This is an extract from a book titled 'And did those feet' By Michael Goldsworthy which shows the location of the Island of Avalon the Old tin trading port of Ictis called Ruminella where Melkin the Prophet says we will find the corpse of Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea and King Arthur.
for a full explanation click on the link below to buy an ebook or paperback
http://www.amazon.co.uk/And-Did-Those-Feet-ebook/dp/B00864NTWI/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1338806617&sr=8-14
This book revolves around an island named 'the island of
Avalon' that used to be known as the island of ictis by the greek and latin
chroniclers… and anybody familiar with the Grail stories would know that it is referred
to as the island of Sarras. These three alternative names all refer to an
island that is located off the coast of Devon in England. Today the island is
known as Burgh island, but it is what is contained within that will interest
you most. If you follow the evidence of what this book has set out to account for the various traditions;
it brings into the public arena, the location of the holy Grail deep within
this Island accompanied with the bodies of Joseph of Arimathea and King Arthur.
The island of Avalon has long been considered to exist at Glastonbury. The basis for this assumption is that long before the fire that ruined the church that was rumoured to have been built by Joseph of Arimathea, there was a prophecy known as Melkin’s prophecy. The prophecy of melkin, an ancient latin text, is what Glastonbury has used as its authority to support their claim that Joseph of Arimathea was buried within the Glastonbury grounds. The prophecy of Melkin however once decoded gives precise directions to the island of Avalon and this Island is an Island called Burgh Island in Devon in southern England.
A recently published book called ‘And did those feet’
explains in much more detail how this island's location became uncertain by being kept secret to protect its monopolistic trade against the expanding Roman Empire. Several factors have contributed to the confusion surrounding this Island due to a Medieval monk renaming it 'Avallonis' and making this island the subject of a Prophecy in which he stated where one could find the island and also what would be found there. The Fraudulent treatment by the Glastonbury monks in the 12 century of this prophecy and subsequent obfuscation from various acolytes perpetrated down through
the centuries has brought many to conclude that Glastonbury tor was Avalon. Before we deal with this riddle that has been set for us to
unravel, let us deal with the synopsis of how this misunderstanding has
transpired.
Because experts have been unable to decode Melkin's
prophecy, they have assumed that Melkin never existed and his prophecy was a
13th century fraud, but one has to ask why is it that the directions in this
prophecy lead to an island known to have been used by Joseph of Arimathea on
his mercantile trips to Britain with his nephew Jesus to buy tin. The island used
to be known as the island of Ictis by the ancient Greeks and Pytheas, a Greek
explorer, wrote about this island that supplied tin to the ancient world. This
island was never discovered by the Romans but Diodorous an ancient chronicler, describes exactly the features of this island from
the writings of Pytheas. Strabo even supplies an astounding story that explains the Tin ingots or 'Astragali' found at the mouth of the river Erm just next to west Mary's Rocks. Strabo tells us of a Phonecian Sea captain wrecking his vessel on these rocks in order to Keep the location of Ictis a secret from the Roman world while being chased by a Roman vessel, which was also wrecked by being led onto the reef.
Straight after the crucifixion of Jesus, Joseph of
Arimathea regained the body of Jesus from Pontius Pilate and put it in a box
that was filled with cedar oil to preserve his body. This box later became
known as the Grail Ark from Arthurian Grail literature and specifically from
the account ‘Joseph de Arimathie’. Joseph of Arimathea brought Jesus to the
ancient island of Ictis to lay him to rest. He was, as the gospels relate, laid
in the tomb ‘that never man had been laid in before’ which had been hewed out
and he was also wrapped in white doubled over linen sheet Grave cloth. This
grave cloth or duo fassula as Melken refers to it, gradually got imprinted with
an image of Jesus over the period of 600 years.
Habet enim secum Ioseph in sarcophago duo
fassula alba & argentea, cruore prophete Jhesu & sudore perimpleta: Joseph has with him in the sarcophagus a
doubled white swaddling cloth covered with the blood and sweat of the prophet
Jesus that was folded around him.
It is hard to get more precise than this description by Melkin
especially since he is the man who gives account of how these events unfolded.
This by itself confirms that the ‘duo fassula’ is not the Grail of popular
conception but now focuses our attention on the other things that the Grail has
had associated with it. In this same extract
from the writings of milk in the person of Abba Dari mentioned in the prophecy
refers to Jesus himself. This will be elucidated later in the deconstruction of
Melkin’s prophecy
The Templars who
built a huge geometric alignment upon the British landscape through dedicated
marker churches all with the name of St
Michael, specifically sited these churches to preserve for posterity where they
had buried their treasure. This was the same place as Jesus had been
transported from the holy land by Joseph of Arimathea, who was later buried
alongside him.
It is this
amazing set of coincidences that Melkin the prophet relates in the prophecy of
Melkin. Melkin gives precise details of the island and the entrance to the cave
in this prophecy and attests to the fact that he was the last to see King
Arthur when he was buried there in the island of Avalon. It is because Jesus
was known to have been buried there that King Arthur after his fight with
Mordred, was taken to the island of Avalon, in the hope of procuring a miracle.
Sadly, King Arthur died at the island and was buried in the same tomb as the
body of Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea about 550 years after Jesus had been
brought to the British coastline.
Melkin even goes so far as to show us that he
knows that this island used to be called Ictis by telling us that the tomb is
to be found ‘up high in a Ictis’ or “Supra ad Ictis”, once decoded from the
word ‘Supradictis’. It is Melkin who is responsible for the British tradition
of Joseph of Arimathea coming to Britain in search of tin and also he is
responsible for what became known as the matter of Britain or as the French
refer to it ‘Le Matière de Brétagne’.
for the complete story click on the Links below
http://isleofavallon.blogspot.co.uk #3
Pytheas
probably did not explore much of the mainland of Thule but gives an account of
sea ice. We do not know from Thule where he
bore
southward for the return voyage but again this could be another confusion as they sailed
south for six days and nights before they reached the shores of
Britain.
We
hear little from subsequent commentators about Pytheas’s return along the
eastern shore of Britain as far as Kent but his expedition returned
successfully by the Channel and the Bay of Biscay, back to the mouth of the
Gironde.
