Clevedon & District Archaeological Society Newsletter 2016

ITALY’S ROSETTA STONE Gubbio is nowadays well down Italy’s tourism pecking order, too far from a major airport and not the birthplace of an animal-loving saint, though a statue in the town centre celebrates a visit of St Francis from nearby Assisi when he characteristically tamed a fierce wolf which had been terrorising the locals. However, this beautiful Renaissance town was, in pre-Roman times, one of several flourishing centres of the Umbrians who, together with their neighbours the Etruscans, bestrode the Apennines. There exists a valuable set of texts in the Umbrian language. However, while this is linguistically quite similar to Latin, it has a distinctive and indecipherable alphabet, which kept the ancient documents a mystery until archaeologists made use of the Eugubine Tablets, several bronze sheets, in time-honoured fashion found in 1444 in a cave by a poor shepherd who was swindled out of them by a greedy nobleman. Written about 200BC, they record, simply and in detail, a property transaction…in both Umbrian and Latin scripts. Whether it was important that, at a time Umbrian was giving way to Latin, it could be read by people of both cultures we don’t know. Some speculate that it was commissioned by a wealthy merchant who recognised that soon any deal recorded in his own native Umbrian script wouldn’t be recognised by a Roman court of law. Others reckon it was sentiment and pride in his declining local civilisation. In any event it has opened the way for all Umbrian texts to be readable by scholars, shedding light on a culture that was at least altered if not destroyed by the ‘descendants of Romulus’. They are thus rightly called Italy’s Rosetta Stone and may be viewed at the Palazzo dei Consoli in the town centre. Gubbio is also famous for its Corsa dei Ceri, when three statues of saints are raced through the town by competing teams, but you have to be in Gubbio on 15th May to see this.

By the way, outside the city walls and largely ignored by the locals, though not by archaeologists, is a fine Roman amphitheatre. However, to the people of Gubbio it’s not that important. It’s only Roman…and they’re Umbrians! John Merriman

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Clevedon & District Archaeological Society Newsletter 2016

SANTORINI AND THE GREEK POMPEII

In May 2016 Tina and I went on a holiday with “Damaris”, a local company that organises two trips a year to Greece, and specialises in visiting historic and archaeological sites. The tours are led by two sisters, Mary Kehoe and Jane Maw Cornish, assisted by their Greek contact Christos who drives the coach, organizes the hotels, helps order the wonderful group meals in the evenings, negotiates with museum staff over the complicated winter or summer opening times and generally makes the trips run smoothly. Mary and Jane's mother Damaris, started the trips many years ago when she was a Classics teacher at La Retraite Convent in Clifton. Before that Mary and Jane had spent long summer holidays touring Greece with their parents, often camping in some of the sites we visit on the holidays. The tours are similar to our study trips, with a busy itinerary carefully researched by the leaders, like minded companions and enjoyable communal meals (with lots of wine!). We have been on three other of their holidays, “Mainly Peloponnese” (Athens, Delphi, Olympia, Mycenae, Corinth), “Northern Greece” (in the footsteps of Alexander the Great) and “the Mani” visiting Byzantine, Turkish and Greek War of Independence War sites.

The trip this year was the first away from the mainland and concentrated on the Minoan era sites. We flew from London to Athens and then on to Santorini, the most southerly of the group of islands in the middle of the Aegean, known as the Cyclades. It was originally a circular island with the cone of a volcano rising in the middle to a height of 1,800 metres. Around 1500 BC the volcano erupted, destroying the centre of the island and leaving the caldera we see today, with Santorini forming a crescent and the other islands marking the rest of the rim. A new island eventually emerged in the middle of the deep bay. The steep cliffs around the rim rise to 320 metres with settlements perched on top, the white buildings looking like snow drifts. We enjoyed a wonderful wine tasting at the Santos winery watching the dramatic sight of the sun setting over the islands around the bay. In the eruption the Minoan era settlements on the island were either destroyed completely or else buried up to 30 metres deep by the 60 cubic kilometres of ash and pumice thrown up in the blast. That ash is used in the modern cement industry on the island and was used to line the Suez Canal when it was built in the 1890s. After the eruption the island was uninhabited for 600 years until Dorian Greeks from the mainland set up a colony (900BC). At the time of Alexander the Great (350BC), it was a major naval base. It was part of the Roman and then Byzantine Empires, and fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1566. Ships from the island played a part in the War of Greek Independence in the 1820s and it was one of the first parts of the Greek state, joining in 1832.

