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The tin exporting Island of Ictis situated in Devon and nowadays called Burgh Island but was known as the Island of Sarras after Judah's offspring through Tamar known as Zarah. The Island then became known as the Island of Avalon pointed out geometically in the famous Melkin's prophecy showing the resting place of Joseph of Arimathea.
http://isleofavallon.blogspot.co.uk #3
Polybius is the authority for letting us know that Ictis and Corbelo were in fact in later days kept secret from the Romans saying that no one in the city could tell the Romans anything worth mentioning about the north and also that nothing could be learned from the merchants of Narbonne, or of the City of
Corbelo,
which was said to have been a flourishing place
in
the age of Pytheas and who Strabo mixes up with Ictis.
Foreigners
were warned of the danger of all attempts to interfere with the Carthaginian
commerce.
Strabo tells
us of a Phoenician trading vessel whose captain on its return voyage from the
“Tin Isles”, while being followed by a Roman vessel which kept him in sight and
being unable to elude it; duly steered into the shallows, which caused the
sinking of both vessels on a shoal. Now
there would be no point in this deed unless of course he was seen heading to
seaward from the proximity of Ictis and this indicates that he must have been
fully laden because he was on a return journey and therefore probably slower
than normal. If overhauled and captured it would be difficult to explain. If he
were somewhat distant however from the Island and captured, he could say Ictis
was at any location but to be seen heading to seaward departing what looks to
be a Lee shore and in close proximity to an island, would surely have made a
Roman captain suspicious if he had indeed survived to tell the tale or captured
the captain with his cargo.
The captain
of the Phoenician vessel, whose own life was preserved, was rewarded by his
countryman or the agency on the island for managing to maintain the secrecy of
the island which begs the question; was Ictis’ agency or monopoly set up by
merchants from Tyre and Sidon.
It seems very strange that a trading vessel
laden with a cargo of tin ingots, having just left the coast would fall upon
Mary's rocks at the mouth of the Erm estuary. Assuming we have located Ictis,
(as Melkin later confirms), it would seem extraordinary as an explanation for
the find of a cache of ingots, that a boat would set out in foul conditions
after having loaded a cargo, only to fall prey to rocks on the next river mouth
over from where one had just set sail.
A captain could always return to where he knew
was navigable. It seems highly likely
that the boat carrying the wrecked ingots recently discovered at the mouth of
the Erm was the very Phoenician vessel narrated by Strabo, while there was
reported evidence of another wrecked vessel of a similar age that had sunk
close by. Interesting is the fact that it was his countrymen that recompensed
him not only for his vessel but the value of his cargo. This would lead us to
believe by Strabo’s report that this Island was held in such high esteem by the
Phoenicians as a central agency and as such, probably kept secret its
whereabouts, to monopolise the supply of tin to the ancient world. Logically,
because of the cluster of ingots found at the mouth of the Erm with a matching
account to explain their presence in such close proximity to Ictis; it should
predispose the enquirer to consider the reasons for such an unlikely find. It
must be that the Island was trying to remain unexposed to Roman discovery and
takeover as Strabo indicates. This alone should confirm that the identify of
Ictis is synonymous with Burgh Island without the information that Melkin later
provides us with as an unequivocally identification.
It must be understood by the Ictis researcher
that it was the community at Folly Hill just above Bigbury on Sea which
operated Ictis as a storehouse and mart for tin due to its close proximity for
loading while beached, as opposed to there having been a community that has
left archaeological evidence of dwelling on the Island itself.
The prevailing wind in Bigbury bay is south
west most of the time but if one were heading out into the channel, one would leave
Ictis on a starbord tack heading toward the hill fort on Bolt tail. If no look
outs had warned an unsuspecting captain and one met a Roman vessel heading
north west sailing under Bolt Tail, the
two vessels would be virtually on top of each other before they sighted
one and other. Our brave Phonecian
captain chose to ‘go about’ and ‘reach’ past Ictis and lead his pursuer to the
mouth of the Erm. For the Roman to follow the Phonecian onto the rocks would
mean that as Strabo related, he was unable to shake off his pursuer. The Roman
captain, immediately on the the Phoenician’s stern, thinking he was heading
into the navigable waters of a river mouth, would be left no time to take
evasive action, sailing off the wind into the river mouth. In fact he was probably
so close having ‘run him down’ across the bay probably the last thing he saw
was the vessel ahead, founder on the rocks before he heard the bottom of his
vessel disintegrate. It seems highly
probable that the Phoenician captain might have thought he would clear the reef
while leading his pursuer (with a deeper draught) onto it. It was a chance he
was willing to take and his decision
would have been dependant on the tide at the time of the pursuit but in the interests
of protecting the whereabouts of the then undiscovered ‘Tin Emporium’ he
courageously sacrificed his vessel. The
Tin ingots are all that remain, but they are situated only 2.5 miles away from
Ictis. Of course the only evidence that would remain from such an incident
would be the narrative itself and the cache of tin ingots after a period of
approximately 2100 years. The fact that this story was still circulating at the
time Strabo wrote is a good indication of the degree of fame in which the
Phonecian captain was regarded.
