Less than a mile south of Stonehenge there is a Bronze Age burial mound known as Bush Barrow. Back in 1808, this man-made hillock was investigated. Within it, the searchers found a skeleton from the early Bronze Age - around 1900 B.C.. That in itself was not the most striking discovery - it was the grave goods that were buried with the deceased male.
Foremost among these was a lozenge of pure Cornish gold. It was wafer thin and expertly engraved. It may have been worn like a kind of ceremonial breastplate by the principal occupant of Bush Barrow. Since it was found, the gold artefact has been subject to close scrutiny and informed speculation. There are many who believe that the precise angles and parallel lines of the golden lozenge point to the kind of astronomical understanding that is contained in the geometry of Stonehenge itself.
_______________________________________________
Two years ago we attended a wedding in Wiltshire and on the way home we stopped off in the town of Devizes. It was a hot day and we only had an hour to kill before moving on to Avebury. I even saw the facade of The Wiltshire Museum but did not venture inside. At the time, little did I know that it contained such an astonishing object. I could kick myself for missing it.
There is a sense in which The Bush Barrow Lozenge is every bit as stupendous as Stonehenge itself. Thank heavens it survived and saw the light of day once again. It could so easily have been lost like many treasures from Ancient Egypt - stolen by grave robbers.
We modern humans have almost lost our connections to Mother Earth and to the stars above but the exquisite golden lozenge from Bush Barrow reminds us that once there were people who lived in harmony with what they found around them - in the seasons, in the earth beneath their feet and in the stars above.
from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/fIYTOiM