The Sun, The Moon and Watery Places

[crowman]

Ive been researching votive offerings recently as part of my research into the Brython religious mindset.

I've been reading a book by David Miles 'The Tribes of Britain'

According to archaeological evidence around 1700 bc there seems to have been a massive cultural shift in belief systems in western Europe and Britain. Previous to this date British communities put enormous effort into the construction of ritual and ceremonial centres which were related to their ancestors and to the movement of the Sun and the Moon.

From the middle Bronze Age however such monuments were no longer maintained. Instead increasing emphasis was placed on on the ritual importance of watery places, rivers, sreams, lakes etc...

Some of the artefacts were broken prior to being placed in the water.

I think that the increase in rainfall and climate change around this time is probably key to understanding the increase in votive offerings and a decline in ancestor veneration. As the water levels rose the British would sacrifice high status items (and sometimes people and animals) to the water spirits in an attempt to appease the Gods into not causing the water to rise any further claiming valuable land.

Obviously this is only my own conjecture. What do other think of votive offerings and the reasons behind them? Given the current changes to our own climate do you think they are a useful feature of Brythin ritual today? Do any members make use of votive offerings? Throwing a coin into a pool or fountain still remains today, so do you think this is a throwback to votive offerings?

[arth_frown]

Dec 19, 2010 12:53:51 GMT -1 @crowman said:

Obviously this is only my own conjecture. What do other think of votive offerings and the reasons behind them? Given the current changes to our own climate do you think they are a useful feature of Brythin ritual today? Do any members make use of votive offerings? Throwing a coin into a pool or fountain still remains today, so do you think this is a throwback to votive offerings?

Europe becoming more wetter and arable land turning into heath might be a possible reason.
I do make votive offerings, but this is related to the earth.

I think that throwing money into wishing wells are is a custom that dates back to then.

[deiniol]

Dec 19, 2010 12:53:51 GMT -1 @crowman said:

I think that the increase in rainfall and climate change around this time is probably key to understanding the increase in votive offerings and a decline in ancestor veneration. As the water levels rose the British would sacrifice high status items (and sometimes people and animals) to the water spirits in an attempt to appease the Gods into not causing the water to rise any further claiming valuable land.

Not meaning to rain on your parade here (pun entirely intentional ), but it could simply be the case that we're looking at the adoption/invasion/whatever of a new culture and religious mindset in which astronomical phenomena just weren't as important.

Over the past few decades, trends in archaology and how we interpret the prehistory of the British Isles have largely emphasised continuity, dismissing previously popular "invasion" theories. At the same time, geneticists have established that the genetic makeup of the population did not change significantly prior to the Saxon invasions in the fifth century.

We should not, however, cast caution to the winds and assume that the culture of prehistoric Britain, from the Neolithic to the Roman invasion, experienced similar continuity. We know for a fact that it did not: on at least one occasion the inhabitants of Britain changed their language, culture and religion entirely- it's why the autochthonous languages of Great Britain are Celtic, and not pre-Indo-European languages like Basque.

Essentially, the people of 1700 BC weren't "Brythonic" in any particular sense. What they did and what people did, say, a thousand years later won't have any continuity because they're from entirely different cultures.

Obviously this is only my own conjecture. What do other think of votive offerings and the reasons behind them? Given the current changes to our own climate do you think they are a useful feature of Brythin ritual today? Do any members make use of votive offerings?

Yes, I do. When I used to work on the seafront, I would make an offering of a bag of coins to the sea at the beginning of each tourist season, to ask for success. I also used to cross a stream every day going into work, and would throw in a penny and say a brief prayer most days. One of my most solid relationships with a "spirit of place" is with the tutelary deity of my local river, who I make an offering of beer to on a fairly regular basis.

Throwing a coin into a pool or fountain still remains today, so do you think this is a throwback to votive offerings?

Undoubtedly.

[dreamguardian]

Dec 19, 2010 12:53:51 GMT -1 @crowman said:

Do any members make use of votive offerings?

Yes, both in water & on land

Throwing a coin into a pool or fountain still remains today, so do you think this is a throwback to votive offerings?