Pytheas as a ships
navigator had mastered the use of the "Gnomon," an instrument similar
to the hexante or Sextant as it is known today. This instrument was used by
Phoenician and Greek navigators since very early times and Pytheas used it to
calculate the latitude of Massalia, which he found to be 43' 11' N, almost
matching the exact figure of 43' 18'N for where Marseilles lies today. It was a committee of merchants from
Marseilles that engaged the services of Pytheas to undergoe his voyage of
discovery. He was a renowned mathematician of that city, who was already famous
for his measurement of the declination of the ecliptic, and for the calculation
of the latitude of that city, by a method which he had recently invented of
comparing the height of the gnomon or pillar with
the length of the solstitial shadow. Many of the ancient writers disbelieved
Pytheas’ account of his journey and the distances involved and much
interpolation, interpretation and rationalisation of subsequent writers has
meant that we are now no longer sure of what has been related accurately.
It is 238
miles from the mouth of the Gironde to Ushant, a leg of the trip that Pytheas
records “as three days away” by Strabo then one days sail to the Belerion
coast. Pytheas was averaging 79.3 miles
a day. The four days, quoted by Diodorus
from the Gironde is indicating he had a quick passage from Ushant, probably
sighting the Lizard first only 89 miles away. It was hereabouts at an
undisclosed landfall, he made his enquiries to the ‘Britons’ about tin. Pytheas
was probably told it was two days further up channel, but Timaeus records that
the Britons, said the Tin would be available six days inwards in an island
which they went to in wicker framed boats covered with hide, these wicker boats
probably only used locally. It is only fifty five miles from the Lizard to
Ictis and if Pytheas did record that the journey in total was six days, Pytheas
most probably sailed along the coast for the last two days stopping overnight
so that he did not miss the island.
The Ictis of Pytheas and Diodorus showing the causeway across which were carried the tin ingots known as 'astragali'. This is the Island of Avalon named by Melkin the Prophet in his geometrical riddle showing the exact location of the sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathea which once contained the Turin Shroud until it was removed by the Templars on Christmas day in 1307.
Timaeus
recorded Pytheas in Greek, then it was rendered by Pliny the Elder in Latin,
influenced by other previous references that were possibly interpolated nearly
300 years later. This would not accord with the original detail given by
Pytheas. It seems most likely that,
Pytheas’s intention was to give a meaningful reference of six days in total to
the Island of Ictis from the Gironde, detailing “inwards” up channel from his
present location. This seems to be the obvious solution but this six day period
may indeed be in reference to another part of his trip and the context has been
muddled. One can tell that Diodorus is not giving a first-hand account but the
‘we are told’ reference from this next extracted account is most probably
referencing details given by Pytheas: Britain is triangular in
shape, similar to Sicily, but its sides are not equal. This island stretches
obliquely along the coast of Europe, to a point where it is least distant from
the mainland, we are told, is the promontory which men call Cantium,(Kent) and
this is around one hundred stades from the land, at the place where the sea has
its outlet,(The Dover Straits) whereas the second promontory, known as
Belerium, is said to be a voyage of four days from the mainland. Is this the four days from the
Gironde again, just mis-conveyed by later chroniclers in the wrong context?
The shape of the tin ingots described as
‘Astragali’ in Diodorus’s account seems to have been confused because vertebrae
bone or knucklebone were used as gaming dice and went by that name. The shape
of any discovered tin ingots from Devon and Cornwall neither resemble cubes or
the knucklebone shape. There is little credibility that can be given to this
hypothesis. These moulded convex and bun
shaped ingots in different sizes would fit into wooden framed skin covered
boats called coracles. The obvious shape of the Ingots for various reasons
would be bun shaped with no hard corners. A hemispheroid that would not tear
the animal skins of the local traders that transported the ingots to Ictis in
their coracles is the first. Naturally moulded tin formed in any dried rock
pool would be the second reason. There would be no need to schampher or to
soften the flat surface edges of the convex shape due to ‘surface tension’ of
the liquid tin as the mould cooled. By natural design, flat on one side and
convex on the other, seem to be the shape of the majority of existing examples
including the recent find of ingots in the Erm mouth. This shape would make
them ideal to fit between the wooden framing of any coracle and present a
completely flat interior for its occupants, following the curve of the boat.
This would avoid point and weight loading of any part of the skin. The exterior of the Astragali would always
present to the skin face a surface unlikely to rip or damage and be kept in
place by the surrounding wooden framing. By placing and packing the Astragali
as a removable floor the traders would be spreading the weight throughout the
coracle while at the same time creating ballast at a low centre of gravity.
This would be the optimum means of transport at sea to avoid the cargo becoming
loose during passage. The shape of the
Astragali over time, was probably
standardised by popular agreement, in
moulds eroded by rain or river used by early ‘Tinners’, hence all the different
sizes, but the shape for shipping being the essential element. The third reason as C.F.C Hawkes points out, can
be deduced from Diodorus’s description of the ingots passage to the mouth of
the river Rhone by horse or mule , a passage of about thirty days ‘on
foot’. The ingots would be better shaped
for saddle bags on these pack horses. The optimum size of the ingots would have
evolved by feedback from the pilots of coracles. It is not even clear whether
Pytheas when he refers to coracles is referring to the traders or the suppliers
from the different river mouths transporting their tin to Ictis along the coast
to the central agency. Certainly this would have been the easiest way to get
ingots from areas downstream of the rivers running from southern Dartmoor. 
St Michael's mount which could never have been Ictis without ripping the bottom of the coracles at certain states of the tide.
Find out more by clicking the link below
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/and-did-those-feet-michael-goldsworthy/1110960654?ean=9781780883007
In 1191 the bones of King Arthur were unearthed supposedly at Glastonbury Abbey. It was rumoured that a cross was found with him which convieniently stated that King Arthur, (i.e the bones just unearthed), were found in Avalon confirming to those that needed to be persuaded, that Avalon was in fact Glastonbury. The reason the monks at Glastonbury committed fraud such as this was because of the Grail legends that emanated from France which associated King Arthur with Joseph of Arimathea. These were now prevalent and Glastonbury needed an association with a saint to pull in the Pilgrims. Also because of Melkin’s prophecy, Joseph had always been associated with Glastonbury because of his Church that william of Malmesbury attests to.
