1

The Great Goddess of Clodgy Moor

Graham Hill

Abstract
A fancy stone I found in a ploughed field flint scatter in April 2005; I recognised its
lithic scratched marks and thought that it had been used as a resource for coloured
pigments. With other possibly ochre related objects it was rejected by specialists
when a group of thousands of flint tools, prehistoric pottery sherds and the ground-
stone evidence of an axe factory were catalogued in 2011-12 as the Clodgy Moor
Project. In February 2014 I returned to that tin of rejects after studying the also not
understood Clodgy Moor Boat Slate.
This is what I found:



This document contains much material used in Clodgy Moor Boat Slate, part 3:
Through The wall with references to parts 1 and 2 but the topic grew to require a
dedicated document in March 2014.



2

Contents
Title page with abstract 1
Contents 2
The ochre deficit and other blind spots 3
Scratches on my bin: a comparison 5
An owls head 7
Some British idols 9
Arms of the Goddess 11
And below the arms 12
Omphalos 13
Fertile triangle 15
Ovaries 16
Below 18
Scratched motifs 19
Checker-board scratchings 22
The other side 23
The male year god 24
With thanks to EASE Archaeology/Historic Scotland 27
The Great Goddess of Clodgy Moor 30
Many thanks; C. J. Evans for the use of this image 34
I had not found many fossils when this rock caught my eye 35
Look into my eyes 36
Im proud of my poo ! 37
Similarities between The Goddess and DSCF3543 38
Super Natural Art 39
Nets and checkerboards 40
Its Jasper 41
The third figurine from Noltland 42
Front or back? 43
Acknowledgements 44
References and notes 44





















3

The ochre deficit and other blind spots
[There now follows a polemic which after the very positive interactions with archaeologists in March 2014, I hope
belongs to an earlier time.. The Boat Slate has through my persistence in its cause, left me alienated, but perhaps
The Goddess will help me to share these fortunate and wonderful finds. ]
What was returned in my tin of rejects may or may not be related to the extraction and
use of pigments in the stone age in Cornwall, but given that I was looking for them
from near the beginning of my hunt for stones in 2004 and that everywhere else in the
world to this day that there are the artefacts of human beings and even their ancestors
there are traces of pigment and its use on body, bones, stones and rock walls: there
should be some ochre related artefacts in Cornwall. Perhaps it was me who was less
in contact with my human roots and culture than the specialists who rejected my
ochrous objects as apparently in all this time to the present I did not find one genuine
artefact related to human pigment use!

Of course; I err on the side of caution. If just one archaeologist had said this then I
would not be ladling out another paragraph of sarcasm, but it must be taught in the
first year of every archaeology degree. It is already obvious that I dont have one and
I have recently realised that rather than being a total disadvantage, it has at least left
me untutored enough to find objects that I was not told did not exist.
Of course, caution is a good thing and archaeologists must protect the body of
knowledge from poor practice and bad scholarship. However I do not think that
unusual or unexpected observations are given fair treatment. Inconvenient results and
not easily paralleled examples have been ignored. The cult of specialisation and
personality mean that an archaeologist is not open to logical argument or the
presentation of evidence if they can point to another specialist or colleague to do the
thinking for them. Passing the buck; in other words. In archaeology and I suggest that
the problem is common to all professions (where the status of the professional grows
to dwarf any other consideration) then to make mistakes is seen as failure rather than
the healthy sign of scientific enquiry. This is compounded by the professional ethic of
dont argue in front of the kids[the public]. Time Team archaeological dig BBC
programme was fascinating for doing just that. If I have disagreed with a specialist on
any point another archaeologist only has to hear their name for any argument I have
to make to be ignored . Pope Urban VIII, if he is known for anything is known for
only one thing! (The tormentor of Galileo) We should ask why; given that we have
some of the most fantastic Neolithic monuments in Europe; if not the world then why
do we feel so ignorant about the lives of the people who raised them?

But of course we will never know! and its corollary brought to bear several times for
dogmatic emphasis It is arrogant to think otherwise; is another archaeologists
maxim repeated to me. The unknowing of the other might be a truism that could be
applied to any other person or animal; even in the same room and time. Taken to
extremes;[salt your prose with Latin if possible: in extremis] then any archaeologist
making such a statement should fall on their sword as they have just suffered the
revelation that their profession is a waste of time. At least they are not in the business
of answering the publics questions. But perhaps they never were. That was the job of
TV programmes such as Time Team. No there must be a middle way in which
through great work then small insights might be made by professionals into the lives
and motivations of people through the discipline of archaeology. Articles on pits and
pot sherds may be leavened by the last line speculating about the people who made
ritual returns to these special places in the landscape. Big deal!



4

We may never know everything about the past for sure and some of the details
already agreed may be too trivial to care about and irrelevant.
The typology of pot sherds in the absence of other dating evidence has become a
shibboleth. The retrospective distinctions become labels for whole peoples and a
notional label for an artefact of unknown use such as wrist-guard or pot lid can
mould our thinking erroneously for generations.
But there are daily efforts to understand.
I am sure that one of the easiest ways is to re-enact the past through making and using
ancient technology and not necessarily understanding what to do next but simply
avoiding what is not given in the era to be contemplated. We can all be the worst
stone-age axe maker without a craft tradition to fall back upon but we will not
compound our ignorance by shortening the task with modern machines and cutting tools.
If we are pleased with our work we will not sell the stone but rather barter it or give it away
to someone we appreciate. We may not answer the questions that we set at the beginning of
the task but at the end I bet we will be answering ones we had not even thought of!
Do you know why people grind axes near their dwellings and get their rough-outs from
beaches and from the tops of particular mountains? I know because I make the things. To do
it another way would be less convenient and sometimes even impossible; not just for me but
for anyone. Is that not a hypothesis but an arrogant assertion?
I can use scientific method but a lot of things you find out are without strictly using it and
archaeology being a historical project about history and prehistory is not very scientific. We
cannot normally run control experiments for history. The what if?s remain speculation. A lot
of what passes for fact and is taught as though it is, is the reporting of what other people
wrote and if it is not your colleagues then who better than an unreliable Greek or Roman
scribe?
My genes have hardly changed in 50 000 years, according to geneticists and my bones tell a
similar story so I prefer experiments. My ancestors cave art from 30 000 years ago is as good
as I can do now even if as archaeologists say; we cannot understand what I or someone like
me was thinking at the time.
On the spectrum of knowing, I think that with the skills and knowledge base we have and
stripping away as much of the recent cultural baggage as possible, we may find that the
arrogance is in imagining that just because in this era we are at war with nature and hence
ourselves that we now have a special blind spot to what we were like in the past.
You might have; but I am unlearning as much of this plastic nonsense as I can.
Join me or just do it yourself. Pick up some litter from the hedge , or street or beach and make
it your Sunday worship. This modern confusion is what we really can never know about
and its time is but the sooted tip of the iceberg that is human awareness in nature.