Yes

[Deleted]

My wife and I love to work in the garden and we regularly make offerings to the Earth, for a blessing in the Spring and to give thanks in the Autumn.
Thank you Crowman, what you say about the coin in the well makes intuitive sense. Before now I had not thought of it in the terms you present.

[Tegernacus]

Dec 19, 2010 15:09:46 GMT -1 deiniol said:

Over the past few decades, trends in archaology and how we interpret the prehistory of the British Isles have largely emphasised continuity, dismissing previously popular "invasion" theories. At the same time, geneticists have established that the genetic makeup of the population did not change significantly prior to the Saxon invasions in the fifth century.

Genetics aside (we're all European genetically, so it's a red-herring) there was massive "invasion" around that time, so I don't care what is trendy in archaeology. An invasion of ideas, laws, dress, myth, religion, foods, customs. The fact I'm typing this in English is a testament to that as late as 1910 (when my family were forced to speak English in school). I resent being told there was no invasion, as if an entire nation just rushed to A/S culture like a gang of kids rushing to the Apple shop to buy iPads. It's an anglo-centric and imperialistic point-of-view that has been drummed into everyone on this island and continues to be.

(apologies for my irk, please excuse me. Sometimes you need to step outside to see the bigger picture eg: stwnsh.com/1v2 )

[Tegernacus]

to atone, since I didn't answer the question:

currently accepted (on the fringe of archaeology) theory is that with the rising water-levels, both coastal and inland, bronze-age people built shrines on the "shores" of these rising waters, in the marshes etc, and put in offerings in order to "hold back the tide", to stop the angry water gods from making the water rise any more and wiping out their farmland.

Now that makes sense, BUT doesn't account for the fact that there are numerous man-made pools and ponds, far away from rising shorelines, with numerous deposits in them. Also natural lakes like Llyn Fawr in the Cynon Valley, way up in the mountains almost. If deposition was to stop the rising waters, why did they do it up there?

I always deposit in my spring, when crossing rivers, visiting beaches, always have done (since a child) and always will. Why? not sure. But it seems like the right thing to do

[Heron]

Dec 19, 2010 12:53:51 GMT -1 @crowman said:

....
Obviously this is only my own conjecture. What do other think of votive offerings and the reasons behind them? Given the current changes to our own climate do you think they are a useful feature of Brythin ritual today? Do any members make use of votive offerings? Throwing a coin into a pool or fountain still remains today, so do you think this is a throwback to votive offerings?

Yes, I often takes things like semi-precious stones, and other items to give to my local river . I have a couple of special places at different points along the river where I do this.

[crowman]

On the fringe... yes that sounds like me.... Could the man made pools be a sort of altar in which to worship the deities of water? Or used in the same way as we use coins in wells or fountains, out of religion or habit maybe?

I agree with Tegernacus about the invasion theory, there is evidence that trade with mainland europe increased in this same period so even though there may not have been an actual invasion there was a huge shift in thoughts and ideas which changed pretty much the whole way the British thought about the world. Also around this time that a power shift from Wessex to the south east occurred and parisii and belgae appearing so an invasion of sorts maybe?

Prior to this the trade routes with what is now modern day spain and the western isles of scotland actually produced a more advanced way of life both in farming techniques and building which is reflected in the remains of settlements and religious sites in the western isles. So it would seem that the mainland was slightly more advanced than the indiginous Brits. With the 'invasion' of ideas through trade came metalworking, crop farming and the monetary system. I guess we were part of the euro scheme even back then!

[Tegernacus]

lol yeah. we always HAVE been part of Europe in that way, in prehistory, in Roman times, in medieval times, right up until.. dunno, Elizabeth I, when England decided that in fact it hated all of Europe and wanted its own Empire. "Fortress Britain" isn't the natural state of this island, it has always been open to incomers and new ideas. As long as they didn't move in and take over *cough*

[redraven]

Dec 19, 2010 12:53:51 GMT -1 @crowman said:

I've been reading a book by David Miles 'The Tribes of Britain'

According to archaeological evidence around 1700 bc there seems to have been a massive cultural shift in belief systems in western Europe and Britain. Previous to this date British communities put enormous effort into the construction of ritual and ceremonial centres which were related to their ancestors and to the movement of the Sun and the Moon.

