Well Simon, yet nother download so...
Simon21 wrote:A fascinating and important site. Though not to one individual who posts here who claimed it was less interesting than 26 paleolithic axes - if that makes any sense.
Ye, and since it is identified you work the hell out of it.
Aside from the items mentioned earlier, I suspect that there is little co-ordination with the metal detectorists,
so no organized are sweeps for related structures.
Everyone has their own interests.
I myself would rather e troweling through tsunami deposits on Crete.
Simon21 wrote:Don't know for certain but probably a variety of means. Dung heaps cerrtainly. Roman era toilets have been discovered on the Wall.
If you have chamber pots, then most likely you had closets in high status swellings.
Check Herculanium and Pompei.
Simon21 wrote:Most shrines were attached to wells and springs - the great shrine at Bath has yielded all sorts of material including coins and the remains of animal sacrifices.
So were there wells at Lullingsone?
If so, they should have shown up in the surface surveys.
Simon21 wrote:Well it was the Irish who came up with the idea of personal confession and apparently the celibate priesthood. St Synesius etc were married.
I have never taken a look at monasticism, nor church practices in detail.
Simon21 wrote:Unfortunately no one knows much about the Druids since nothing much was written down or if it was it was lost.
There is another problem - Some of the materials which survived are likely misunderstood.
Simon21 wrote:It is important to undeerstand that St Patrick did not go to Ireland on his tod.
He was made bishop (presumably so he could ordain clergy) but by whom?
Other bishops obviously. But to what end?
Bishops are not supposed to wander around outside their diocese, was this a radical new plan by the British church?
Was there already a diocese in Ireland?
Patrick speaks of being kidnapped along with many thousands. Were these thousands christians?
And who gave him all the money he speaks of?
And of course why convert the Irish, but not the Anglo-Saxons? As St Augustine and Bede both asked?
All very good questions - the excavations at that ring fort are likely to answer some of them.
Your line of attack is not the route I would use -
Start with place names, locatives, ethnics, and the analysis of those ethnics' leaders
(like what was done with the Welsh records, but work with Picts instead.)
Deconstruct the Saints' lives to their sources -
start with Adomnan's LIfe of Columba,
move on to the Prophatio Merlini.
Usually people believe what they want to believe until reality intrudes.