Vindolanda was a Roman auxiliary fort (castrum) just south of Hadrian's Wall in northern England, which it originally pre-dated. Archaeological excavations of the site show it was under Roman occupation from roughly 85 AD to 370 AD. Located near the modern village of Bardon Mill in Northumberland, it guarded the Stanegate, the Roman road from the River Tyne to the Solway Firth. It is noted for the Vindolanda tablets, a set of wooden leaf-tablets that were, at the time of their discovery, the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain.
There are three related types of Neolithic earthwork that are all sometimes loosely called henges. The essential characteristic of all three is that they feature a ring-shaped bank and ditch, with the ditch inside the bank. Because the internal ditches would have served defensive purposes poorly, henges are not considered to have been defensive constructions. The three henge types are as follows, with the figure in brackets being the approximate diameter of the central flat area:
- Henge (> 20 m). The word henge refers to a particular type of earthwork of the Neolithic period, typically consisting of a roughly circular or oval-shaped bank with an internal ditch surrounding a central flat area of more than 20 m (66 ft) in diameter. There is typically little if any evidence of occupation in a henge, although they may contain ritual structures such as stone circles, timber circles and coves. Henge monument is sometimes used as a synonym for henge. Henges sometimes, but by no means always, featured stone or timber circles, and circle henge is sometimes used to describe these structures. The three largest stone circles in Britain are each within a henge. Examples of henges without significant internal monuments are the three henges of Thornborough Henges. Although having given its name to the word henge, Stonehenge is atypical in that the ditch is outside the main earthwork bank.
- Hengiform monument (5 – 20 m). Like an ordinary henge, except the central flat area is between 5 and 20 m (16–66 ft) in diameter, they comprise a modest earthwork with a fairly wide outer bank. The terms Mini henge or Dorchester henge are sometimes used as synonyms for hengiform monument. An example is the Neolithic site at Wormy Hillock Henge.
- Henge enclosure (> 300 m). A Neolithic ring earthwork with the ditch inside the bank, with the central flat area having abundant evidence of occupation and usually being more than 300 m (980 ft) in diameter. Some true henges are as large as this, but lack evidence of domestic occupation. Super henge is sometimes used as a synonym for a henge enclosure. However, sometimes Super henge is used to indicate size alone rather than use, e.g. "Marden henge ... is the least understood of the four British 'superhenges' ".
Avebury is a Neolithic henge monument containing three stone circles, around the village of Avebury in Wiltshire, in southwest England. One of the best known prehistoric sites in Britain, it contains the largest megalithic stone circle in the world. It is both a tourist attraction and a place of religious importance to contemporary pagans.
Julian David Cope is an English musician and author. He was the singer and songwriter in Liverpool post-punk band the Teardrop Explodes and has followed a solo career since 1983 in addition to working on musical side projects such as Queen Elizabeth, Brain Donor and Black Sheep.
A cromlech is a megalithic construction made of large stone blocks. The word applies to two different megalithic forms in English, the first being an altar tomb, as William Borlase first denoted in 1769. A good example is at Carn Llechart. The second meaning of the name "cromlech" in English refers to large stone circles such as those found among the Carnac stones in Brittany, France.
The Sanctuary was a stone and timber circle near the village of Avebury in the south-western English county of Wiltshire. Excavation has revealed the location of the 58 stone sockets and 62 post-holes. The ring was part of a tradition of stone circle construction that spread throughout much of Britain, Ireland, and Brittany during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, over a period between 3300 and 900 BCE. The purpose of such monuments is unknown, although archaeologists speculate that the stones represented supernatural entities for the circle's builders.
The Megalithic European: The 21st Century Traveller in Prehistoric Europe (2004) is Julian Cope's second book on historic sites, this time looking at continental Europe and Ireland. Like its predecessor—The Modern Antiquarian—the book is split into a shorter, discursive introduction with the bulk of the text being a gazetteer of sites. As with The Modern Antiquarian, sites are listed alphabetically within their sections.
Terence Patrick O'Neill was a British photographer, known for documenting the fashions, styles, and celebrities of the 1960s. O'Neill's photographs capture his subjects candidly or in unconventional settings.
Aaron Siskind was an American photographer whose work focuses on the details of things, presented as flat surfaces to create a new image independent of the original subject. He was closely involved with, if not a part of, the abstract expressionist movement, and was close friends with painters Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, and Willem de Kooning.
Joel Sternfeld is an American fine-art color photographer. He is noted for his large-format documentary pictures of the United States and helping establish color photography as a respected artistic medium.
Swinside, which is also known as Sunkenkirk and Swineshead, is a stone circle lying beside Swinside Fell, part of Black Combe in southern Cumbria, North West England. One of around 1,300 recorded stone circles in the British Isles and Brittany, it was constructed as a part of a megalithic tradition that lasted from 3,300 to 900 BC, during what archaeologists categorise as the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Ages.
Adam Matthew J. Tinworth is a journalist and writer who co-authored two major role-playing games, Demon: The Fallen and Werewolf: The Forsaken from White Wolf Publishing. He was also an extensive contributor to Hunter: The Reckoning, a game line that was subsequently ported to video games.
The Horse Hospital is a Grade II listed not for profit, independent arts venue at Colonnade, Bloomsbury, central London. It has a curatorial focus on counter-cultural histories, sub-cultures and outsider as well as emerging artists. It delivers through frequent events, underground film and artist's moving image screenings, and exhibitions. Founded in 1992 by Roger K. Burton, the venue opened with Vive Le Punk! a retrospective of Vivienne Westwood's punk designs in 1993.
Tregeseal East is a heavily restored prehistoric stone circle around one mile northeast of the town of St Just in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The nineteen granite stones are also known as The Dancing Stones. It is the one surviving circle of three that once stood aligned along an east–west axis on the hillside to the south of Carn Kenidjack.
Boskednan stone circle is a partially restored prehistoric stone circle near Boskednan, around 4 miles northwest of the town of Penzance in Cornwall, United Kingdom. The megalithic monument is traditionally known as the Nine Maidens or Nine Stones of Boskednan, although the original structure may have contained as many as 22 upright stones around its 69-metre perimeter.
Elaine Constantine is a BAFTA nominated writer/director and photographer, globally recognised for her colourful and upbeat fashion imagery of confident young women.
The stone circles in the British Isles and Brittany are a megalithic tradition of monuments consisting of standing stones arranged in rings. These were constructed from 3300 to 900 BCE in Britain, Ireland and Brittany. It has been estimated that around 4,000 of these monuments were originally constructed in this part of north-western Europe during this period. Around 1,300 of them are recorded, the others having been destroyed.
Carrigaphooca Stone Circle is a stone circle and National Monument located in County Cork, Ireland.
Alys Tomlinson is a British photographer. She has published the books Following Broadway (2013), Ex-Voto (2019) and Lost Summer (2020). For Ex-Voto she won the Photographer of the Year award at the 2018 Sony World Photography Awards. Portraits from Lost Summer won First prize in the 2020 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize.
Jeremy Harding is a British writer and journalist, based in the south of France.