So what are archaeologists for if it is not uncovering the past?
The clues are in plain view. The British Museum trustees hang on to The Parthenon marbles
and cannot be challenged. You or I would relinquish anything that was demonstrably
belonging to someone else, out of a sense of justice and/or a fear of imprisonment.
Archaeologists are complicit in the plunder of weaker interests. The British Empire still rules
in The British Museum. The Piltdown Man was not a great hoax but lasted a long time in
Britain and despite archaeologists saying that they were not fooled, it took foreign evidence to
prove that the first (intelligent) ape was not an Englishman. The rulers need to tell the stories
about the past that cement their hold on power today and to close the possibilities of
alternatives in the future. Our rulers admire the Romans (and the Normans) who brought
civilisation to the barbarians and gave them culture, by writing about their own and
destroying the alternative past. The stories to justify the present are upheld here in Cornwall
as elsewhere where diligent archaeologists are keen to explain the high status of the remains
that they find to make echoes of divine right to the lords and princes that still impose today.




5

Scratches on my bin: a comparison
Yesterday on 13
th
March 2014, at my house, between about 2 and 3.30pm 2 people I
had not before met face-to-face, discussed The Great Goddess of Clodgy Moor. Their
impressions were very favourable and I have renewed strength and confidence to
continue the task of publicising it, thanks to them. Much of that time was spent in the
sunlight with our plastic council issued bin as the plinth to study the object. With
hindsight I should have at least provided a cloth or cleansed the bin lid but I think we
were all too wrapped up in our appraisal to more than notice the bizarre and possibly
insanitary situation as we intensely exchanged observations and stories.

That morning I had been compiling another You tube video
2
; looking at the scratches
on the figurine with the intention of interpreting them in the light of Marija Gimbutas
sign system.
With the precaution of the self-criticism of over-enthusiasm and wishful thinking I
have chosen to consider images of some of the many scratches on that bin lid to look
for intelligent signage or at least wilful scratch-work.

A few representative scratches are colour coded. Red ones are close parallel ones
from a scuff which may have grit at the contact point, so producing the lithic type
striations. The black ones, knowing the partly repetitive nature of the refuse collection
might be one wide scuff with separated similar striations or many almost identical
mechanical operations. The blue lines are where pseudo-patterns are formed by
meetings of lines. Chance will produce some and the groups produced by mechanical
repetition make more interesting patterns likely. However the changes of direction
and respect of one line for another seem to be missing. The purple lines have formed
some triangles but this is the simplest shape so some would happen in a dense field of
lines and the ones of interest do not stop where they meet and the over- runs are of
variable length.







6


Bin dated by makers stamp to 1994 and marked between then and 2014.
This image is of what I think is a deliberate human scratch-work. It might be
produced otherwise by a shake and wander during a human and mechanical bin
emptying operation but I think not. The main scratch is about 45 mm wide and the
zig-zagged bottom part is towards the outer edge of the bin lid. I think that this is
where the design began but it seems more of an expression of action or a brain
chemistry rewarded tag. A stereotyped tagger would be of an older male child or
adolescent with a metal tool such as a nail or small knife. In support of this minimum
age is that the height of the scratching above ground on the horizontal lid is 1.02m
and is suggestive of someone comfortably taller than that in order to see what they
were doing and have strength and control to achieve the incision

Starting at the bottom of the scratch. There is a definite beginning, rather than a
shallowing trail off, then three sharply defined zig-zags, before the rhythm excites a
vigorous zag to the right which on bouncing back possibly judders or skips then pulls
a return loop towards equilibrium and full stops. A tiny lift-off shoots away to the
right then above it near equilibrium a final sign-off with a downward dig before
another strong sweep to the right.
Perhaps we see some hints of proto-writing here with the page starting at the bottom
and alternate lines running in opposite directions. The hard information seems to
be not there but if we look at this temporally like musical notation then we have a
rhythmic and emotional piece and helped by a nearly secure context of being outside a
house on offer once a week it has attracted attention in the human equivalent of
male dog behaviour marking its territory!






7

An Owls head

DSC02294

The (?)ground flat surface has had preferential removals of yellow limonite(?)
1
at
what I call the head in a diagonal direction with repeated sculpts using a serrated tool.
Other doubled marks associated with these removals suggest sharp flint tool use. This
is the second owl interpretation I am proposing from Clodgy Moor. This is covered in
part 3 of Clodgy Moor Boat Slate(Google).Marija Gimbutas describes owls as
guardians of the underworld with a liminal position in the world, being active at dusk
between day and night and metaphorically between life and death.
2
The Bird Goddess
imagery is developed further with other motifs that will be revealed on her body.
Yellow head with suggested owl
interpretation in smaller version below
and a barn owl at Paradise Park, Hayle.



8


Above head: still3035 and below overlapping still3039






9

Some British idols

Above are free sketches of British Idols. The corpulent Grimes Graves example had
doubts raised about its authenticity soon after its discovery but was featured in
(Piggott,1954)
1
. The two other chalk figurines to the left are also from that source
2
.
All the others bar Clodgy Moor are from Orkney Isles and found from 2009
3
onwards.
Top left is Brodgar Boy
4
A week later a lower clay section was found completing
the idol; if it is, essentially cylindrical. The others are from the North of the islands at
the Links of Noltland and from domestic rooms giving the exciting impression that
Neolithic people were carrying out this practice throughout The British isles. There
may be more to find and some unrecognised in collections from excavations
( ignoring what ended up on the spoil heaps.)
Part of our problem in recognising idols is that we have preconceived notions of what
they should look like. The Old Testament gives the impression that pagans were
making craven images of animals, human-like gods and images of objects in the
heavens such as sun and moon to worship
4
. This may have been so but it may also
have been a necessarily derogatory and simplistic view of what was going on. If the
objects were more a way of focussing religiosity towards something beyond the object
then often simpler objects like many of the 360 stone idols of Ma,aqa that
Mohammed[blessings upon his name] destroyed were stones
5
. Some idols may be
significant rocks in the landscape. Some Hindu idols are an upright rock with ochre
upon it. Therefore much of the Neolithic pagan world will be invisible and
conjectured. The suspicious manuport pretty pebbles and cobbles found amongst the
flints of prehistoric scatters may be their last trace. It is the holed flint cobbles,
perhaps with some flint working towards greater symmetry or other nodules which
whilst seeming to have utilitarian purposes illicit the response as though looking at
something chosen and subtly reworked to resemble a bird or other archetypal animal
which may make up the bulk of potential idols. Also at the scale beyond portable or



10

household there are orthostats and modified boulders and rock carvings in the
landscape which will stretch the continuum and definition of the word idol.
The Folkton drums with their eyebrows and stylised faces, the (Irish) Knowth
macehead similarly would be two more examples of anthropomorphised stones that
might be objects of or intermediaries to worship.
Whilst researching this article I found an orthostat from Barclodiad y Gawres on
Anglesey, Wales and following the lead of Gimbutas with reference to the
anthropomorphic orthostats of Gavrinis then there appears to be an idol represented
here.

This morning (24
th
March 2014) whilst researching the Noltland idols I had the page
open of British archaeology magazine no. 113(JulyAug 2010) and the oft seen
decorated stone resolved itself post Clodgy Moor Goddess as an idol. Amanda
walked past a few seconds later and without prompting said; Its like yours.
Email about the similarity sent to enquiries@westrayheritage.co.uk the same
afternoon and they forwarded my claim of the parallels and ID to local
archaeologists[who turned out to be EASE]. I checked if there were more images and
information and Sigurd Towrie in his excellent Orkneyjar blog had the same picture.
He returned my email to tell me that image copyright is with EASE Archaeology, the
award nominated excavators of Links of Noltland. Co-directors Hazel Moore and
Graeme Wilson made short work of finding and sending me the image. This image
commands page 29.




