A guide to the Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland, and Brittany

by Aubrey Burl

Paper Book, 1995

Status

Available

Call number

GN805 .B8698 1995

Genres

Collection

NEARA - Nashua NH

Publication

New Haven : Yale University Press, c1995.

Description

This practical and knowledgeable guidebook deals comprehensively with the stone circles of Britain and Ireland and with the cromlechs and megalithic "horseshoes" of Brittany. This new edition includes a section on "Druidical" circles, romantic creations of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. "This book is not only an elegant and practical guide, it is also the best single-volume study of this extraordinary phenomenon, embracing 500 monuments from Shetland to Brittany. . . . Confident, erudite, pleasurable, this volume can be recommended as travel guide, archaeology, literature, and sheer good company."--Ian Sheperd, British Archaeology"This is a wonderful book and is a must for anyone remotely interested in things megalithic."--Paul Walsh, Archaeology Ireland… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member keylawk

Another study of megalithic "henge", or Ring sites, in the British Isles by an accomplished archaeologist (and his wife). Includes photographs, calibrated diagrams, and occasionally somewhat indecipherable maps for over five hundred rings. Contains meticulous measure and recordation of the ambient

facts of the works -- not just the stones, but proximity to water, cairns, tombs, or alignment on a terrace, or even just its names -- many of the otherwise merely perplexing features become delights. He shows the development of family cairns worked into great community monuments.
The "Guide" may be intended to assist in land navigation since brief descriptions of the Walk are provided. By making physical comparisons possible, Burl does little speculating about why or even how the structures were built. But he includes numerous references to other archeologists, and he does discuss theories of influence. The Breton influence on Stonehenge [84], for example.

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LibraryThing member the1butterfly

Alas that I didn't get to see any of these! How cool is it just to have a guide? The guide is very specific on the circles, locations, etc. If you want to see stone circles on the British Isles, this is certainly a guide that will take you beyond Stone Henge.

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