From the middle Bronze Age however such monuments were no longer maintained. Instead increasing emphasis was placed on on the ritual importance of watery places, rivers, sreams, lakes etc...

Some of the artefacts were broken prior to being placed in the water.

Be careful here, this is a potential red herring. Most of the monuments were placed in lowland areas. And most of them appear to have been specifically placed near rivers, for example......
thornborough.ncl.ac.uk/
No doubt the climatic change brought about changes, one being the paths of rivers moving, as they do throughout time. Just because the river runs a certain path now, doesn't mean it always had. This change of path, and therefore potentially, change of energy, would require changes in the thinking of the populations. If the original monument now was placed away from the river, that would affect how the people's interactions with it were being conducted. Thinking about it, a change of direction of the river may have represented a "broken" pathway and therefore broken artifacts may be symbolically linked to the broken water.

RR

[arth_frown]

One way we can look at it is, With the potential of having lots of harsh winters in front of us. Would it change some of our spiritual practice and our outlook? Maybe a slight change in culture?

[crowman]

Hmmmm thinking about it and taking tegernacus' point about mountain lakes still being worshipped as well as the lowland rivers and lakes its maybe a combination of a shift in thinking with new ideas coming via trade routes from the continent and possibly due to rising water levels. The climate had changed significantly so maybe it always rained then? Dartmoor was reduced to bogland over a very short period where before it was thriving pasture and meadow. Maybe thats the link with watery places? You know how the Brits always complain about the weather? Maybe it was the weather that changed their culture?

To address redraven's point about many monuments being lowland and therefore near a river there are a few in Dorset (and probably elsewhere) that arent near rivers and are on higher ground; like the lowland sites these were not maintained after the changeover of around 1700BC in fact the new cultural change was for tumuli or burial mounds and not long barrows and mausoleums as was the norm previously. The new culture must have come from somewhere... why not trade routes with the continent? If it was an actual invasion i think the British culture would have advanced far quicker than it did otherwise.

I think if your very survival hinged on the rain stopping you'd want to do anything you could. Just a thought while im typing several cultures have deluge myths... noahs ark etc.... just possibly could this be part of a basis in truth here?

[Tegernacus]

again, I'm not sure. As I understand it, the large hoard Welsh-lake deposits come from around Roman Invasion time-period, not bronze age water-rising period. Of course, it could have started as at attempt to appease the gods of the waters back in the Bronze age, and by the late iron age was just "the way it was done" - similar to us tossing a coin into a well. We don't know why, exactly, except that's how it's always been done

[crowman]

Just been reading redravens excellent religion of the soil essay (thanks for the steer towards omnia too, theyre top!) a theory began to form in my head.....what if they started off by venerating the ancestors through the soil ie things have to die so that things can live therefore the soil is important........then they noticed that without water things die quicker and they stay dead therefore water is more important than soil and so began venerating watery places? Make sense?

[redraven]

Dec 21, 2010 20:24:23 GMT -1 @crowman said:

Just been reading redravens excellent religion of the soil essay (thanks for the steer towards omnia too, theyre top!) a theory began to form in my head.....what if they started off by venerating the ancestors through the soil ie things have to die so that things can live therefore the soil is important........then they noticed that without water things die quicker and they stay dead therefore water is more important than soil and so began venerating watery places? Make sense?

Partially. Remember the isotope analysis of early bone from the Mesolithic? It suggests a food source from the marine environment as a primary part of the diet. I would suggest that life from water was a concept well known to them before they began to migrate inland. Thinking of a mindset that was based in the practical, butchery of animals would have been an absolute pre-requisite. Therefore animal anatomy would have been well known to them. The flowing rivers, originating probably for them, from the sea, may have represented the veins of the sea reaching inland. Which may be one reason why when river courses changed over time, the monuments fell into dis-use, the life had diverted away from them. What the medium of the soil may have represented though, was a medium where they could leave deposits that would be present for longer periods of time than previously, a preserver of material from the ancestors. You can change the constitution of soil over a period of time, you can't change the constitution of the sea.

RR