Left: all in a days work; an
idol megalith and a domestic
Goddess below, described as a
decorated stone



11

Arms of The Goddess

DSC02341. The arms are picked out in a red ochrous material which flowers in a
natural mineralisation through the white outer layer. It and the yellow pigment above
must have surely attracted the attention of the person who first picked it up. In the
dictionary of motifs Boyne culture: art motifs(based on Breuil).designs similar to
this are incised in passage graves and may contain circles or pits and lozenges.
Piggott, 1954
1
on page 213 says: Scalloped outlines are rare but distinctive, and
without subdivisions represent, in fact, multiple face motifs joined together. I agree
and have mentioned this in Clodgy Moor Boat Slate 2, but will emphasise the visual
puns and transformation of life into death and vice-versa with the arms clutching her
pregnant belly. Later we will look for pits or circles in the arms and incised lozenges
there too!




12

And below the arms

DSC02292. There is a deep gouge at her shoulder and another on the other side and
her right arm has the interior white layer largely removed and also in places outside so
that the red scallop is outstanding in relief.
Below the arm in the white feldspar region is a visible X. This is in the region of
her belly button and will be investigated next.








13

Omphalos

Still5008

An incised lozenge within the lower triangle of the hourglass with an extra chevron
below it to emphasise the bird goddess



14



Still5027,5032. Above: Vinca Neolithic culture Bird Goddesses and below her belly




15


Fertile triangle

The top line of the triangle is symmetrically nicked and this is to indicate the position
of the ovaries. This surprising conclusion is in line with Marija Gimbutas who claims
that the bull horns and skull imagery of Catal Huyuk and beyond is a visual metaphor
for the female reproductive system and that this anatomical knowledge is from the
practice of defleshing bones to prepare them for the role of ancestor after death.
1
The
upper region of the triangle is also reddened; likely indicating the blood of life and
this pigment may have been exposed by scraping away the outer white coating or
ground into the rock structure afterwards. A natural explanation of the ochrous
pigment coming from the soil, for instance proximity to rusting iron compounds I will
not rule out.











16

Ovaries

Still5028




17


Still5032

Less well defined than the other ovary but showing signs of centred lozenge
imagery.
1




18


Below

DSC02366

Still3346 Vulva is an important symbol from Palaeolithic times onwards
1



19


Scratched motifs

Still2328 Scratchworks are visible in her right flank. The next pages explore that area
in greater detail. There may be many more symbols here and on other areas 'than we
can reasonably discover as the placing of them as an act of worship may have been
more important than their ability to be seen again by human eye.





20


Still5037

Net motifs?
1
There are likely more scratchings and piercings than highlighted here.




21


Still5040 A complex area of scratchings on her right flank. Is that a fish?
1

Amanda saw the fish, which is convenient for my tale! More net motifs visible.





22


Checker-board scratchings

Still5017 Below where her arms nearly meet. Water signs. Amniotic fluid!
1





23


The other side


The back of the Goddess is more curved and without the hard white layer. This
exposes a vertical oblique banded structure which is perhaps naturally, perhaps
intentionally pigment stained. The banding is emphasised by incising at the shoulder
and at least 2 passes of a toothed tool run horizontally across the back. One of these
passes is seen in image still3224 and the striated nature of the grooves indicates a
lithic(flint?) tool. The diagonal pitched decoration on the front and checker-board on
the back is a parallel to Woodcock Corner Later Neolithic slate disc,
1
which was excavated in 2012 at Truro, Cornwall. Greater decorative complexity to
the back of the Goddess is implied with hints of diagonal and curved motifs with
pigmentation or is this clever suggestion from the artist without embellishing in any
way?
DSC02280 oblique view with groups
of horizontal scratches crossing the
vertical banding and 4 X 6 mm view
Still3224



24

The male year god

Still5023




25


DSC02302

The male god is a[I suggest a cylindrical(phallic)
1
or circular(spring sun)] bead
around her neck. The Clodgy Moor Goddess makes the connection explicit and
connects in style with the Vinca horned male god imagery. Masked, horned male
deities survived in folk rituals in Britain until recently.
2








26



DSC02239crop and still5022




27

With thanks to EASE Archaeology/Historic Scotland

To recap: whilst making a very short corpus of British idols on Monday 24
th
March I
spotted a spitting image of The Great Goddess in a magazine and Amanda recognised
it too, before I could open my mouth. I noted that the stone was only described as
decorated and that the same image in Orkneyjar, the essential blog by Sigurd Towrie
said it was pecked without interpreting the eyebrows. I contacted Westray Heritage
centre and they kindly forwarded my email to local archaeologists. I asked Sigurd for
permission to reprint the image and he told me copyright was with EASE
Archaeology. Hazel Moore was very positive about the comparison between the
Clodgy Moor and Orcadian stone and explained that her find predated the Westray
Wife and other eyebrowed finds in the Orkneys. Swiftly on Friday 28/3/14 her co-
director Graeme Wilson forwarded DSCF 3543 which I present to you in slightly
cropped form with thanks to EASE Archaeology/Historic Scotland.
I apologise to copyright holder, ancestors, pagans and The Great Goddess for the
brightly overwritten and provisionally annotated version which faces Her image on a
later page.
The coloured key is below:
0. Dimensions from corrugated card with 13 and a half corrugations per 10cm on
a similar box; gives 42.3 X 23.1 cm for the front face, close to the 45 X 25
quoted by Sigurd Towrie on Sept 18, 2008 and different to L36.5cm in
British Archaeology 113, p.17
1. Eyes and beak
2. Eyebrow motif
3. Circular bead on pendant
3a. [disorganised counting]Chevrons
4. False relief emergent lozenges, some with raised lozenge island in the middle
5. Pecked hatched triangles
6. Tilted lozenge emerging through surface
7. Running zig-zag
8. Small stabbed lozenges
9. Faint diagonal lines suggesting subliminal shapes
10. Strongly incised group of hatched lines forming pubic triangle
10a. Outline of wing
11. Your imagination is set free. You have permission to play with the solid
surface; the light and the shadows. See what emerges. You are part of nature
that stands apart and emerges from and disappears into this surface.
Super natural. Lose Yourself. Be.














28




DSCF3543 Copyright EASE Archaeology/Historic Scotland
Found at The Links of Noltland rescue dig in Summer 2008. Our stone was
found prior to the discovery of the Westray Wife and although the eyebrow
motif was noted the stone was found amongst surface rubble and we felt
uncertain about making more of it at the time.(Hazel Moore, 2014)
1

My comment on the photo is that the use of slanted sunlight has brilliantly
captured the surface details.



29




Again I am not proud of my overwriting and do not feel that even a much tidier
attempt would be appropriate. Drawing a moustache on an image of The Mona Lisa
would be silly if it were done more often than is required to make an important point.
1

Please look briefly at these provisional scribbles; only enough to get your eye in.
I call this art; Super Natural Art
2
and there are at least two examples from Clodgy
Moor with many more emerging as we look!




30



Further micro-montage images of The Great Goddess to be found in Clodgy Moor
Boat Slate, part 3; Through the wall. (Scribd.com) A complete view of her back on
pages 155-158 and her front lit from below on pages 149-152. Page 140 opens the
findings of the rejected tin of ochre pallettes in February 2014 . A concordance
between Boat Slate, Goddess and Woodcock Corner slate is on page 159. A
concordance between Boat slate, Goddess and DCF3543 is pending.