Nobody was too sure where the island of Avalon was, but everybody knew that King Arthur and Joseph of Arimathea, were buried in Avalon. Neither William of Malmesbury nor Geoffrey of Monmouth associated Glastonbury with the Island of Avalon at the time they wrote. This was a later corruption by monks and the sole purpose of producing the fraudulent cross was to establish Glastonbury as Avalon. If Glastonbury could only be established as Avalon by the unearthing of King Arthur, then it must follow the Joseph of Arimathea was also buried within the Abbey grounds if all were convinced that Glastonbury was Avalon. To unearth Joseph of Arimathea, however, would prove difficult as it was known that he was buried with the holy Grail. Since the monks were not apprised of what the holy Grail consisted of, it was easier to fabricate the unearthing of King Arthur with a cross attesting to the fact that where he was unearthed was indeed Glastonbury and therefore it must be the island of Avalon. The reason Joseph of Arimathea needed to be associated with Glastonbury is because the monks needed funding to rebuild their Abbey after the fire.
Prior to the fire of 1184, there existed a prophecy written by a monk called Melkin. In this prophecy, (once it is decoded), Melkin supplies very pertinent information in geometric instructions, that gives precise directions to an island in Devon. This island is Burgh island in Devon. Melkin states that the body of Joseph of Arimathea lies in the southern angle of a bifurcated line. Once Melkin's code is deciphered, it clearly portrays that Avebury is the point on the St. Michael’s ley line, which in his puzzle, he refers to as a ‘sperula’or sphere, meaning a stone circle. This is the point within the Avebury stone circle complex which, at 13°, if one scribe's a line through Montacute to Burgh island (which Melkin calls the island of Avalon), it is exactly one hundred and Four nautical miles, the exact number that Melkin gives. We should not forget that Father William good deposited this clue in the English college at Rome. Someone or some organisation had tried to eliminate this information from Maihew's Trophea to prevent the Joseph line being found but luckily this clue was preseved in Stillingfleets private collection and thus acts as a confirmation that the line is Genuine. It also seems that several marker churches that identified the genuine Avalon were also destroyed to prevent this information coming into the public arena.
The location of Avalon has always been thought to exist at Glastonbury but with a recent study of some of the oldest text and the uncovering of the fraud concerning King Arthur carried out by the monks at Glastonbury, it is evident that Avalon is in Devon . The references that Melkin gives are part of a geometric riddle that once solved, points straight to the island in Devon which is obviously fits Diodorus’s description as Ictis.
This is in
fact named in the Grail stories as the island of Sarras named after Judah’s
eldest son Zarah, who broke the womb first. His name has the same pronunciation
as Sarra in French and his descendants came to the south-west and were the
primordial miners of tin on southern Dartmoor who brought their tin to this
island to be sold. This is the reason that in the Grail stories, the island is
called Sarras and to which the holy Grail was brought. It is to this island
that after the crucifixion of Jesus, when his body was taken down from the
cross by his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, it was then conveyed to a box filled
with Cedar oil so that it might preserve his corpse. This box or coffin known
as the Grail Ark was then conveyed with Joseph and several others from
Jerusalem to the island of Sarras, which Joseph knew well, having visited many
times previously on his mercantile trips with Jesus. This island had been known
about in the Greek chronicles because Pytheas a Greek explorer had visited the
island on his expedition to find amber which they did not realise was the
sometime by product of tin and copper smelting. The island was kept secret over
many years since Pytheas’ visit, until Joseph of Arimathea visited the island
with Jesus on one of his trips abroad gathering metals.
It was to
this island previously known as Ictis that Joseph of Arimathea chose to convey
the Grail ark and place Jesus in an old tin vault that had been shut down or
made redundant due to the Roman invasion. For about 1000 years, the island
called Burgh island had been the place on the coast where all the tin miners up
on southern Dartmoor had brought their tin to be stored in the vault. This
transpired so that visiting traders could take away tin at any time and the
island acted as a trading post. It is for this reason that Diodorous refers to
it as an ‘emporium’. It becomes clear now the reason that Joseph of Arimathea
knew the island very well. Strabo even relates the story behind the cache of
tin ingots found at the head of the Erm.
The gospels
relate that Jesus was laid to rest in a hewed out tomb belonging to Joseph of
Arimathea and the rumours still persisted as eyewitnesses had seen the doubled
over white shroud that covered his body as he lay in the Grail ark. One wonders
if the Gospel accounts of the burial of Jesus are just the echoes of the
misconstrued eyewitness accounts that existed in Jerusalem just after the
resurrection. This set of events aslo explains why the flower imprints were
found on the Turin shroud. This is fully explained in detail in a book called
‘And did those feet’, written by Michael Goldsworthy as new theory as to how
the Grail stories, the Arthurian legend at Glastonbury and the gospels
interlink and provide evidence of the whereabouts of the body of Jesus.
Melkin, who
actually wrote the original book of the Grail, which ended up over in France
and gave rise to the many Arthurian Grail romances now is understood to be the
same person who provided the rumours of Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury. So
now we have a tomb containing King Arthur, Joseph of Arimathea and Jesus that
was last shut when Melkin moved to France in around 600AD, sometime after the Saxon
invasion. However the Templars, once they have been disbanded in the Middle
Ages, were also privy to this island location and they knew what was buried
within. It was here on Christmas Day in 1307 that they decided, (after King
Philip and the Pope had disbanded their organisation), to relocate their
treasure that they had managed to recuperate and ammased it into three treasure
ships that left La Rochelle on 13Tth October 1307.
While
depositing their treasure in the tomb they removed the Shroud of Jesus that had
been submerged in the Cedar oil for 600 years while covering his body. It is
inside this vault that the image of Jesus on the Turin Shroud was formed while
draped over the body of Jesus in Cedar oil. The evaporated Cedar oil has left a
caramel like substance all over the Turin Shroud, but the image itself was
formed by the detritus left behind by anaerobic bacteria.