Our first visit was to Ancient Thira which dates from the resettlement of the island in 900BC. Being high up on a mountain, our bus could not negotiate the hairpin bends and we transferred to minibuses. A further steep path and steps took us to the site, passing the ruined church of Saint Stephen, a 9th century AD church built on the remains of a 5th century AD basilica. The rest of the site contains ruins from the Hellenistic and Roman periods. There are temples and shrines to various Gods including Dionysus, the way to that temple indicated by a large carved phallus! The Terrace of the Ephebes was where young men danced naked in a rite of passage to manhood, honouring Apollo. The Ephebes had a grotto in which there were shrines to two of their favourite Gods, Hermes and Herakles. There are also shrines to Apollo Karneios, Artemidoros of Perge (the admiral of the Ptolemaic fleet of the 5th century BC) and Ptolemy III (relative of Cleopatra). The site has an Agora (market place), a Royal Stoa (colonnade of shops), a bath house and theatre.

We went on to Pyrgos, a classic Cycladian village on top of a hill with winding narrow streets leading to a fort and church at its highest point. There would have been wonderful views if it hadn't been a dull, rainy afternoon. We had our most expensive meal of the holiday in a bar at the top.

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Clevedon & District Archaeological Society Newsletter 2016

The next morning was spent at Ancient Akrotiri which is now hailed as the Greek Pompeii. This city was destroyed in the eruption that created the caldera we see today. French archaeologists began excavating the site at the end of the 19th century but serious discoveries were not made until a Greek archaeologist, Marinatos, started excavating in 1967. (He was later killed by a building falling during excavation. A British tourist was also killed on the site in 2005 when part of the roof covering the site collapsed). A well laid out city with roads, water supply and drainage systems was uncovered containing impressive stone buildings some with “lustral basins” like those in the palaces on Crete. They look very similar to the plunge bath in the Georgian House in Bristol, and probably had a ceremonial purpose. Other detached buildings were less grand with storage areas on the ground floor and residential rooms above. Again, similar to the Merchant's House some of us saw at St Fagans. Finally the rest of the population lived in blocks of smaller dwellings with workshops, storage rooms and living spaces, each block having a communal kitchen. The buildings were up to 4 storeys high with wooden joists between each floor and flat roofs insulated with reeds and branches. Stone and wooden stairs connected the floors. They had large windows in the upper rooms and the presence of loom weight suggests that weaving went on by the light from these large windows as we see in weavers’ cottages in this country. Many of the plastered walls were decorated with paintings of subjects such as antelopes, boxing children, lilies, swifts, a blue monkey and fine looking ladies. Wooden furniture was covered in hot ash during the eruption, leaving a void that could be filled with plaster to give a cast of the object, like the casts of bodies from Pompeii. However, no casts of bodies are found in Akrotiri. The wooden parts of the structures carbonised when the city was covered in ash. This wasn't a problem until the archaeologists began to excavate, as it made the buildings very unstable. The wood in the window frames and joists had to be replaced with concrete to stop the building collapsing which was how the archaeologist Marinatos was killed. As well as houses there are the remains of a mill. The site is now covered with a very state of the art roof to protect it from the elements, and temperature and humidity are carefully contolled.

The population seems to have fled the city before it was covered in ash, possibly during earthquakes that preceded the eruption. Some would have been able to flee in boats but it is felt that there would not have been enough time or boats for a full evacuation and it is thought that somewhere there is the site of the temporary camp that the population fled to which was later destroyed. The adjoining museum has wonderful pottery, jewellery, votive figures and wall paintings.

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Clevedon & District Archaeological Society Newsletter 2016

Before leaving the island we looked around the modern town of Thira which features on many calendars of Greece with its white buildings and blue domed roofs. Although it looks very traditional there was much rebuilding after the earthquake in 1956 when half of the buildings on the island were destroyed. Cruise ships moor in the deep water of the bay below the town, passengers are brought ashore by tenders and then transported up to the town either by a cable car or by donkeys toiling up the zig zag path. From Santorini we went on to Crete but that will be the subject of a future article.

Details of the Damaris holidays can be found by ‘Googling’ “Journey through Ancient Greece”.