31










32









33



This image shows how within the left flower arm the white matrix has been
excavated. Between it and below the other flower there are scratchworks including a
checkerboard and crosses. The other flower arm has a great triangle carved out from
the edge of the stone.





34

Many Thanks; C.J. Evans for the use of this image
1







35

\k
t
k
17
I had not found many fossils when this rock caught my
eye
1

On Saturday July 3
rd
, 2010 in Needingworth Quarry, Cambridgeshire, business
studies teacher, Susie Sinclair was taking part in an earth sciences course and seeing a
rock with what she thought were some fossilised worms catching the sunlight she
showed it to her tutor, Dr. Peter Sheldon. He realised that this was no fossil and
contacted Christopher J. Evans, director of Cambridge Archaeological Unit.

I saw details of this object in the media be but did not really see it as more than a
curiosity, but searching urgently for a mainland Britain Grooved-Ware Super Natural
Art link between The Orcadian DCSF3543 and my Clodgy Moor examples on 30
th

March 2014, I asked for a larger picture in order to look for that liminal boundary
between art and nature.
Within a day C.J.Evans delivered the image and I was delighted by his generosity and
promptness. It is on the previous page. This description is from news reports:
The hand-sized artefact is thought to be 4,500 years old , it was found by a woman
taking part in a weekend geological course run by Cambridge University at Over
2
Susie was impressed with the beauty of the object and hoped that it would contain
meaning, and according to the account in The Telegraph newspaper she said:
Everyone who has seen it has interpreted it differently. Its a talking point whether
its a piece of art or a meaningless doodle.
1
[A description of the object makes it clear what is not always apparent from smaller
photos that the key motif is repeated (at a smaller scale)]:
It consists of a hand-sized slab of weathered sandstone with two pairs of concentric
circles etched[sic] into the surface- a motif which according to archaeologists is
typical of Grooved Ware art from the Later Neolithic era.
3
My description of the photo:

A slab of sandstone with a plan reminiscent of a pointed hand-axe with a semi-
circular base and bilateral symmetry suggesting some human intervention or at least a
stone chosen for its unusual shape. The side of interest has a nearly flat, slightly wavy
surface, perhaps preserving fossilised ripples. What caught Susie Sinclairs eye is an
interlocking pair of concentric circles nearly centrally placed between the major
ripples. The circles are cut, displacing the quartz crystals from the matrix; likely using
a strong and sharp tool like a flint burin and one is pit centred whilst its neighbour
has a tiny circle at its centre. Just when the brain has accommodated the spectacle; a
second smaller set appears to its lower left with a bilateral line sketched back to the
main set. (The smaller eyes seem further away)
4
With the tuition of other Super Natural Art objects in this document, the artists
intention becomes apparent; even to an adult and any child
5
will visually interrogate
every vacuole and shadowy swirl of the rock surface, finding ghostly images towards
the pointed end, snakes and scalloping near the base and lozenges and spirals on the
slabs side visible in this image.
How much is humanly worked beyond the two sets of conjoined circles?
I suggest nearly or actually zero.
How much is intended to be perceived?
The Infinite!




36

Look in to my eyes
Look into my eyes, the eyes, not around the eyes, the eyes, look into my eyes,
youre under.
1

The catch-phrase of Kenny Craig, unsuccessful stage hypnotist in BBC comedy
sketch show, Little Britain.
The importance of the eye gaze to humans is evidenced by the many idols from
ancient cultures which have enhanced eyes
2
. The spectacle idols of Mesopotamia with
perforations for eyes may be asking the worshipper to gaze through the stone itself.
Susie Sinclair speaking of her find at Needingworth Quarry said
3
:
Some people think it is a pair of eyes or a map. I think that its more than just a
doodle and I hope one day well find out.

My impression is that the humans who experienced the unknown ancient artefact from
the quarry have already suggested a correct answer in their discussions, given their
genetically millennia old bodies and minds. I think that eyes are the correct answer
and that like The Clodgy Moor Boat owl, The Clodgy Moor Goddess and The
Knowth macehead, only one of the two eyes is gazing at you so giving half attention
and day-dreaming. This inner imaginative world is fixed by looking then at the
smaller set of eyes, then imagining into the stone itself. The Needingworth circles are
similar to those associated with the eyed Folkton drums and the eyes themselves of
the Almeria, Spain decorated bone idols.



37

Im proud of my poo!
The Brodgar boy figurine is a strange segmented cylindrical object. I have drawn it
after the ORCA image in orkneyjar
1
. It looks like a poo![In my opinion: will it ever
look the same again to you?]
The scatological and the sacred might seem untenable and perhaps this object was
meant to amuse rather than evoke the divine but perhaps it was that too!
We are familiar that the products of the cow, including its dung are sacred to Hindus
and we can find the reasoning practical and logical.
2
The Romans had a god of manure, particularly the spreading of fertiliser in fields;
3

Sterquilinus, Stereutus or Sterculius and various sources, from Gimbutas
4
to myself
5

give evidence of this practice to as early as Neolithic times.
The Ancient Egyptians had the dung beetle (scarab) as a sacred part of their
mythology with etymological associations with coming into being and
transformation
6
.
To those of you unfamiliar with the stylings of Trey Parker and Matt Stone , in their
cartoon South Park, here is after Mr Hankey(the Christmas poo). His best song
contains the lines:
Its the poo of the antelope, the poo of the giraffe.
Which falls on to the earth, and becomes the blades of grass.
7

Above: with the lower part of the baked clay Brodgar boy found a week later, the
colour, size and shape must have left a thought at the back of someone elses mind
which they were too polite to mention? The breather rings
8
and departure from
straightness at one end
9
are compelling and difficult to explain otherwise.
Was the poo a hanging toilet
10
sign for the smaller northerly building; structure 14
for public use, convenient collection for manuring and for prevailing winds to blow
the smell away from the ritually pure temple?(Structure 10).
11
Nick Card, director of
the Brodgar dig(ORCA) knows of my hypothesis.
12



38

Similarities between The Goddess and DSCF3543

Great Goddess of Clodgy Moor
DSCF3543
Diagonal pitched notional grid Head sculpting and on body details Most body details
Lithic tooling evidence Parallel scratches in hard minerals Parallel scratches
Triangle motifs Excised on head, scratches on body Pecked on body
Chevron motifs Doubled below navel Many doubled on body
Lozenge motifs Sculpts on head , scratched on body On body
Cross-hatched designs On head, and between hands On wing next to pubic triangle
False relief example Defined flowery arms Centre island of some lozenges
Pubic triangle Cut through white layer and hatched Deep horizontal lines surrounded
by pecking
Neck defined Removal of line of white layer and
shoulders nicked from sides
Natural fracture separates head
from body as if chosen for this.
Owl face Beak with in/out eyes Beak with eyebrows
Eyebrow motif Upper edge of owl face Repeated above owl face
Pierced/pecked out work Inside arms Surrounds pubic triangle
Chevrons above beak Centrally from beak to brow Through eyebrow
Faint scratch-works example On white flank On smooth wing
Zig-zag/ sawtooth On her left side above arm Above pubic triangle
Grooved Ware findspot On surface of next field Excavated from the site
1
Lithics findspot Surface finds: flint tools, greenstone
axes, stone balls
Excavated skaill knives, stone axes,
stone balls
1
Bead under neck Vinca horned head shape black
deposit
Circular , defined by false relief
with incised necklace string
Incorporates rock features into
the design. Super Natural Art
Yellow mineral head and red flowery
feature used as arms
Natural crack used to differentiate
the head from the body