Only 50 years
later, one of the Templars that died with Jack de Molay near Notre Dame in
Paris, had a granddaughter that produced the Turin Shroud. This is not
coincidence and answers the many questions of why there is no provenance for
the Shroud of Turin prior to 1354. The Shroud had existed within the tin vault
until the Templars arrive and remove it. The song which became a Christmas
Carol; ‘I saw three ships come sailing in on Christmas Day in the morning’ is
really the echo of the Templars bringing their treasure to the island of Avalon
in Devon. However, this song had always been associated in Cornish tradition to
the visit of Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea. It was the Templars, however, that
marked out all the churches dedicated to St. Michael that lie along the St.
Michael Ley line. Oddly enough, it is the other St. Michael churches that we
used as markers, that confirm that the island of Avalon is indeed Burgh island
in Devon
It
is this line that Melkin refers to, which, when bifurcated within the Avebury
stones at 13° and a line is scribed for 104 nautical miles it lands on this
same island. Unequivocably Melkin understands the connection between the island
of Ictis used by Joseph of Arimathea and clearly calls it the island of Avalon.
Firstly, it is known by the Greeks as Ictis, secondly, as the island of Sarras
by the French Grail writers and thirdly, as the island of Avalon named as such
by Melkin originally and made to appear as pertaining to Glastonbury tor by
some devious medieval monks . It is even referred to as the island of Avaron by
some of the Grail writers.
The unofficial anthem written by William Blake called Jerusalem starts with the line ‘And did those feet’. This is the title of the book written by Michael Goldsworthy , which conveys the same story that Jesus visited England while accompanying his father, Joseph of Arimathea to Britain. The book called ‘And did those feet’clearly deciphers Melkin’s prophecy, so that it becomes apparent that Melkin knew where the island of Avalon was and what existed within it. To fully understand this extraordinary set of events, go to the link provided below and buy the ebook.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/And-Did-Those-Feet-ebook/dp/B00864NTWI
Bigbury and Burgh Island and its associations to the
Biblical Zerah,The Tinners and onward down through the Ages.
Bigbury,
aptly named, is a small village situated one and a half miles from Bigbury on Sea,
the small seaside Hamlet that derives its name from that which is buried on the
island opposite, across the sand causeway.
For years, the wagons related by Pytheas would have passed through
Bigbury, having come along the tidal road from Aveton Gifford, conveying their
tin ingots down to the fabled island of Ictis.
The small village just along the road called St Anne's Chapel, named
after Jesus's grandmother, most probably commemorating the arrival with the Magdalene
while Kingston, the next village was named after the arrival of Jesus himself
or one of Joseph’s descendants such as Arthur. Loddiswell (the Lords well) is
on the route that the Tin was carried down to Ictis from Southern Dartmoor . Challaborough opposite the Island would seem
to derive its name from after the Templar visit when the Grail was deemed to be
a Chalice.
Aveton Gifford
situated at the tidal limit of the River Avon, received its name from being
situated on the River Avon, Aune or Aven on the oldest maps, and also from Walter
Giffard, Lord of Longueville, who was appointed a commissioner by William the
Conqueror to compile the Domesday Book. Strangely enough it was a descendant of
his a one Walter Giffard that built the St.Michael church at Brent Tor around
1155, before many of the Templar churches.
Kingsbridge
the largest market town in the South Hams at the Head of the Salcombe Estuary,
most probably derived its name from the northern most limit of the Southern
promontory kingdom described by Pytheas as Belerion which defined the
southernmost limit of the Saxon named county of Wessex at a later date. Bolt
head and Bolt tail received their name from the God Bel from Zerah’s arrival. It is very probable that since early times
Devon and Cornwall survived as a small kingdom since the arrival of Zerah,
financed by the tin trade through to the time of King Arthur. Geoffrey of
Monmouth’s account bestowed on Arthur a Welsh backdrop but as explained earlier,
that tradition is most likely derived from Celtic association rather than from
purely Welsh historical fact. It is more
likely that Arthur defended the South West, not going further than Dorset yet
his fame became national when he defeated the encroaching Saxons.
The earliest writer to
describe the Battle of Mons Badonicus, King Arthur's greatest victory, is in
the ‘De Excidio
et Conquestu Britanniae, written by the monk, Gildas in the mid-6th century. In these writings,
Gildas states that the battle was a major victory for the Britons after a period of continual encroachment by the Saxon invaders. Gildas went onto relate
that this halted the Saxon advancement and brought a short period of
peace. Gildas related that this siege
took place 44 years before the writing of his book. Although not named by Gildas (but nor is
anyone else), it seems that Arthur is accredited with this victory. So this
puts King Arthur in the right location at the right time in history, as the
siege is supposed to have taken place at Badbury hillfort in Dorset.
Figure 59 Showing the tidal road up to Aveton Gifford with the Serpentine river flowing down to Burgh Island as it is depicted in Leonardo’s ‘Yarnwinder’ painting
Aveton Gifford's
history and connection with the tin trade since the earliest times, is now
completely forgotten due to the secrecy maintained around the island that it
once served as a probable provender of the gatekeeper community that existed on
Folly hill. Domesday much later, records Jewish roots in the area, a certain
‘Judhael holds Loddiswell’ that includes a fishery that pays 30 salmon. The island of Ictis would have been decommissioned,
just prior to Jesus having been buried there, during the gradual southern
advancement after the Roman invasion. It
is incredible that Pliny the Elder referred to this island of Ictis long after
the island had been made redundant and Jesus had found his rest within. The southern British tin trade would have
experienced decreases in demand as the Romans captured the tin deposits in
northern Spain and Portugal after the defeat of the Carthaginians in 206
BC. Due to the overall increase in
demand worldwide at that time, the lull would have been shortlived. The Veneti, cousins of the Devonians made up
a large tribe which inhabited western Gaul and who were in the business of conveying
the tin over to France as Diodorous related for its 30 day journey south to
Marseille. It is probably at this point
in 56 BC after Julius Caesar had destroyed all the ships of the Veniti that Ictis’s
prominence started to dwindle.