Caesar himself bears witness that the Veniti
at this time who were also engaged in tin export from Ictis in the Roman era ‘were the most powerfull seafaring people who
exact tribute from such merchants as sail on that sea’ meaning the channel. The enemy i.e. the Veniti, he says ‘had great advantage over us in their
shipping; the keels of their ships were flatter than ours, consequently more
convenient for the shallows and low tides; their forecastles were very high;
their poops were contrived so as to endure the roughness of the sea; the hull
of their vessels were built of impenetrable oak; the banks for the oars were
beams of a foot square ,fastened at each end, with iron pins an inch thick.
Instead of cables for their anchors they made use of iron chains and had hides
for their sails, either because they wanted linen and were ignorant of its use
or what is more likely, they thought linen sails not strong enough to endure
their boisterous seas and tempestuous winds and to carry vessels of such
considerable burden.
The ease of
access into the small tidal basin of Bantham would have been considerably
easier to navigate in days gone by, before the dam at the head of the River
Avon was constructed. It is plain to see
from a seaward perspective, how small trading vessels having once turned the
corner at the mouth of the Avon, find shelter in a small anchorage and remain
hidden as long as they were not seen entering the harbour.
From seaward,
the approach to the river mouth looks like a ‘lee shore’ which no sailor would
want to approach unless he had prior knowledge of the passage between the waves
leading to a haven behind the spit. From
a seaward perspective, a passing vessel would only see the cliffs in the
background and never assume the tidal river turned tightly to starboard behind
Bantham dunes. Due to the fact that the
entrance is not wide, the entrance is disguised from seaward as a breaking
shoreline at nearly all states of the tide,
For this
reason and because of the brave acts of one Phonecian captain, Ictis has
remained elusive. If the Romans had discovered it, the modern world would have
known its whereabouts. In the early days
of Ictis, if the weather was foul and the tide ebbing, a small trading vessel
could find sanctuary and dry out on the beach in the lee of the sand causeway
with enough shelter found in the lee of the island itself. When the tide flooded, a small vessel would
ease up to the anchorage in Bantham. In
1864, during the drainage of the marsh around the Buckland stream at Bantham,
it was noticed that cart loads of bone were recovered which confirms a large
camp that was known to exist there in Roman times and indicates that Ictis had
become redundant before the camp was established as later writers would not
still refer to the fabled Island.
Phoenicians
and Veniti alike traded with these friendly people for centuries. It was only due to the longevity of tin
streaming and the expertise that was built up due to this trade over such a
long period that their reputation and pre-eminence continued until the Roman
era. The ‘tinners’ themselves, would
have been content in the knowledge that, through the agency the best price was
realised and the ‘tinners’ did not find it necessary to undercut the value of
their labour by competing with one another.
Bronze age ‘tinners’ started to mine eluvial
deposits for tin as alluvial deposits started to dwindle and this caused a
gradual edging northward over the centuries up to Tavistock, Ashburton and
Chagford. Much of the evidence of the earliest tinners upon southern Dartmoor
that originated on the Avon, and the Erm but later encorporated the river Yealm
and some of the tributaries of the Tamar, Plym and river Dart have had their
archaeological evidence of tin streaming from the early British bronze age
removed by subsequent workings. The Bronze Age axe head found on Mothecombe
beach dated to around 1600BC is evidence of very early tin production for the
Erm and Avon valleys and also adds credence to Ictis’ subsequent establishment.
The western
side of Dartmoor opening up probably after Ictis shut down, as tin from this
side traded out of Sutton harbour. Gradually over a period of 1600 years the
whole industry made a steady progression southwards into Cornwall but certainly
the beginnings of tin were from the rich alluvial grounds on Southern Dartmoor
from which the Ictis trade was born and for which the Island became famed in
the ancient world.
From the
ancient writers, to the modern researcher misinformation about the Island of
Ictis has compounded its elusiveness. One can see how the Cassitterides (the
Tin Isles), from the later Latin chroniclers, was mistaken for an island called
Ictis which exported tin and which was purportedly surrounded by other islands
in close proximity as Diodorus says of these “islands,” (using the
plural,) that “they appear islands” only at “high water” and that when the tide
is out, the intervening space is left dry, and “they are seen to be peninsulas”.
This being reported by the subsequent writers is understandable from a
chronicler who has never seen the French coast, the English coast or
tides. It is not difficult to understand
how one can get the detail between islands of the Channel Islands, mixed up
with the island that is the ‘Emporium’ that actually dries out at low tide.