Tom Chown

21 CHURCHES: 3 DAYS ! Church-crawling in Herefordshire John Vigar has been running church tours for years and this year we were in Herefordshire, based on the Belmont Abbey guesthouse. This account includes most of those we visited. The Herefordshire school of stone carving was probably brought over from France by the de Lacy family and is best seen at Kilpeck. There the doorway and chancel arch are of hard red sandstone, carved with figures, dragons and birds. There is no agreed account of who they are, though a 12th century date is accepted. There is more to see of this school at Brinsop, where St George is killing a wormlike dragon, and also at Rowlstone, at which one can see most unusual late mediaeval candleholders.

The Society’s study tour met the Scudamore family in 2015 at Kentchurch Court, and the Scudamores recurred often on the tour. They rescued the Cistercian ruins at Abbey Dore in the 17th century, now a large church, and at Holme Lacy the church is full of their monuments, including, most unusually, windows showing Sirs Galahad and Bors.

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Clevedon & District Archaeological Society Newsletter 2016

Francis Kilvert, the late 19th century diarist, was mentioned in several of these churches. He described village life in rural Herefordshire and lies under marble at Bredwardine. The Kilvert Society fosters an interest in him and his writings. There was a good reason to visit each of the churches, even the cavernous Yazor, which bankrupted the Manorial Lord who built it on much too large a scale. Brockhampton is well known as a thatched church, but also for its Arts and Craft furnishings; its use of concrete in the vaulting is seldom seen elsewhere. Hoarwithy is very different. The vicar had the money to employ JP Seddon as architect and he “went to town” on Italian Romanesque, with Ravenna-like mosaics, campanile and cloister-alley. Then the money ran out! Moccas is built entirely of tufa, an odd choice as it looks rather insubstantial, whilst at Madley the sloping ground enabled a crypt to be constructed under the chancel. The ladies here excelled themselves with “elevenses”, including a delicious fruitcake ! Blanche Parry, Elizabeth 1st’s chief maid-of-honour kneels to her at Bacton, but we were too late to see the piece of the Queen’s dress, long thought to be an altar frontal, and now recognised and removed for conservation. On the other hand, we did find Judas at Dorstone, carrying a bag with “30” inscribed on it. If this window really is 13th century in date it must be an early use of Arabic numerals. Those reaching St Margaret’s deserve a prize, so maze-like are the roads in the area around it. But this lonely church holds one of Herefordshire’s wonders - the exquisite rood screen. It’s really a rood loft, on two posts, with delicate foliate friezes and statuettes, Welsh in style and early Tudor in date. All the churches were open, lit and with vicar or churchwarden to welcome us. These were three busy days, but so rewarding. Next year’s tours ? Torquay and Oakham are John’s chosen centres. Frank Willy CDAS STUDY TOUR- ISLE OF WIGHT 15TH TO 19TH AUGUST 2016

27 members of the society set off early on Monday the 15th. Our new driver Matt had a few problems finding his way from Clevedon to Portishead and then a problem with the luggage door flying open and 2 deck chairs falling out as we went around the first roundabout! Fortunately the rest of the journey was uneventful.

The first visit was to Mottisfont Abbey near Romsey which was a priory of the Austin Canons until 1536. It was “swopped” for the villages of Paddington and Chelsea by William, Lord Sandys, Lord Chamberlain to Henry VIII. He managed to incorporate the church into the new Tudor house. The cellarium remains from the priory with its Caen stone columns supporting a vaulted roof. There was a major reworking of the house in the 1740s, giving it its Georgian red brick exterior and elegant high ceilinged rooms. The property passed from the Sandys family to the Mills family, remaining empty from 1922 to 1934 when it was bought by Gilbert and Maud Russell.

The Russells enjoyed a very glamorous and arty life style with house parties attended by famous writers and artists and other celebrities of the day, including Ian Fleming and the artist Boris Anrep, both of whom were Maud's lovers. The artist friends carried out work on the house - there is a room decorated with elaborate trompe-l'oeil murals imitating Gothic plasterwork by Rex Whistler, and a mosaic by Anrep.

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Clevedon & District Archaeological Society Newsletter 2016

Another friend of Maud's was the artist Derek Hill who, as well as his own paintings, had a collection of 19C and 20C works by Bonnard, Vuillard, Seurat, Corot, Degas, Graham Sutherland, Gwen and Augustus John, Barbara Hepworth and Duncan Grant, which are now displayed in the house.