A comparison between Clodgy Moor Boat Slate, Great Goddess of Clodgy Moor and
Woodcock Corner slate disc is included in Through the Wall, part 3 Of Clodgy Moor
Boat Slate. on Scribd.com











39

Super Natural Art
1
I have been educated about this art or more properly, outlook of ancient people by
The Clodgy Moor Boat Slate
2
and Great Goddess of Clodgy Moor and recognise now
other examples including DSCF3543 and Susie Sinclairs Needingworth Quarry
find. Ancient people saw the fabric or weave of the universe in the world around
them and experimented with the texture of rock and organic materials, enhancing this
aspect of the substrate in their art-works
3
and manipulating the willing viewer into
seeing this deeper structure beyond even the marks of the artist. In a sense a
religious and visionary trance or day-dream, meditation or prayer is being induced by
these objects and given that we are 50-100 000 year old beings then these objects still
work! Here are some drawings after the excellent photos of Upper Palaeolithic
examples included in Jill Cooks 2013 book: Ice Age Art,
4
which accompanied her
British Museum exhibition. Continuity of motifs into the Neolithic is noted by
Gimbutas
5
and evident to anyone familiar with Grooved Ware.



The incised cross-hatch has
lines that follow the (purple
and yellow) grain of the
ivory. The incisions on the
head mark where the grain
emerges on the head and
the notched or saw-tooth
break to the neck shows
that the very structure of
this cave lion is harlequin.
Cook gives the age as 30-
40 000 years
The oldest English
example of art has been
suggested a fake or salted
from somewhere else but
Cook includes it and I
agree. If so it is in the 10-
15 000 year age range
Like the Clodgy Moor and
Truro Woodcock Corner
examples the artist has
chosen to express a
checkerboard grid on one
side and at least the pitch
for a diagonal set one on
the other.



40

Nets and checkerboards
Marija Gimbutas on page 84 of The Language of the Goddess found that the
harlequin or net motif often was found with the checkerboard. At Truro, the
Woodcock Corner slate disc has these grids on either side. The Great Goddess of
Clodgy Moor is another example of this on front and back.
Gimbutas is not quite sure what the precise connection is. On that page she says:
The checkerboard alternates with the net in association with the same series of
symbols and appears to be synonymous. It may however, be a variation of the net,
representing a slightly different but related concept. Often the two appear together;
numerous vases are painted with checkerboard panels next to net-patterned panels.
After Gimbutas, below is an illustration of such a vase from Gumelnita, near
Bucharest, dated 4500-4300 B.C.
0

Quite simply, the sacred moist fertile weave or fabric of nature is in all dimensions
and just as the seeded lozenge means a fertile field then the whole landscape is on a
harlequin grid, such as the landscape to St. Michaels Mount seen on Clodgy Moor
Boat Slate
1
. The checkerboard(in my opinion) is more closely related to rain falling
and gives the horizontal bases of clouds and the horizon, particularly when it is on a
lake or the sea.
Clodgy Moor Boat is shown as a side view with a horizontal shoreline and vertical
mast. Using the knowledge of the conventions of skewed perspective
2
then such a
composite view makes sense. On a [horizontal]map we are happy with vertical
symbols such as a caravan(caravan site)
3
and indeed any written place names, which
otherwise would stand up like ants running across it. This sophisticated view is
ancient and can be seen in face on antler sets on the side view of deer in Palaeolithic
cave paintings.
4
So the sacred weave of nature is a fully multi-dimensional experience, as satisfying
as that of the physical universe to a modern atheist scientist!
5
[like me if I live up to
being atheist or scientist.]



41

Its Jasper
Roger, the geologist from Newlyn has without hurting the object said that the Goddess has
coloured minerals of Jasper
7.1
. In searching for a similar patterned stone at The Healing Star,
Penzance the shopkeeper said the same thing and Terence at the rock and fossil shop; I Dig
Dinos in Rochester on the 15
th
April unprompted said Jasper too
41.1
. Below is an experiment
with flint tooling to scratch the Picture jasper pebble he sold me. It is harder than bottle
glass and the flint slips on the tumbled shiny surface but once it bites then slow progess can
be made.

Rogers words about the scratches on the cream and yellow surfaces being unlikely to be
natural due to the hardness carry all the more meaning having worked a piece. To overcut
many times in the groove produces removals which can now be felt by the tips of the fingers
rather than only being seen by a loss of reflectivety. The doubled line on the left edge of her
pubic triangle must have been made by multiple passes hence the line is deliberately doubled
rather than just an effect of using a burin. The complex diagonal sculpting of the head surface
must be seen as just that and a work of sophistication that never tires the eye and appears
ever changing at each inspection. The picking out of the inside of her arm was a laborious
process, perhaps made worth attempting by the thinness of the Jasper layer, allowing pieces to
be flaked or snapped away from the weaker backing
41.2
.The red may be harder. See below.

24-25
th
April. A split red
jasper from Marazion beach.
Ground smooth on granite
then scratched with difficulty
with hardest white quartz-
included flint, generating red
sparks. Eyebrow, pubic
triangle and notch developed
from natural features.



42

The third figurine from Noltland
On May 1
st
I saw an image of the third figurine from Noltland, Westray in slanted
light from above. Seeing not only an owls head but a suggested V on the body and
Super Natural work in the rock grain with the obvious appearance of feathers meant
that I needed to show you this image.
Malcolm Irving, curator of images has let me use this free for an academic
publication with thanks to him and correct attribution as requested in his email today
on 5
th
May:
Crown Copyright Historic Scotland, reproduced courtesy of Historic Scotland
www.historicscotlandimages.gov.uk

SA_LH_LoNFigurine_(009)_01.jpg [Westray Wife and third figurine]


I suggest that the two circles on Westray Wife are not
dress fastenings as some suggest, but actually agree
with those that say they are breasts. In that case the
destroying aspect of the owls face above is balanced by
the nurture of a mothers milk. Its larger and I believe
to scale companion to the right is as lumpy as The Wife
is smooth. It might be dismissed as poorly finished or
suffering from its age, but I think that there is slightly
too much order in the surface. We can take the cues that
the image-maker has given us about interpreting the
details of the head by reading across to The Wife. The
body of the third figurine when seen in this light is too
similar to DSCF3543 and I think is full of clever Super
Natural embellishments with the V too big to notice
and owly feathers imaginable everywhere.
Notice how the beak is formed by removal of rock
is achieved on the body motif, emphasising the regene-
and a similar effect
rative aspects of both.
1



43

Front or back?
Today on 7
th
May I again have to thank images curator; Malcolm Irving. Here as an
experiment in completeness is the second figurine found at Links of Noltland,
Westray. Crown Copyright Historic Scotland. Images courtesy of Historic Scotland.
www.historicscotlandimages.gov.uk



I think that the clay was possibly made out of pellets of shapes defined by the fine and
major cracks on the back as though assembling her body from its parts and if not
then at the very least some definition was worked into it , shown by the red lines.
These were the source of hairline cracks during drying shrinkage. Body parts; 2 large
breasts, the shoulders/neck and belly were defined by a diagonal cross and the pubic
triangle as another element with the tops of the thighs on either side. This is like a
Palaeolithic corpulent figurine with familiar Neolithic fertile lozenge field/womb
symbols on what I call her back. There may be some testable ideas here by
experimental assemblage/firings and closer inspection to timeline the order of
damage to the clay.