The ancestry
of the Dumnonni, the ‘Devon People,’ who in part were derived from Zerah, constituted
the main part of a legendry kingdom with such progeny as Utherpendragon, King
Arthur and Galahad, which evaded as long as possible the Roman encroachment and
kept secret, the contents of the Island of Avalon. After the Roman conquest, came the running
down of stock and eventual closure of Ictis, as it would have acted as a focal
point for pillage and until the time of King Arthur there was a move westwards
of the tin trade into Cornwall with the advancements of mining methods. With the arrival of the Saxons, there was a migration
across the channel of some of the Dumnonian population, into western France to
Amorica, where many of the Celtic race of Dumnonni had close ties to the
Veniti, which eventually became known as Little Britain or Brittany. However, the Devon and Cornwall kingdom that
once existed before the Roman invasion, got squeezed further west into Cornwall
as the Romans occupied Exeter and Plymouth.
Hence, for the first four or five centuries after the Roman invasion,
the illustrious line of Kings descended from Judah and Joseph stayed south
probably moving west of the Tamar toward Tintagel and eventually, after Rome's
demise, re-emerged further north to keep the Saxons at bay. The Location of
Avalon was still known as it is here that Arthur was transported in the hope
that a miracle might be wrought upon his wounded body.
In ancient
times, from the melting of the last ice age 10,000 years ago, there was a
gradual separation of the landmass between France and Britain as rivers poured
across the lowland plain of Lyonesse. Eventually this gave rise to a coastline
that extended out as far as Eddystone rock around 6000 years ago as the English
channel flooded. As all these rivers ran
off the Moors, cutting through the granite, the cassiterite was separated for
the early ‘Tinners’ to gather and this marked the beginning of the Bronze Age in
Britain.
Not only is
this Bronze Age activity, evident throughout Dartmoor, but we can see its early
beginnings less than 8 miles distant from Ictis, on the escarpment between the
Erm and the Avon Rivers, and in the valleys on either side. Here, an early
establishment fanned out, towards Plymouth and northward, centred around the
obvious advantage offered by Ictis as a tin depot, which eventually came to
serve the whole of Dartmoor
Figure 60 Showing the remains of three round ’Tinners’ huts in the foreground which have nearly been submerged by the Avon dam. The picture is taken from the dam wall looking up the valley toward the river’s source on Dartmoor where a Bronze age burial Cairn is visible
Evidence of
scars upon the landscape, with deep gullies and large indentations into the
hillsides, contours scoured into the land by the Tinners industry, are a record
of the immense mining activity carried out from the discovery of tin until the
beginning of the Roman era. The longest
stone row anywhere in Britain and the abundance of standing stones and cairns
above Ivybridge and South Brent, all bear witness to a hive of industry by the
late Neolithic and early Bronze Age Tinners. In fact this area gives the
largest density of these stone works anywhere in Britain. The early days of the
Tinners after gravitating from the riverbed's themselves, evolved to the
process of tin streaming, much as one would look for gold, which in turn
evolved into later processes of ‘costeaning and shamelling’, leaving scars of
shallow pits which followed the veins or lodes. This evolution eventually gravitated
westward toward Plymouth, as aboveground sources dwindled and then to mining further
north on the moors at a later date. The
smelting process from the early Tinners was fairly basic and consisted of
heating the black tin and converting it into white tin at source, by simply
lighting a fire in a hole in the ground or rock pool and retrieving the smelted
ore from the ashes in the ground. This
process was obviously very inefficient and over a period of 1,500 years accompanied
by the later evolution of bellows and furnaces, ‘blowing houses’ evolved which
came to be known as ‘Jews houses’.
In an area
called Shipley Bridge, just below the Avon dam there is early evidence of
wooden pegs been used along fault lines within the granite outcrops, which upon
expansion would separate the granite along the lode line exposing the tin ore,
which could then be scraped away from the granite block. There is also another strange feature at
Shipley Bridge the like, of which is not evident elsewhere around the moors;
and that is the abundance of Lebanese Barouk cedars, of the same variety as
those found in Lebanon today from the Chouf Region. It is possible
that these have self-perpetuated since the days of the arrival of Zerah, as it
was not uncommon practice to carry the seeds of useful trees from one's own
homeland, especially as these trees were ideal for construction with the
minimum amount of cuts. It is clear from
archaeological evidence, that these straight poles, were used abundantly in the
settlements surrounding the reservoir, such as ‘Riders Rings’ and those on Hickaton
Hill, where findings showed that conical roofs of the huts were supported by a
central pole and then again by an interior ring of posts a meter inside the
external wall.
Figure 60a Showing ‘Riders Rings’ a Bronze age hut enclosure with the remains of several huts and the tin producing Valley in the background.
Archaeological
evidence is prolific, with signs of small communities living and herding on the
edge of southern Dartmoor, until the boom arrived and the tin export bonanza
was born. These Tinners were in the business of supplying the Mediterranean
cultures in exchange for their sophisticated wares and delicacies such as wines,
pottery and jewellery. Diodorous
commenting on the Celtic thirst, related that the Mediterranean traders got a
good price for each amphora of wine, being exchanged for a slave by the
Dumnonian.
Geologically the vertical nature of what used
to be a horizontally formed sedimentary slate found throughout the rock at Burgh
Island, gives a perfect environment in which to construct a storage cave. Just
as a hump back bridge maintains its structure, so too this island will have not
moved and the keystones comprising the vault ceiling will have been locked in
place since the cave was hewed.
Burgh Island,
‘where the Aven's waters with the sea are mixed; Saint Michael firmly on a rock
is fixed’, so aptly described by Camden, is one of the most beautiful sights to
behold as one descends down the old tin route from Bigbury. Today, there stands
a large Art Deco hotel where the chapel dedicated to St. Michael once stood. The island was referred to in 1411 as St.