Leaving Mottisfont, we set off for the ferry to the Isle of Wight where our first visit was to the Garlic farm at Newchurch. The owner, Colin Boswell, met us and we boarded a tractor pulled trailer for a tour of the farm. The Boswell family has farmed on the Island for several generations - Colin's granny Norah started growing garlic there 50 years ago. Colin is very proud of his tree planting and landscaping. He works with the local Archaeological Society and the Island Heritage Service to record finds that have been turned up from the day- to-day working of the farm, as well as field-walking carried out there. Finds from the Mesolithic hunter gathers, Neolithic farmers, Bronze and Iron ages and the Roman period have all been found, together with more recent finds. We saw the tents of students working on a dig. After the tour we visited the farm shop and enjoyed tasting the garlic chutneys and other garlic products, and hearing about the huge number of different varieties of garlic they grow, which come from all over the world.

With a history of human use of over 7,000 years, garlic is native to central Asia, and has long been a staple in the Mediterranean region, as well as a frequent seasoning in Asia, Africa, and Europe. It was known to Ancient Egyptians, and has been used both for food flavouring and traditional medicine. In Europe many cultures have used garlic for protection or white magic, perhaps owing to its reputation as a potent preventative medicine. Central European folk beliefs considered garlic a powerful ward against demons, werewolves and vampires. To ward off vampires, garlic could be worn, hung in windows, or rubbed on chimneys and keyholes. We then went on to our hotel at Bembridge which enjoyed a wonderful position overlooking the Solent.

On Tuesday we visited Nunwell House, a largely Jacobean house with Georgian and 20C additions, once the home of the Oglander family. Charles I spent his last night of freedom there. The rooms are full of wonderful furniture, militaria, musical instruments and paintings. The gardens are beautiful and include a walled area.

Our second visit was to the Brading Roman Villa. The island has several villas, but Brading is considered to be the best with its wonderful mosaics. It was discovered in 1879 when Mr Munns, the farmer found one of the mosaics when digging holes for a sheep pen! He was assisted in his excavations by a local amateur archaeologist, Captain Thorpe of Yarbridge. Together they uncovered the mosaic floor that included the “Gallus” panel of a man with a cockerel's head.

The villa is a “winged corridor” type with three blocks, the central block of two storeys containing the living quarters with four ground floor rooms with elaborate mosaics, painted plaster on the walls and fragments of window glass. The Gallus figure has several explanations. It may refer to a gladiator Gallus or the Eastern Roman emperor Constantine Gallus with whom the owner of the villa may have had some dealings when he was in Antioch. A further explanation is that it depicts the Gnostic god Abraxus. Other mosaics include Orpheus, Bacchus, gladiators, Medusa, seasonal farming scenes and sea scenes. Apart from stone footings, the villa is not thought to be have been of stone construction but more like a Tudor timber-framed building with wattle and daub between the timber framing. The central block seems to have ceased being residential during the 4C AD and corn drying ovens were inserted into the corridor.

The northern wing contains a well and a hypocaust floor, with a separate bath house at the eastern end of the buildings. No kitchen has been found. The southern wing was seriously affected by ploughing and its site is marked by blocks in the turf.

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Clevedon & District Archaeological Society Newsletter 2016

After lunch at Brading we went Carisbrooke Castle which stands on a hill overlooking Newport, the main town on the island. When we arrived Maureen resisted an attempt by English Heritage staff to charge us an extra fee as there was a pageant taking place on that day (not mentioned at the time of booking). Well done Maureen!

Carisbrooke has a long history starting as an Iron Age hillfort, a Saxon shore Roman fort, and a walled Saxon fortress. The Normans erected a wooden motte and bailey which was later replaced by the stone structure we see today. After ownership by the Earl of Hereford it passed to the Redvers family and in their time it played a role in the civil war between Queen Maud and King Stephen. The last of the Redvers, Countess Isabella de Fortebus, added more comfortable rooms including the Great Hall and chapel. After Isabella, Carisbrooke passed to the Crown and was frequently granted to royal favourites. One of these, Earl Rivers, father of Edward IV's Queen Elizabeth (Woodville) held the castle before he was executed by Richard III, although the Woodvilles got it back under Henry VII, and the imposing gatehouse was built by them. At the time of the Armada Carisbrooke was surrounded by earthworks and bastions.

Charles I was imprisoned at Carisbrooke for 14 months before his execution, and later his young daughter Elizabeth died there. Between 1896 and 1944 Queen Victoria's youngest daughter Beatrice, Governor of the island, had Carisbrooke as her summer residence.