Above left: Front
1
. Exterior of clay is reddish from
oxidation during firing. Later breaks and losses when
cool show a lighter, greyer colour. A diagonal break runs
through the lower body with a wedge shaped piece
missing and some missing on the other side showing a
hackly finish. The head is also lost. The front is flat and
was deeply incised and pierced at the centre which has
been interpretted as the belly button
2
. It appears to be
more consolidated without voids and fine cracks as
though pressed onto a flat surface before decorating.



44


Acknowledgements
The opinions here and particularly the criticisms are mine alone.
Original contributions and sanity checks have come from the noble and ancient minds
of Adam Blunsdon, Alison, Amanda Hill, Cheryl Straffon, C.J. Evans, Eirlys Hill,
Graeme Wilson, Hazel Moore, Lana, Malcolm Irving and Historic Scotland, Nick
Card, Oliver Hawker, Rodney Blunsdon, Roger the geologist, Ronald Hutton, Terence
Collingwood and the sharp eyes of the finders: Susie Sinclair and Jakob
Kainz(Westray Wife)

References and notes [should be impressively long and boring]
7.1 Discussion with Roger, a geologist living in Newlyn on 2
nd
April and viewing The
Goddess. He would have wanted to have carried out scratch tests for hardness,
coloured streak etc., so his conclusions are more provisional than he would have
liked. He thinks that the red flowery structure is red jasper, hence the yellow head
is also (yellow) jasper (or citrine; all being coloured quartzes)and the white sheet
mineral is likely quartz. The unusual combination of minerals are from its formation
in a lode with high temperature solutions depositing volatile minerals including iron
compounds. The staining might be natural as near the surface, weathering and
oxidation occur. This solifluction or freeze/thaw in glacial conditions produced a
decomposed granite(rab) layer a metre or so deep which by the cyclical process
especially in cold summers makes the material flow down hill. A fault or mineralised
vein could have been under the field and there might be other similar stones in the
plough soil. The stone has numerous scratches which appear to have purpose and
would have been less likely to be natural due to the apparently hard chalcedony and
quartz materials. And: on 8
th
April I visited The Healing Star shop at the top of
Causeway Head, Penzance and showing an image of The Goddess to the shopkeeper
she said that it looked like Jasper and I bought a piece of brecciated Jasper which
had some similar hues and scalloped features.
7.2 Gimbutas, Marija.1989. The Language of the Goddess. Thames & Hudson.
p.194-5 The review made here of the symbols associated with the Owl Goddess-
snake as umbilical cord, vulva, triangle, hatched or zig-zag band, net, labyrinth, bi-
line, tri-line, hook, axe- shows them to be life source, energy, or stimulating symbols.
Their association with the Owl Goddess of Death serves to emphasize regeneration as
an essential component of her personality. The agony of death which we take so much
for granted is nowhere perceptible in this symbolism.
9.1 I have been looking at the few internet pictures of Grimes Graves Goddess,
hoping that the surface scratches might be signs of genuine early symbols that might
be less well known in the discovery date of 1939. This was promising but Piggott,
1954 (see 9.2), plate IV shows that the most interesting scratches on her left flank
which looked similar to those on the right flank of the Great Goddess of Clodgy
Moor are very weakly and waveringly wrought and cut through by damage. Gillian
Varndell in 1991 researched Grimes Graves and casts considerable doubt on its
authenticity. From:
Hutton, Ronald. 1999. The Triumph of the Moon. A History of Modern Pagan
Witchcraft. Oxford. p?
An investigation into it [Grimes Graves Goddess] was carried out by Gillian
Varndell, as part of a general reappraisal of the Grimes Graves material, and in 1991



45

she reported the following points: the excavation was never published, Armstrongs
site notebook stopped abruptly on the day of the discovery, without recording it
properly, on the day of the find, most unusually he had directed all other experienced
excavators to leave the area. The figurine and vessel look surprisingly freshly carved,
and somebody on Armstrongs team was an expert carver because similar objects
made from the same chalk rock, like an Egyptian sphinx, were among his possessions
from the dig. Culturevoyage.co.uk expand upon the details:
He [A. L. Armstrong] had been excavating Grimes Graves for years and when you
make a big find like this you normally increase the site activety, not halt it.
His fiancee at the time was an accomplished chalk carver. She would spend her days
in their car with bits of flint and chalk, carving away. He asked her repeatedly to stop
doing this but eventually she made an identical replica of this figurine which horrified
him so much he called off their wedding.
In her will, Armstrongs fiancee asked that the replica she made be destroyed. So we
have no photographs of it or records of that object. Gillian Varndell, keeper at the
British Museum, investigated the case and concluded that the figurine was a modern
piece and that it was put there deliberately by someone in 1939, maybe to fool the
excavators. Armstrong had spent the whole season digging and perhaps someone
wanted to cheer him up.

9.2 Piggott, Stuart. 1954. The Neolithic Cultures of the British Isles, p.87, fig.14;
4Windmill Hill, 10 Maiden Castle and PLATE IV Chalk figurine from shrine, pit 15,
grimes Graves Flint Mines
9.3 British Archaeology, Mike Pitts(Ed.) July/Aug 2010 p.13-17(p.17;[image of front
and back] local sandstone figurine[Westray Wifie] from structure 8 held by finder
Jakob Kainz
9. British Archaeology, Mike Pitts(Ed.) Jan/Feb. 2013(p.21[image] the Brodgar
figurine, a clay object with a crude face, was found in 2011 in the rubble of structure
14. A few days later the rest of the object turned up(inset) leaving its true identity a
mystery(head 30 mm long)
9.4 Holy Bible, New Living Translation. Exodus 20: 1-6
Then GOD instructed the peoples as follows:
I am the LORD your God, who rescued you from slavery in Egypt.
Do not worship any other gods beside me.
Do not make idols of any kind, whether in the shape of birds or animals or fish. You
must never worship or bow down to them, for I am the LORD your God, am a
jealous God who will not share your affection with any other god! I do not leave
unpunished the sins of those who hate me, but punish the children for the sins of their
parents to the third and forth generations. But I lavish my love on those who love me
and obey my commands, even for a thousand generations.
9.5 Wikislam.net/wiki/Pagan_Origins_of_Islam
The prophet entered Mecca and (at that time) there were three hundred-and-sixty idols
around the Ka aba. He started stabbing the idols with a stick he had in his hand and
reciting Truth(Islam) has come and falsehood (disbelief) has vanished.Sahih
Bukhari 3:43:658
Veneration of the Black-stone.
The pagan gods of pre-Islamic Arabia were worshipped in the form of rectangular
stones or rocks. For example the pagan deity Al-Lat mentioned in quran 53;19 and
believed by pre-Islamic pagans to be one of the daughters of Allah, was once



