence of stones. However, this gap as in the nearby Merry Maidens also represent access. The central stone is long at 2.7 m, but because of its strong inclination to the north-east lies its peak only 2.0 m above the ground. The inclination and orientation of the central stone may have been intended. Some researchers suspected that the main stone phallic masculine principle and the quartz stone represent the female powers of the ring.

Origin of the name

Boscawen -Un is a Cornish name, which is due to the syllables bod ( homestead ) and SCAWEN ( old tree ). The UN suffix denotes an adjacent pasture. Therefore is the name roughly translates from the pasture farm with the old tree.

History

Contrary to popular belief, stone circles were built as the Boscawen -un not Celts, but much earlier in the Bronze Age. However, the research assumes that Boscawen -Un was an important meeting place for druids in the Iron Age. Anyway comes a well-known bard Association ( Cornish Gorsedd ) in that region, because in the Welsh Triads from the 6th century AD the Gorsedd of Boskawen of Dumnonia as one of the three major Gorsedds of Poetry of the Iceland of Britain is called. Dumnonia was a kingdom in the post-Roman Britain, which probably consisted of Cornwall. In 1928 Henry Jenner here in the stone circle of Boscawen -Un as part of the revival of the Cornish language and culture, the Cornish bard Association and named it Gorsedh Kernow ( Cornish Gorsedd ).

1864, the area was first explored scientifically to the stone circle. The excavation reports indicate that the central stone at that time had its conspicuous inclination. They removed a wall that ran through the system, and built a stone wall that still surrounds today the megalithic extensive and represents an early example of the preservation of archaeological monuments. It was discovered near the stone circle a mound grave, in which there were urns. From this period one of the first pictorial depictions of the stone circle, the John Thomas Blight anfertigte when he wrote a book on the churches of Cornwall with notes on ancient monuments. He also drew a plan of the hill Grabs and sketched one of the urns found.