The third day saw us taking a steam train ride on the Isle of Wight Steam Railway. This line was once part of a network that covered most of the island. The first line was opened in 1862 between Newport and Cowes. Our line linked Ryde with Cowes and down to Ventnor. These lines did not fare well and often relied on retired locos and carriages from the mainland. In the 1950s and 1960s more and more lines were closed. However in the 1970s some were reopened as heritage lines. By 1992 the IoWSR was opened between Smallbrook junction and Wootton. We joined the line at Haverstreet where we could admire the rolling stock being restored and the museum showing the life of the railways in their heyday taking holiday makers from the ports to their destinations, as well as their work in the wars, closure and rebirth. We set off towards Smallbrook junction stopping as the engine changed ends and direction before taking us back through Haverstreet and on to Wootton where our coach was waiting to take us on to Yarmouth.

We enjoyed a wander around Yarmouth's old buildings and narrow streets. Yarmouth's pier, built in 1876 is the longest wooden pier in England. We found places for lunch before exploring the castle. There may have been a French raid on the town in 1543 and the castle was built in 1547 as a consequence of this. Instead of the clover leaf design of Henry VIIIs earlier forts Yarmouth was square, with an arrow shaped bastion facing the harbour. There were 15 cannons and a garrison of 20 men. The castle was held by Parliament during the Civil War and restored and updated by Charles II. The Captain of the island at that time, Sir Richard Holmes, seems to have been something of a pirate. One of his trophies was a statue of Louis XIV that he modified to carry his own head, and is now on his tomb in St James church in the town. The castle had new guns installed to counter the fear of a French invasion throughout the 19C, seeing service in both world wars, before finally being decommissioned in the 1950s.

Our next stop was the Dimbola Museum at Freshwater, featuring the work of Julia Margaret Cameron (1815- 1879), a pioneer of photography, who had to learn to use the large early cameras and dangerous chemicals. Cameron developed her own style, much admired by the Pre-Raphaelite painters, creating scenes from history and legend using local people as models. Tennyson and other Victorian celebrities sat for her. The museum had examples of modern photographers as well as posters and photos relating to the Isle of Wight Festival in the 1960s. There is a statue of Jimi Hendrix next door.

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Clevedon & District Archaeological Society Newsletter 2016

A short walk up the road is the thatched St Agnes Church, built in 1908 by the architect Isaac Jones, in the Arts and Craft style. The land on which it is built was donated by Tennyson's son Hallam (named after Tennyson's friend Arthur Hallam who is buried in St Andrew's, Clevedon). It was constructed out of stone from a demolished farm house and includes the date stone from that building of 1622, which can mislead visitors.

Our fourth day started with a visit to Northcourt Manor in Shorwell, one of the island’s largest Jacobean manors with a wonderful garden, situated on the site of a monastic building dating back to the 13C. The monks used the stream to create ponds and a bath house.

A misunderstanding with the owner, John Harrison, over the meeting place got us off to a bit of a shaky start, but intelligent horticultural questions from some of the group seemed to soften his heart towards us.

The present house was started in 1615 by the deputy governor of the island, Sir John Leigh. The poet Algernon Swinburne stayed at the house. The Harrison family bought it after the war when grand houses seemed to cost the same as bungalows which had been their first idea for a holiday home on the island.

John and Christine Harrison came into sole possession by buying out the shares of the rest of the family. They now run it as their home with wings let as luxury holiday accommodation.

After looking round the garden we walked to Shorwell church and admired its wall paintings.

We had lunch in the picture-postcard village of Godshill with its thatched cottages, old church, tea rooms and gift shops.

Our next stop was Appledurcombe House, a ruin managed by English Heritage. Originally a Tudor mansion owned by the Leigh family. After it came in to the possession of the Worsley family it was rebuilt as a baroque country house with projecting side pavilions and a park designed by Capability Brown.

Appledurcombe played a role in a major 18C scandal when Sir Richard Worsley brought his 17-year-old heiress wife, Seymour Fleming, to the house. During their subsequent divorce it emerged that he had a voyeuristic complicity in her relations with 27 lovers. She was unable to remarry or reclaim her inheritance and was forced to live as a courtesan, relying on a succession of rich men to keep her. After Sir Richard’s death she was able to reclaim her £70,000 inheritance and remarry.

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Clevedon & District Archaeological Society Newsletter 2016

The house declined during the 19C and 20C becoming a hotel, a school and a monastery. The army used it in both world wars and in WWII a German mine layer dropped its last mine on the house before crashing nearby.

On our way back to the hotel a group of us visited the Bembridge windmill which still has all its internal machinery, and in the evening Jean Hannaford entertained us with a quiz.