46

venerated as a cubic rock at Taif in Saudi Arabia. An edifice was built over the rock
to make it apart as the house of worship.
Al-lat stood in al-Taif, and was more recent than Manah. She was a cubic rock
beside which a certain Jew used to prepare his barley porridge(sawiq). Her custody
was in the hands of banu-Attab ibn-Malik of Thayif, who had built an edifice over
her[] she is the idol which god mentioned when He said, Have you seen Al-Lat
and al-Uzza (Surah 53:19)? Kitab Al-Asnam(Book of idols), p.14
A principal sacred object in Arabian religion was the stone, either a rock outcropping
or a large boulder, often a rectangular or irregular black basaltic stoneof numerous
baetyls, the best known is the Black-stone of Ka aba at Mecca which became the
central shrine object in Islam. Encyclopaedia Britannica
11.1 see 9.1
15.1 Gimbutas, see 7.2. p.265 Why is the role of bucranium so prominent among the
symbols of becoming? And why such close association with the Goddess? It seems
that the key to this question lies in the extraordinary likeness of the female uterus and
fallopian tubes to the head and horns of a bull, as noticed by Dorothy Cameron in her
book on Symbols of Birth and Death in the Neolithic Era (Cameron 1981a: 4, 5. She
gives a diagram of the female reproductive organs from a medical textbook, here
reproduced). (FIGURE 411) [image]This similarity Cameron believes, is likely to
have been discovered with the development of the excarnation process of burial.
17.1 Gimbutas, see 7.2 p.144 FIGURE 222[image] These clay seals feature dots
within lozenges, symbolic of seeds within the womb or field.
18.1 Gimbutas, see 7.2. p.100 FIGURE 161[image] An enormous pubic triangle fills
the front of this ivory waterbird, also marked with Bird Goddess and aquatic
symbolism. Here bird, goddess and human vulva are symbolically connected. Upper
Palaeolithic(Mezin, R Desna, Ukraine; c. 18,000-15,000 B.C.) H.8.67 cm. and:
FIGURE 162 The vulva continues to appear amidst aquatic symbolism in later
epochs, as on this Neolithic clay figurine. It is the source of or gateway to the waters
of life. Lengyel (Krepice, district of Hrotorice, Czechoslovakia; 6
th
mill. B.C.
H.7.7cm.
20.1,Gimbutas, see 7.2 p.81 FIGURE 128 [image]On these figurines, the connection
between the net motif and the pubic triangle or lower body of the Goddess is clearly
made
21.1, Gimbutas, see 7.2 p.82 FIGURE 130[image] the net linked with fish and
uterine forms and associated with Xs and tri-lines emerges during the Upper
Palaeolithic, as these objects from the Magdalenian epoch indicate.
22.1,Gimbutas, see 7.2 p.82. Hourglass and cross symbols alongside net-patterned
squares are known from the Neolithic subterranean tombs (hypogea) of Sardinia and
also on Neolithic ceramics. The chronology of most of the Paris basin caves bearing
such signs is likely to be Neolithic. These mysterious places were surely sacred to the
Goddess, the owner of life-water, the Giver of Life.
23.1 www.cornwall.gov.uk Woodcock Corner: a Neolithic enclosure . And:
www.Scribd.com Hill, G. 2013. Truro EDC incised slate disc.
25.1Bord, Colin & Janet. 1982. Earth Rites. Granada.p.20 [image] phallic head from
Eype, Dorset (bottom left). For the Celts the severed head was a powerful of the life
force, and in Celtic art the head and phallus are often combined.
25.2 Bord, C & J. 1982. Ibid. p.210-11. A carved and painted wooden mask from
Melbury Osmond in Dorset depicted a terrifying human face with protruding eyes and
large horns sprouting from his head. This was called the Ooser (pronounced wurser)
and was designed to be worn on the performers head while his body would probably



47

have been covered in an ox hide or material to resemble such. There is no record of
any ceremony connected with the Ooser, and the only known mask was lost in the
early years of this century.
38

Another celebration of the horned fertility god took place at Charlton in Kent until
1872. This was the Horn Fair on 18 October, St. Lukes Day, whose emblem is the
horned ox. Horns were worn or carried by everyone. 38.ibid., p.153; Folklore, Myths
and Legends of Britain. (London: Readers Digest Association, 1973. p.164)
28.1 Email 26 Mar 2014 from Hazel Moore Re:Permission to use a finds photo.
Email 28 Mar 2014 from Hazel Moore. Graeme Wilson sends image DSCF3543
29.1Duchamp. Marcel. 1919. L.H.O.O.Q In L.H.O.O.Q. the objet trouve (found
object is a cheap postcard reproduction of Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa onto
which Duchamp drew a moustache and beard in pencil and appended the title.
(Wikipedia)
29.2 Super Natural Art I set myself the task of naming it, using the conventions of a
two word label ie Pop Art. Super split away from natural, I think will cause the
careful reader to dwell on the subtle meanings in the new word whilst borrowing a lot
of ideas already available in the supernatural
In late March 2014 I drafted a manifesto and this edit on 3
rd
April:

Super Natural Art
We work with the grain.
We improve on nature.
Yet we are within nature.
We emerge from the rock.
And return.
With sunlight and shadow
As solid and surface.
Move and change.
Hide and reveal.
A blank sheet is strange.
We stare and stare.
Until our attention wanders.
And draw what is there.
Or crumple it up and throw it in the bin.
Then admire the crumples and begin.
Every cut, every mark jostled by an imaginary crowd .

34.1 Email from C.J.Evans Re:Fwd: Grooved\Ware rock art found in 2010 .
C.J.Evans sends rock art 1 copy.pdf
35.1 telegraph.co.uk 7:30 AM BST 17 july 2010 Worlds oldest doodle found on
rock.
35.2 cambridge-news.co.uk 16/7/2010 Ancient rock art unearthed in Cambridgeshire
village
35.3 wordpress.com Antiquarians Attic, Neolithic Stone. Tuesday, 20
th
July 2010.
35.4 Hawker, Oliver. 2014, Apr 9
th
.Comment by him in his shop(Olivers at Market
Jew Street, Penzance.) after he had developed an A4 sized copy of image of
Needingworth Quarry stone. He also said that his first thought on seeing image of the
complete Brodgar boy was the same as mine.



48

35.5 Eirlys Hill(8 years old), my daughter after telling her about the image on the way
home from school interpretted freely. Oh course that is not good science but her
young mind is getting a credit from her father!
36.1 Little Britain, BBC TV series running 2003-5, starring Matt Lucas and David
Walliams
36.2Hatcher, Paul.1999. The World Stare-out Championship Final. Bloomsberry.
Acute anthropological observation also aired on TV in Big Train and preserved on
YouTube.
36.3 see 35.1
37.1 orkneyjar.com, The Ness of Brodgar Excavations, The Brodgar Boy [image]
The complete Brodgar Boy (ORCA)
37.2 religionfacts.com/hinduism, The five products (pancagavya) of the cow- milk,
curds, ghee butter, urine and dung are all used in puja (worship)
37.3 Wikipedia.org/Sterquilinus
37.4 Gimbutas, Marija. 1991.The Civilization of the Goddess. Harper Collins, p.38
The LBK people kept domesticated cattle as their prime source of meat, milk, and
manure, as well as sheep, goats,pigs and dogs.
37.5 Hill, Graham. 2013.Oh Mother, for the love of gold! Part 2 of Clodgy Moor Boat
Slate, p.57 The Goddess of ALL fertility and
Hill, Graham. 2014. Through the wall. Part 3 of Clodgy Moor Boat Slate, p.22 Pig
behaviour and manure news. And:
Bogaard, Amy et al. 2013. Crop manuring and intensive land management by
Europes first farmers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
110(31):,12589-12594
37.6 Wikipedia.com/Scarab beetle. Several species of the dung beetle, most notably
the species Scarabaeus sacer(often referred to as the sacred scarab), enjoyed a sacred
status among the ancient Egyptians.
Popular interpretation in modern academia theorizes the hieroglyphic(the language of
the Egyptians) image of the beetle represents a triliteral phonetic that Egyptologists
translate as xpr or hpr and translate as to come into being, to become or to
transform.
37.7 Stone, Matt & Parker, Trey.2000. The Circle of Poo, Song from TV cartoon;
South Park, first aired on Comedy Central, USA. 20 Dec. 2000. Season 4, 17
th

