I really thought I knew every nook and cranny of my immediate area.
There's a certain walk that I take several times a week, and if someone had told me that I walked past an ancient ruin that I didn't know about (en route), I wouldn't have believed them.
But here it is (above); I spotted it a couple of days ago. I imagine it's an ancient borie that has long crumbled, and been covered in brambles and moss. It sits against one of the man-made walls of a series of terraced fields; the hard labour of some poor long forgotten peasant who was eking a living from land that was once at a terrible angle. The labour involved in levelling them was worthy of Heracles; now the fields are all sadly reclaimed as woodland.
There's a certain walk that I take several times a week, and if someone had told me that I walked past an ancient ruin that I didn't know about (en route), I wouldn't have believed them.
But here it is (above); I spotted it a couple of days ago. I imagine it's an ancient borie that has long crumbled, and been covered in brambles and moss. It sits against one of the man-made walls of a series of terraced fields; the hard labour of some poor long forgotten peasant who was eking a living from land that was once at a terrible angle. The labour involved in levelling them was worthy of Heracles; now the fields are all sadly reclaimed as woodland.
Then, blow me, if I didn't find another building today (yesterday). It was built against a rocky outcrop, and the interior probably originally measured about 6ft by 12 ft. Very little of it remains, but one can still see by the dry-stone-walling that it was man made (below).
Both buildings are no more than archaeological ruins, and I'm afraid my photos may not be very informative.
I wonder how old they are. I wonder if I'll find any more. And I also wonder if anyone else even knows they're there; especially the second one, which was very well hidden.
It is strange to think that, after me, YOU are the first people to see these ruins. I'm just sorry they're not a tad more interesting.
ReplyDeleteI love the atmosphere around places such as those. They're a nice reminder that all of the nonsense we think is so important is, in fact, really quite fleeting.
ReplyDeleteWhoever lived there left more of a mark than 99.9% of all of the thousands of millions alive today are likely to do. I seriously doubt that anyone will be walking their dogs in years to come and stumble over the remains of a "Barratt Starter Home" with the remains of a leased Honda Priapus in the driveway...
[SIC]
When I was stationed in Belixe, I discovered that most of the country had been photographed from the air using stereo cameras. I used to go into the RIC office and study them for hours and before long, I no longer needed the special viewing glasses having trained my eyes to go slightly cross eyed and my brain to resolve the image in 3D. What I was looking for were regular shapes in the jungle canopy. Once I identified a promising location, I would then kit myself up and disappear into the jungle for a couple of weeks or so and trek to it surviving off the land. The country is littered with undiscovered Mayan ruins and it was really eerie realising that I was the first non indigene to be looking at them for many hundreds of years. Once I found a really nice jade carving which must be in some museum by now. Now that the British Armed Forces have all but wrapped up in Belize, I wonder what became of all those photos because in the two years I was there, I could only have studied one percent of them. They would be a gold mine for archaeologists.
ReplyDeleteYour post has really made me think about that and I am now going to write to the RAF and ask them. These photos should be handed over to the Belize Archaeological Society as they can no longer be of any operational significance.
Thanks, Cro, you have given me something other to sink my teeth into rather than lazy builders!
I had a doctor friend who took a temporary post in Belize. The only thing I remember him telling me about was his night-time Rat hunting. It seems that certain HUGE Rats would come out at night and follow the exact same nightly route; my friend would just wait, cricket bat in hand!
DeleteThat will be the Gibnut. It is a bloody big rodent but not really a rat as we imagine them. It was served to the Queen on her only visit there in the Eighties and the Sun undid all the bon homie of her visit by running a front page article about Belizean Nig Nog Bone-in-the-Nose Jungle Bunnies serving rat meat to OUR Queen. Of course, it is a delicacy (it really is nice and when I was in the bush I would catch and eat them) and with very typical good humour the Belizean's have renamed it the 'Royal Rat'
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paca
That's the creature... I remember the name now. Thanks for reminding me.
DeleteAbandoned buildings are so melancholic, eh?
ReplyDeleteWhatever they are, and however ruined they may be, I think that they're beautiful. I love how they're gradually being reabsorbed into the surrounding countryside. There's something really quite magical about such discoveries.
ReplyDeleteI guess these ruins are slightly more visible in the winter when they're not covered in summer foliage. Amazing what you can discover underneath the brambles. Interesting to read Hippo's comments too.
ReplyDeleteCanada is too young to have many of these exciting things to find. We get the odd Indian burial mound and we have some Viking sites on the east coast. You are so fortunate to have this history right in your own back yard.
ReplyDeleteWhat wonderful sharing of the ruins in your backyard. Years ago, before a lot of the land around my area was fenced off and issued trespassers will be shot signs, I came across sites from exploring along the North and South Platte rivers, and many fields, Native American sites, with arrowheads, and kill sites for Bison hunts. My dad, when younger, was hunting south and east of my community here, found a bison skull in a blow-out, and it proudly sits on my wall along with all of my other European skulls I collect.
ReplyDeleteYour area is so historic, and beautiful, thank you so much for sharing.
Have a wonderful weekend, Mr. M and Lady M.
ruins make me wonder what my current dwelling and neighborhood will be like in a couple of hundred years. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
ReplyDeleteInteresting find!! I like your report as to what might have been!
ReplyDeleteOur nearest village is called Caerwys and is the smallest town in Wales with a charter (all about 1200). What fascinates me is that about half a mile away is an area which now looks like woodland but which is known as Hen (old) Caerwys and has the outlines, varely visible and looking much like your photos, of quite a large number of dwellings, small but clearly built as houses. Why leave them and make another town/village? Every now and then someone comes and does a bit of archaeological digging but the money runs out and they go away again...
ReplyDeleteJust don't get Time Team in; they're hopeless. I'm certain that the British Isles are littered with yet un-found gems.
DeleteAt my last location, when the farmer's widow who'd sold us a lot for our house decided to sell off most of the rest of the land for a housing development, a stone foundation was found that no one knew about. One of her sons ended up living in the farmhouse after Mom went to Florida year 'round, and he said he was shocked to find it after all these years as he and his brother had gone all over the place as kids.
ReplyDeleteThe developer showed no remorse of clearing it away, so my next door neighbour decided to help himself to as many stones as he wanted for making garden beds. Others came and took stones, too, and the same neighbour, Himself, and i dug many of the wild lilies growing around it. It had either been a house or outbuilding at one point.