Michael de la burgh or the island of St. Milburga later and as an iceberg translates
as an island or rock of ice, so a ‘burgh’ meant rock or island, giving the
appellation in this book, ‘St. Michael’s Rock’. Early maps show that the chapel
stood on the top of the island where the ‘Huers hut’ now stands. It is even rumoured that there once stood a
monastery on this island, but this will be covered in a later chapter as it
appears the rumour of this Island caused
much confusion for the early community of Mont-saint-Michel. There are records
of Monks from Buckfastleigh maintaining a Light house on the Island which does
seem a little odd given the Islands remoteness and Lack of prominence within
the bay of Bigbury. The reason for their interest in keeping a light might just
have been a cover, taking over guardianship from a now disbanded monastic
presence. It would appear however that the Norman Benedictines of
Mont-saint-Michel had heard of an Island called ‘St. Michael by the sea’ and
that Island at Burgh Island was worth faking a charter to get ownership, but they occupied St.Michael’s mount in
Cornwall by mistake thinking they were in fact taking ownership of a rumoured
island that was a tomb of great importance.
If we are correct about the directions given
by Melkin in his riddle refering to a place of Prayer ‘ad orandam’ at the
verge, there must have been something that resembled a religious building in
the six or seven hundreds before Melkin
left for Mont-saint-Michel. One must not forget that Melkin was not aware of what
would transpire in the interim concerning any community at Burgh Island. The ’duo
fassula’ has been taken from the vault and possibly an older place of prayer
has been destroyed since the time he wrote, until the replacement St. Michael
church was built. One translation of Melkin’s directions could be rendered, Ora tor
cratibus preparatis super potentem
adorandam uirginem supradictis sperulatis locum habitantibus tredecim:
At a coastal
tor, prepared there above a crater, (the mermaid pool) toward (or after) where
one prays, at the verge high up in Ictis is where they dwell in the Sepulchre
at thirteen degrees. As we have
learned earlier, this could also be seen as ‘at the brim of the verge’.
It seems that
local lore places the original Chapel where the hotel stands now. For any prospector
wishing to find the entrance to the Sepulchre, it is made very clear how to
find it within these pages, because the St. Michael Chapel was surely built on
a different site than the original building that is referred to by Melkin.
Figure 62 Showing the Huer’s hut on the top of Burgh Island. When the first hotel was built, the hut had been a tea room so that walkers could rest there.
The ‘Huer’s
hut’ so named, apparently because of the fact that lookouts from this vantage
point, used to give a ‘hue and cry’ to the Pilchard fleets situated out in the
Bay, to direct them to the shoals. It is very unlikely that there was ever a
job or activity that involved a ‘hue and cry’ as the Bigbury Bay is vast and
more often than not the wind would be in a contrary direction to carry voices. It's more probable that the name echoes from
the past and has its roots from those who ‘hewed’ out the vault. It seems highly unlikely that this is where
the St. Michael chapel once stood, but it is quite remarkable that from
approximately 100 yards to the right of dead centre in the middle of the
Avebury stone circle, is 104 nautical miles to the ‘Huer’s Hut’, the precise number
of miles given by Melkin in his riddle, directing us to where Joseph and Jesus
lay. The map shown in figure 49 marks
the ‘Huer’s hut’ as the site of the old St. Michael tower and this seems to
concur with what Camden had remarked as ‘firmly on a rock is fixed’ which does
tend to indicate its dominant position. The island also lies in a ‘Southern Angle’
on a line that is precisely 13 degrees from the St. Michael Ley line which it
bifurcates inside the Avebury circle, exactly as Melkin had told us.
Figure 63 Shows the protected landfall at Ictis for visiting foreign trading vessels to beach in safety, on the eastern side of the causeway.
As one
crosses the sand causeway, the Pilchard Inn built in 1336, (around the same
time as the Templar chapel to St. Michael), sits just below the present Art Deco
hotel and is rich in history. It is said to be patrolled by its own friendly
ghost Tom Crocker a master smuggler, who was shot to death by a customs officer
but this seems unlikely with the remains of such illustrious personages taking
their rest close by. Outwardly, the
island in no way reveals its inner contents or its past history, and much has
happened since the two hotels have been built upon the site of the old chapel, possibly
prompting us to think that it could be the site of the entrance to the underground
chamber. The building of the second hotel was completed in 1929 and there had
been no use of any original stonework from the chapel. The original hotel built by George Chirgwin
the musical entertainer, was constructed entirely of wood while Archie
Nettlefold, the builder of the ‘Great White Palace’ had brought all his
building materials across the sand causeway. On 31 May 1942 the hotel was
bombed and lost the top two floors of the of the Art Deco structure. Seven
months later the church in Aveton Gifford from which Leonardo had painted his
Lansdowne perspective, was also destroyed by a Focke-Wulf 190 thinking it was
Loddiswell church.
There had of
course been rumours, since the discovery in 1991 of the tin ingots at the mouth
of the River Erm, that Burgh Island could have been the Island of Ictis, but
tradition and modern research had placed it in St. Michael’s Mount, Marazion.
Figure 64
showing the impracticality of arriving to pick up tin on a rocky foreshore on
the tidal causeway of St. Michael’s Mount. The picture is taken looking toward
Marazion in the fog.
High up on
Bolt tail the old iron age encampment on the headland from Inner Hope Cove
looks down across Bigbury Bay and would have been a perfect look out and
signalling station for alerting the tin Agency of approaching Roman ships
trying to interfere with the trade; a local trade that had existed for more
than a thousand years before their arrival. The entrance to the Hillfort is
oddly aligned to look directly over Ictis as seen in figure 65 and probably
worked in conjunction with the hill enclosure of Folly Hill just above Bigbury
on Sea as look out stations for approaching vessels.
Figure 65
Showing the entrance to the Iron age hill fort on Bolt tail with the Island of
Ictis in the foreground. The Burgh Island hotel is to the right of the Island
and the distant hill on the right of the picture is the tin producing area of
Southern Dartmoor.
The Folly Hill
site which is being archeologically excavated shows evidence of a large
community living along the hillside from the present Bigbury Golf course to the other side of what
used to be the cart route down from the tin deposits on the moors. Bronze Age pits
were uncovered underneath the Iron Age surfaces and have been dated by ceramics.
Only a small area along this ridge at Folly hill has been archeologically
surveyed but there is evidence through high resolution magnetic gradiometry and
from surface evidence that a large community lived along the ridge. This was
probably the gate community that controlled Ictis and through which the cart
traffic carrying tin had to pass.