episode: A Very Crappy Christmas (Wikipedia)
37.8 Jones, Terry (wrote foreward). 2002.from the pages of VIZ; Rogers
PROFANISAURUS,The Ultimate SWEARING DICTIONARY. Boxtree, p.26
Breather ring. An annular indentation on a long turd, indicating where the cable
layer has had to pause for breath allowing the nipsy to partially contract
37.9 see 37.1 There is very little wear on it and its tapering, segmented form could
represent a pendantthe site in which it was found-one of the last buildings
constructed on the Ness[Nick Card, Ness of Brodgar site director].
37.10 toilet-guru.com According to the explanatory material at Skara Brae site,
drainage systems have been discovered in some of the cells. According to their
interpretation, the cells may have been toilets.
37.11 see 37.1 given the area of the site in which it was found [structure 14]- one
of the last buildings constructed on the Ness- I dont think its a reflection on the site
as a whole.
May be, if it had been found in structure ten, the massive cathedral-like building,
wed be thinking differently, but it turned up in what would appear to be a not
particularly significant deposit.[Nick Card.]



49

37.12
RE: Brodgar boy reinterpretted.
FROM Nick Card TO You [received 06 April 2014 19:49]
To [Graham Hill]

Now why didn't I think of that!

From: account.verify@cc.yahoo-inc.com <amanda.blunsdon@btopenworld.com>
Sent: 06 April 2014 19:42
To: Nick Card
Subject: Brodgar boy reinterpretted.

Dear Nick,
The Brodgar boy, named after finding the top fragment would surely have had a
different name if it had been found with the lower segment and even another piece
below that.
Could it be that structure 14 was northerly sited to take the smell away from the
temple complex on the prevailing wind with purity of the site maintained and a
convenient place to gather the manure for raising crops? Visitors would know that the
building was a toilet (like the cell in the homes at Skara Brae) by the clay poo hanging
in the doorway!
All the best,
Graham Hill
Tel. 01736 330117.

38.1 see 9.2
39.1 see 29.2
39.2 Clodgy Moor Boat Slate (parts 1-3) published free online at Scribd.com
39.3 Crawford, O.G.S.1991.The Eye Goddess. p.93 on the left is a smooth round
natural hole round which the artist has scratched a few circumferential lines and
began to make a picked groove.[Dowth, Ireland]
39.4 Cook, Jill.2013. Ice Age Art: arrival of the modern mind. The British Museum
Press, p.48-50[Vogelherd lion] and p.250-3[Robin Hood Cave Horse]
39.5 Gimbutas, Marija.1989. The Language of The Goddess. Thames & Hudson.
Introduction/xix
The major aspects of the Goddess of the Neolithic- the birth giver, portrayed in a
naturalistic birth-giving pose; the fertility giver influencing growth and multiplication,
portrayed as a pregnant nude; the life or nourishment-giver and protectress, portrayed
as a bird-woman with breasts and protruding buttocks; and the death-wielder as a stiff
nude(bone)- can all be traced back to the period when the first sculptures of bone ,
ivory, or stone appeared, around 25,000 B.C. and their symbols- vulvas, triangles,
breasts, chevrons, zig-zags, meanders, cup marks-to an even earlier time.
40.0 see 39.4, p.84 Examples[net and checkerboard] range from a lower Danube
Gumelnita vessel of c. 4500 B.C. (FIGURE 135) to a Drakhmani II vase from Central
Greece, c. 2800 B.C. (FIGURE 136)Even in the Iron Age the net and checkerboard
appear together(see doe shaped vase from Kerameikos, Athens, 925-900
B.C.,fig.182).



50

40.1 Scribd.com. Hill, G. 2013. Clodgy Moor Boat Slate .2013. Clodgy Moor Boat
Slate, part 2, Oh Mother; for the love of Gold! 2014. Clodgy Moor Boat Slate, part 3,
Through the wall.
40.2 Aubarbier, J. L.et al. 1989. Wonderful Prehistory in Perigord. Editions Ouest-
France. p.94 Lascaux 2: deer in the great hall [images showing side views of deer.
Each head has one antler shown from the side and one from the front.]
40.3 Ordnance Survey Landranger 203, 1:50 000 map 1992 [image of caravan symbol
Caravan site, Terrain pour caravanes, Wohnwagenplatz]
40.4 Guthrie, R. Dale. 2005. The Nature of Palaeolithic Art. University of Chicago
Press. p.94-5. The halibut effect can involve most paired organs- horns, ears and
legs- because these paired characteristics are such a central part of an animals
identity. One other solution is to bring both horns or eyes into the drawing by simply
twisting the head to a three-quarter view. Some Palaeolithic artists did just this but
most artists took the shortcut and twisted the horns around and left the head in a
straight side view.
40.5 Dawkins, Richard. 1998. Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the
Appetite for Wonder.
There is an anaesthetic of familiarity; a sedative of ordinariness which dulls the
senses and hides the wonder of existence.
41.1www.idigdinos.com and I Dig Dinos, 64 High Street, Rochester Kent ME1 1JY
Terence Collingwood said Crikey! when he looked at The Goddess under a hand
lens and wished me Good luck in trying to find a Jasper match for the red Jasper
flowery arms.
41.2 Hall, Cally.2000. Gemstones.Dorking Kindersley.p.92 stone may break easily at
junction of stripes[Jasper(Chalcedony].and It occurs in shades of brown, greyish
blue, red, yellow, and green and mixtutres of these. Orbicular jasper has white or
grey, eye-shaped patterns surrounded by red jasper.
42.1Gimbutas, Marija.1989. see ref. 7.1
43.1 7/5/14. Wikipedia Westray Wife.
A second figurine of about the same size and shape as the Westray Wife, but made
from clay, and missing its head, was discovered by archaeologists at the same Links
of Noltland site during the summer of 2010
(3)
. This figurine, 3.4 centimetres (1.3 in.)
in height has a rectangular panel decorated with triangles on the front of the torso,
which may represent a tunic and a punched hole in the centre of its stomach.
[triangles surround the fertile (pierced) lozenge].A number of small clay balls have
also been discovered at the site, and it is possible that these were intended for use as
heads [or marbles!] for similar figurines
(3)
. A third figurine was discovered in 2012
(4)
.
(3) SALON-The Society of Antiquaries of London Online Newsletter: The Orkney
Venus gets a partner. Society of Antiquaries of London.
(4) Third 5,000-year-old figurine found at Orkney dig BBC News. 28 August 2012.
Retrieved 28 August 2012.
43.2 see 43.1