Wednesday, January 11, 2017

"Heath Alter Stones" (MA)

Location: Town of Heath, Massachusetts/USA
 “Note (writes the author of the blog):  The Heath Alter Stones is one of the best kept secrets of all the Celtic megalithic alters I’ve seen to date, and it’s in Western Massachusetts, of all places... I humbly believe that these are the best pictures ever released of this gorgeous sacred site. This particular area of central/northern Massachusetts, on the boarder of Vermont, is one of the fairest countrysides one could hope to discover, especially in the season of peak Autumn, which is when I went. Now people have a chance to see, up close, for most likely the first time, a full Celtic alter, but in New England.”
    
They are nice photos, but remember these are still blueberry fields, still maintained by burning certain selected fields on a staggered four year cycle (as Indigenous People "like the Mohegan and Wampanog, who inhabited this region while the Celts and Picti inhabited Ireland, England, and Scotland") traditionally did and in some places still do across the country. No “stone walls” (that function as fuel breaks) to be found here but many of what the author of the blog calls “classic Celtic linings.”

13 comments :

Tim MacSweeney said...

http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2014/09/two-on-burning-as-in-burnt-hill.html

Tim MacSweeney said...

"Mt.Monadnock has an autonomous majesty that is impossible to ignore. Very much like Mt.Errigal in Ireland, Monadnock stands alone, part of no particular chain. It’s singular cinematic contrast over the New Hampshire landscape is stellar, although it is a relatively small mountain by global standards. The ‘White Dot Trail’ from the Monadnock State Reserve Station on Dublin Road winds directly to the rocky peak. Anthropological stone work inundates the mountain side, featuring massive signature stone-walling and engineering that runs straight up the mountain, of which no farmer has laid claim. Here there are indicative New England pre-native era stone-works, where 100 to 400 pound stones are crafted, and then laid one atop the other at impossible elevations, where no cart or mule, or sane individual, would build a “wall”. The pattern fits with absolute consistency to every elevated trail site in New England; massive megalithic stone works that no colonial farmer claims, taking place at dizzying elevations. Native Americans would have witnessed these stone structures with equal amazement and wonder, and they take no credit for their building either..."

http://stonestrider.com/2016/06/20/mount-monadnock-new-hampshire-usa/

Tim MacSweeney said...

"New England pre-native era stone-works??" Pre-Glacier Stonework??

pwax said...

I should not be so bitchy. It is a magnificent place, truly awesome, and probably appreciated by many different people.

Tim MacSweeney said...

I wrote a little piece about it a few years back, thinking also of the remnant blueberries and rows of stones near my house: http://wakinguponturtleisland.blogspot.com/2014/09/two-on-burning-as-in-burnt-hill.html

Tim MacSweeney said...

This reminds me of Woodbridge CT: http://stonestrider.com/wp-content/uploads/DSCF3066-FILEminimizer.jpg

Norman said...

Wonderful photos of a site I have never seen. I thought we were past the Celtic interpretation of the stone ruins of New England, but apparently not.

Norman said...

I have climbed Mt. Monadnock several times many decades ago, and before I became interested in Indian stonework. Can anyone confirm that there are Indian stone ruins on the mountain?

Matt Howes said...

I know that Mt. Monadnock was/ is considered a sacred mountain. There is a bread crumb trail or bee-line from places like the Blue Hills in Boston or Mount Hope in Rhode Island, to Mt. Wachusett in central MA. and from Wachusett to Monadnock. Northerly, Mt. Katahdin in northern Maine is also sacred. And, all along the way, lesser hillsides are sacred as well, such as Mt. Nobscot in Sudbury/Framingham MA., and the hills of Milford, MA., Peppercorn hill in Upton MA., Look-out hill in Uxbridge, etc. It would make sense if there were stoneworks on Monadnock.

Tim MacSweeney said...

Norman: I think this one is very suspicious, perhaps reused as a house foundation back in HDT's time.
“Henry David Thoreau was strongly drawn to Mount Monadnock, like many of us are. Thoreau was obviously quite interested in studying Monadnock. He remarked that “those who simply climb to the peak of Monadnock have seen but little of the mountain. I have come not to look off from it, but to look at it.”
http://blog.nhstateparks.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/5-15-13-049.jpg
The stone foundation of Joseph Fassett’s house, where Thoreau and Blake passed, can still be seen today on the Fairy Spring Trail. 06.04.13. Photo by Patrick Hummel.
http://blog.nhstateparks.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/5-15-13-051.jpg
http://blog.nhstateparks.org/monadnock-weekly-report-06-07-13/

Tim MacSweeney said...

Matt: any thunder bird/thunder being stories connected to Monadnock, like at Katahdin??

pwax said...

Norman:
I remember climbing Monadnock after reading Manitou and noticing numerous stone walls going straight up the mountain.

It would certainly be fun to go there to explore, it used to be a family outing.

Norman said...

All of my mountain climbing was before Manitou was published (except for the trip we took to Mt. Madison and the Madison Spring Hut to look at the split-filled boulder).