Presently the
archaeological excavation carried out by Dr Eileen Wilkes has dated the site to
around 300BC through to approximately 300 AD and shows evidence of extensive
trade with the continent. Around 800
shards have been found, dated to this era including examples of ‘South West
Decorative Ware’ usually found in Cornwall, local ‘Coarse Ware’, ‘Black
Burnished Ware’ from the Poole area and Exeter ‘Fortress Ware’. Amongst these shards were red ‘Samian Roman
pottery’, Romano British Ware and pieces of pottery from Brittany and Germany.
This does show early evidence of trade but what is most interesting is the find
of some locally made granite clays and these are surely evidence of the earlier
culture that initially set up Ictis as the Agency and are probably commensurate
with the earlier dwellings. Other Iron Age sites are all within sight of each other , one just east
of the mouth of the Erm, were obviously strategically placed as communities
engaged in commerce and the support of Ictis.
In the great storm of 1703, apart from destroying the Eddystone lighthouse, it uncovered a Roman camp on the beach at Bantham ham. At the time of the Roman invasion of Britain, Ictis had ceased to exist as the tin agency, but the Romans had obviously eventually made use of the little port of Bantham. With the recent building of the lifeguard hut on Bantham beach, archaeologists have noticed signs of settlement from a very early time through the iron age with the discovery of later artefacts confirming trade with the Mediterranean and Phoenicians.
The translation
of the word Emporium is now more plainly understood as Ictis acts as a trading
post with a safe haven harbour that serves both coastal traffic bringing tin to
market and tin transported by cart on an ancient trackway from the southern
edge of Dartmoor.
In 2003 a component of an Iron-age ‘Linch-pin’
was found south west of the iron-age hill fort of ‘Blackdown Rings’. No other
iron-age finds have been found in the area, which indicates that the cart pin
was lost ‘en route’ down from Shipley Bridge to Ictis. The Pin is of the
Kirkburn type and dated to around 300BC. Where this pin was found is right next
to the oldest road down from the alluvial tin deposits on Southern Dartmoor
which leads to the tidal road in Aveton Gifford, the same track that the wagons
took to get to Ictis. Just as Pytheas
had said, carts brought the tin to the beach. The use of carts is rare in the
hilly terrain of Devon, compared with the rest of the country and for the most
part, pack horses were used. So this really is a singular link to the usage of
carts in a prehistoric period because the tin ingots would have been too cumbersome
for the back of a pack horse. The Devon Archaeological Society goes on to say
in their report:
‘The
Loddiswell find is the only example known so far in Devon of a piece of
equipment which can with reasonable confidence be attributed to the prehistoric
chariot or cart. It therefore provides the earliest evidence in the county for
the use of a wheeled vehicle. Such vehicles seem not to have been common in
many parts of rural Devon even in the 17th and 18th centuries, when
pack horses were preferred’.
The most
amazing evidence which confirms this as the old trackway where the linch pin
was found, is the trackway’s continued use into Roman times where Mr Terence
Hockin has found many Roman artifacts such as coin dated to Claudius and a
small Roman statue. It should not be forgotten that the tinners of old in Pytheas’
day would have only comparatively light trade goods in effect to take back up
to the southern hills of Dartmoor by cart. It seems probable that the transport
facility would have been organised by the Ictis Agency and may well have gone
along the shoreline of the river when the carts were too full to go uphill
Folly Hill from the end of the tidal road. These heavy loads not stored at
Ictis would have been transferred onto boats having come further upstream. The
main route that Pytheas would have witnessed being carted down through Bigbury
having come along the tidal road portrayed by Leonardo.
Figure 66b
Showing signs of wear from ancient cart tracks running along the shore a few
meters further on from the end of the present tidal road
There have been other finds beneath the shifting dunes of Bantham Ham, but it is the remarkable find of some 40 tin ingots by divers of the South West Maritime Archaeological Group that really goes a long way to concur with the story related by Strabo over 2000 years ago that a sea captain deliberately ran his boat on the rocks to keep Ictis secret.
Figure 67
Shows the perfect landfall of Ictis for any foreign trading vessel at all
states of the tide by comparison with the rocky foreshore of St. Michael’s
Mount.
The entrance
to the Erme mouth is partly obstructed by West Mary's Rock and East Mary's Rock
and the chain of small rocks lurking beneath the water that join them. There is evidence of a small harbour at Oldaport
but this with a hazardous entrance was probably not as well used by foreign
vessels as Bantham was. East and West
Mary's rocks are uncovered only slightly at low tide and on a floodtide the
entrance looks navigable and the reef is unseen. This is obviously what fooled
the Roman ship following our brave Phoenician captain that we related earlier.
Most of the
ingots found just to the north of West Mary’s Rock, were spread out and worn by
the tidal flow while also being encrusted with marine life and the ingots had
eroded and become oxidised. Most were
plano–convex (bun shaped), all of them different shapes and sizes having been
probably cast in many different locations upon Dartmoor. The shaped ingots
described by Diodorous as ‘astragali’ (some commentators Astralagi Astragalus)
seems obtuse as a reference to shape as most examples found were once bun
shaped before oxidation due to rock moulds caused by eddies at the sides of the
rivers where the cassiterite was collected. The most probable explanation of
the etymology of this term in reference to an ingot is some reference to its
metallic brightness and provenance as it
could have been termed a Gallic star or Astro-Gallus.
It seems Pytheas, if indeed this word is his
was originally commenting on the uniformity of shape, caused by similar rock
pool indentations, but size differs greatly amongst all the existing examples, as the Tinners used different moulds along the
river edges. From the earliest time, a collection of cassiterite would have
been placed in an indent in the rock and a fire lit above it, as tin melts at the low temperature of
about 230°C.