Confused
accounts have prevented researchers from noticing the only island from the
Salcombe estuary down to Lands’ End that would practically fit Pytheas’s
description. It also fits all the practical criteria of easy access to tin from
ancient time, the provision of a safe harbour and seclusion from pirates. The
fact that it dries out at low tide, the one unequivocal clue we had, because
Diodorus found the concept strange and yet still included that detail in his
narrative, is only part of the confirmation. Diodorus at no stage intonated the
Island was to be found in Cornwall but by his definition of the Belerion
promontory, his southern promontory could start at Salcombe. In fact Diodorus
has little idea about Ictis and thinks the Tin Isles are off Spain. Tin also is found in many regions of Iberia, but
not found, however, on the surface of the earth, as certain writers continually
repeat in their histories, but mined out of the ground and smelted in the same
way as silver and gold are. For there are many mines of tin in the country above
Lusitania and on the islets which lie off Iberia out in the ocean and are
called because of that fact the Cassiterides.
Diodorus knows that tin is mined in Spain and like
Strabo, is dubious of Pytheas’ account which implies the collection of alluvial
and elluvial deposits. He also follows this last extract with: And tin is brought
in large quantities also from the island of Britain to the opposite Gaul, where
it is taken by merchants on horses through the interior of Celtica both to the
Massalians and to the city of Narbo, as it is called. By following on with this account he is implying that the
Island of Ictis to which tin was transported, now was to become islands where
the tin came from called the Cassiterides. There simply never were tin producing
Islands. Supporters of the St. Michael’s Mount
location as Ictis also should remember that it is not opposite Gaul as
described above, whereas Burgh Island not only has the confused Channel Islands
in close proximity but also fits the ‘opposite Gaul’ account more accurately.
The most probable explanation for the confusion of the Island to which tin is
taken to and to be traded from by Diodorus’ account, subsequently transmuting
into the Island where tin is mined is simply the fact that traders had purchased
tin at that island emporium. Regardless of the fact that Diodorus from Pytheas’
account records that the wagons conveyed the tin to the Island, traders
accounts recorded by chroniclers would have expressly confirmed that Ictis is
where one obtains tin, not where the tin came from before it was transported
for storage on the island.
From the early bronze age in the south west,
tin was an extremely scarce and valuable commodity due to the amount of labour
that it took to extract
from alluvial ground or river bed deposits before smelting. A large community of Bronze Age tinners
existed in the area around Shipley Bridge where the initial alluvial deposits
would have been plentiful and there is evidence that in the dry summer months
they may have controlled the river flow with a small dam so that working the
river beds was facilitated for short intervals. The dam may well have been used
for fish stock also. It is for this
reason Ictis sprung up at the base of the Avon and Erm rivers evolving into a
trading post or market and then became the equivalent of the local bank vault,
storing tin ingots that had been mined in the area, these very miners hewing
out a storage area within the Island.
This convenience of location, gave easy access for the traders, instant
payment for the ‘tinners’, of the goods brought by the continental traders and
the first major tin monopoly and marketplace for the tinners product.
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http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/and-did-those-feet-michael-goldsworthy/1110960654?ean=9781780883007
The Author is a contemplative
investigator of philosophically received convention who has spent most of his
life afloat on a small yacht with his wife and children. He has circumnavigated
the globe in his yacht and after many years returned to live in Devon. Here he
bought a house which by a twist of fate he discovered is on a Ley Line foretold
by Melkin the prophet which marks the Island of Avalon.
In 1987 the author set out to
circumnavigate the Globe with his wife and two young children in a small sailing
boat. After a voyage around the world, on his return several years later, the
author bought a house in a sleepy Devon village called Aveton Gifford. A
strange set of events took place over several years during which time the
author came across, (seemingly by accident), several sources of disparate
information that concerned Ley lines, Glastonbury, Arthurian and Cornish
legend, including Greek accounts of the fabled Island of Ictis, The Island of
Avalon, Leonardo da Vinci, the Turin Shroud, Templar treasure, Grail material
and many other subjects which tie together in this book.
Apart from Joseph of Arimathea’s associations
with tin in Cornwall and the fact that the author attended school in the tin
mining town of Tavistock on Dartmoor, the Author has no previous connection to
any of the above topics. It was not
until his son in June 2011 showed him the many functions afforded by ‘Google
Earth’, that he was guided to an important reference to a Ley line which was
spoken of by a monk called Melkin around 600AD, which gave directions to a
world changing discovery that has been hidden for 2000 years. This monk had left a riddle as to the
whereabouts of Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb and the discovery of the Grail in The
Isle of Avalon, but the essence of the Grail is far greater than just a Chalice
and Joseph is not alone in the tomb.
Without
foreknowledge and after fourteen years owning this house, the author found that
the Ley line which the monk had described and left as a direction for
posterity, passed right through his house. Nearly all the wide ranging source
material that the author had come across since coming to Devon is somehow
related to the discovery within these pages. The compulsion to unearth the
details within this book, were driven by external forces as if some of the most
illustrious people in world history wanted their story told. This book gives an
account of the extraordinary set of coincidences that has brought this
information down through the ages. The book explains the meaning of the British
national hymn written by Blake entitled Jerusalem. It is from this hymn that
the title (and did those feet) is derived because the question it asks has now
been answered.
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