Our last day was spent visiting Osborne House family home of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. They originally leased the Osborne estate in 1843 as a holiday retreat and then brought it two years later. The setting reminded Albert of the Bay of Naples and he chose an Italianate style when he and the builder William Cubitt decided to rebuild rather than convert the existing house. It looks very grand with its towers and terraces, but the Prince and his builder used brick and painted stucco and concrete for some of the statues. Surprisingly, many of the paintings and sculptures show a lot of naked flesh!

The original block, the Pavilion, contained the state rooms and family apartments including the nursery suite, one room with its rows of cots for Victoria's younger children where they remained until they were 6, and the day room filled with toys. Victoria and Albert's rooms were nearby so they could easily visit the children. Other wings were added including the Durbar block showing Victoria's role as Empress of India. There are many reminders of the links that the children’s' marriages made with most of Europe’s royal families.

After Victoria’s death, iron gates closed off the private apartments. Her son Edward VII did not want to use Osborne as a residence, and it became a naval college and then a convalescent home. English Heritage took over the building in 1986.

We enjoyed a good lunch in the refectory before moving on the St Mildred's Church at Whippingham. This was another collaboration of Albert, this time with A J Humbert, the architect of Sandringham. There is an Art Nouveau chapel to members of the Royal family, and in the graveyard a war memorial which includes the name of Victoria's grandson, Prince Maurice, killed on the Somme. Nearby is a row of 8 almshouses built and endowed by Victoria to house retired royal servants.

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Clevedon & District Archaeological Society Newsletter 2016

When we left Whippingham we went directly to the ferry at Cowes for the return home.

Once again Maureen and Margaret (helped by our new driver Matt) had given us a wonderful study tour.

Tom Chown

WAS STONEHENGE BUILT FOR ROCK MUSIC? © The Guardian

One of the mysteries of Stonehenge is why our ancestors chose to use bluestones that had to be hauled hundreds of kilometres from the Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire to the site in Wiltshire. But new research from London's Royal College of Art suggests sound might have played a role. Researchers tested thousands of stones on Carn Menyn in the Preseli Hills, and found a large number of the rocks ring when they are struck. Usually, stones produce a disappointing clunk when hit, with microscopic cracks making it difficult for vibrations to travel within the rock. But certain bluestones have the right microscopic structure - and sound like a metallic gong. They also found a few of the rocks remaining at Stonehenge rang as well. The challenge they now face is providing good evidence that the bluestones were used for their musical quality. Sound is ephemeral, and disappears as soon as it is made, so it is difficult to know for sure that our ancestors used the stones as percussion instruments.

Other instruments from other sites, however, provide solid evidence for ancient music-making. The oldest musical instruments are 40,000-year-old flutes made from mammoth ivory and bird bone discovered in Geissenkloesterle, a cave in southern Germany. Besides flutes, there is evidence of 30,000-year-old percussion and scraping instruments. And there are stones all over the world that create musical notes, including many with good archaeological evidence of prehistoric use.

Rock gongs in the Serengeti emit harsh metallic clangs when they are struck with another stone. Some boulders are covered in hammered indents that evidence use, though it is difficult to date the music-making from these marks. At Kupgal Hill in Southern India there are ringing boulders of dolerite that display both percussive marks and Neolithic rock art. In a cave at Fieux à Miers in the south of France, there is a large, two-metre-high stalagmite that rings like a gong. Fractures from when it was struck have been dated to 20,000 years ago, using the prehistoric artefacts found inside the cave and the layer of calcite that has slowly grown over the percussive marks in the intervening years.

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Clevedon & District Archaeological Society Newsletter 2016

It has also been suggested that whole ancient structures were exploited acoustically. The pyramid of Kukulkan, at Chichén Itzá in Mexico, was built between the 11th and 13th centuries. On every side it has a long staircase running up the middle. Visit the site, and guides will delight in clapping at the foot of the stairs, which produces a squawking echo with a distinctive descending pitch. Acoustician David Lubman claims this echo mimics the call of the sacred and venerated quetzal bird, and could have been used by Mayan priests during ceremonies.

There has been a heated debate about whether the acoustics within Stonehenge, created by the sound bouncing back and forth between the stones, were exploited by our ancestors. The reverberation created by the circles of stones could have embellished speech and music, as happens within an auditorium. If our ancestors did make music with the metallic clangs of the bluestones, it would have enhanced that as well.

• Trevor Cox is the author of Sonic Wonderland and professor of acoustics engineering at the University of Salford

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