However, the heaviest example found
at the mouth of the Erm was rectangular and flat with a slightly thickened rim,
indicating that it was cast in a fabricated mould of stone and could be of a
more modern date. It could be the case that Ictis was releasing a stockpile of
ancient tin ingots along with more later and larger moulded ones in the Roman
era which is the era Strabo relates. The reason for change of shape could be the
result of stronger vessel design from wood and fastenings. Certainly at this
late period in Ictis’ history the Ingots shape would not have been wholly dependent
upon fitting them within a vessel fabricated from animal skin nor would the tin
have only been collected next to water. After all, just before the invasion,
the ingots would have been sold by weight with no regard to inventory date. The most famous tin ingot found in 1812 just
off the sand at St. Mawes Falmouth (another account makes it Carrick or 1823), weighed 72 kg and is obviously of a
much later date and could as some say be a hoax of 18th century
fabrication to support the Ictis theory in Cornwall. The variation in the Tinners ingot sizes and
shapes indicates that Ictis was in business over a long period of time and would
not have been concerened with how long it kept its stock. Strabo was writing
around 40 BC and this is the precise time that Ictis would have been under a
lot of Roman pressure causing the operators to liquidate their stock. This
could be the reason found for the differing sises and shapes found at the Erm
site. One would assume that it was during this 70 to 80 year period before
Jesus was entombed in Ictis around 36AD, that the Island went through its
decline and closure.
Figure 67a
Showing the entrance to the Erm estuary looking west at mid tide in a southerly
wind, where the Phonecian captain’s cargo of tin ingots were found just north
of West Mary’s rocks just inshore of the breaking reef.
The fact that if indeed these are the very
ingots of our brave Phonecian captain at the mouth of the Erm, it would
indicate by the vast array of ingots from old ‘Astragali’ to the more recent
moulding, that Ictis was running down its long held stock. The fact that these
Ingots are found so close to Ictis and there is a story to account for what
otherwise would have been nigh on impossible to account for (given that a
trader would hardly exit a port full of cargo which he had successfully
navigated into it), the tin in this place can only be explained reasonably by
two explanations. The fact that the most part of the Ingots were found to the
north and west of West Mary’s reef definitely indicates the boat was on its way
entering rather than exiting when it hit the rock’s. The location further adds
credibility to the find being the product of the same account that Strabo had
related considering a boat with Devonian cargo should be exiting a port not
entering and Ictis is only a stone’s throw away. The only other alternative
explanation is that a local boat was trying to exit with cargo from the tinners
based on the Erm for a delivery to Ictis, but he would hardly founder inshore
of a reef he was perfectly aware of.
Figure 67b Showing the entrance to the Erm estuary at Low tide where the tin ingots were found from the Phoenician trading ship, just inshore from where the swell is seen, caused by the two rocks.
As one can see in figure 67b with the sand showing, the Phonecian trader must have worked out to lure his Roman pursuer at half or full tide when the estuary appears navigable with a favourable entrance in fair weather. In these conditions there is little to warn any navigator of the reef that lurks beneath.
Just to the east
of the Avon dam above Shipley Bridge where there are several settlements,
recent excavations have found in the hut encampments, tin slag and a pebble of
cassiterite confirming that these were, in fact, the living quarters of the
Bronze Age tinners. By the time Pytheas
wrote of his exploits in the fourth century BC, the small craft which were once
used, were being changed to more solidly built craft from wood, and the reason
for Astragali shaped ingots became redundant. It does logical that the local
traders that worked down stream on the other rivers apart from the Avon brought
their ingots to Ictis by sea in their coracles as Pytheas relates just for
small coastal distances ranging each side of Ictis from the Dart to Plymouth.
The Tinners up on the moors however used the route down through Loddiswell as
Pytheas had witnessed.
One wonders if it was Joseph who, through his exploits as a tin merchant, discovered that the people of the kingdom of Belerion were the descendants of Zerah. How did he first establish that these people were related to Calcol? It seems sure that Joseph is bringing Jesus’s body to Sarras to where Jacob’s Prophecy on Judah was to be fulfilled. What was it that established this common ancestry from Judah when Joseph of Arimathea and Zerah’s offspring on the Belerion promontory first spoke, or was it known for a long time previously? Melkin is certainly the derivative for the Grail writers reference to Zerah as having a descendant king of Sarras but this connection must have been made by Joseph and it must have been him who purchased the island in which to Lay Jesus’ body.
Professor Rhys thinks, tracing the etymological roots that the Celts who spoke the language of the Celtic Epitaphs in the 5th and 6th centuries were "in part the ancestors of the Welsh and Cornish people," He thinks that they subsequently changed their language from a Gaelic or "Goidelic" form to a Gallo-British or "Brythonic" form. Certainly there are no evident signs of a Hebraic heritage except that witnessed by the population of the South’s preponderance to adherence to the Law and the evidence of an understanding since Neolithic times of a ley and circle system, the use and knowledge of which has now become lost.
Diodorus,
when commenting on British dress says that the British had learned the art of
using alternate colours for their weave so as to bring out a pattern of stripes
and squares ‘the cloth was woven of
divers colours, and making a gaudy show. It was covered with an infinite number
of little squares and lines, as if it had been sprinkled with flowers. They
seem to have been fond of every kind of ornament and they wore collars and
"torques" of gold, necklaces and bracelets, and strings of
brightly-coloured beads, made of glass or of a material like the Egyptian porcelain.’ Archeologists have thought that the glass was brought by traders from Alexandrian factories. But
glass-making is often the by product and manufactured by smelting metal and often the residue from
bronze-furnaces produces a kind of glass, a silicate of soda, coloured blue or
green by the silicate of copper mixing with melted sand particles
and this will have been the reason why beads are recorded long before the art
of glass making. It is possibly the reason that Pytheas initially set out to
look for ‘Amber’ confusing this with British glass, that he might have seen
coming from the Phoenician traders as they passed by Marseilles on their way to
the Eastern Mediterranean.
Why does the Genesis
account of Solomon’s precedence over Zerah’s offspring even occur, if there was
no threat of one of Zerah’s descendants being the inheritor of Jacob’s
blessing? Did the offspring of Zerah
have some object as proof that they were of Judah’s line and will this object
or proof be found in the tomb along with all the other artefacts establishing
the Kings of Sarras? Was Blake being
prophetical and is ‘Jerusalem builded here’ in England, fulfilling the prophecy
of Jacob upon Judah?
Figure 68 Showing the mouth of the river Avon flowing out toward Avalon as seen from Folly hill.
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