The Pillar of Elisig; A Cultural Biography from Prehistory to the Present

Thank you very much. Um I'm just going to check that we can go on to the next slide. Um I thought I better start with um the location just in case uh there's anybody who doesn't know where the pillar of Elise is. You can see it's quite close to San Gothan and it's very close to Valer Cruises um Cersian Abby which we'll come back to in a minute. And you can see on the right here the view up the Nant Egglusig Valley because one of the important aspects of the pillar of Elise is that it stands very close to a junction of roots. What we're here doing is looking northwards up towards the um pass through the mountains Buloyonant as it's called and down into the veil of Clod. So it's um in a very um important location on that north south route from the D up to the north Welsh coast and but it's also very close to an east west crossing just south of this point which runs kind of along the north bank of the D and this strategic location is absolutely crucial to the biography of the monument. >> That's a chance of dimming the lights. We can try if um Yeah, we can take them out completely. >> You want to? >> Yeah, we can. Whoops. That's >> How's that? >> That's f. Okay. Um so what I'm going to be talking about today is um relates to project Alys which was run by myself and Gary Robinson and Howard Williams um between 2010 and 2012 which was the actual excavation and as you can see it was um uh funded by a wide range of bodies including the society of antiquaries. And um the aim of the excavation, the aims of the excavation, the mound, as you can see in the left hand side here, was in very bad condition at the time that the um excavation took place. And we were allowed to investigate where there were kind of holes on the side of the mound, but also to re-exavate part of the antiquarian intrusion which was made in 1773. And you can see um that part going on on the right hand side of your screen. And I'll come back to the significance of this um later on in the lecture. Um the writing up of this project which has grown immensely um uh is coming to an end now and we hope for publication with University of Wales Press in the not tooistant future. So I thought I'd just start by asking well what is writing a cultural biography? Why are archaeologists kind of interested in this? Well, basically theoretically this goes back to um Richard Bradley's iconic article um seminal article in 1987 um called time regained the creation of continuity and also a volume of world archaeology edited by him and Howard Williams in 1998 called the past in the past and from this I suppose the concept that monuments could be reworked and reinvented in new ways over time to support new ideologies was coming into being. And this was kind of built on by Chris Gost and Ivonne Marshall in another volume of world archaeology in 1999 on the cultural biography of monuments. And with this we have the idea that a biographical approach of an artifact or a site can address the way um social interactions involving people and monuments create meaning and how again this meaning can be changed and manipulated over time. And this has been applied to other pieces of early medieval sculpture, notably the Bradborn cross in Darbasha and um uh the Hilton of Cadbol uh cross slab in uh northeast Scotland. But also we see the concept of what um Cornelius Haltorf and Howard Williams have called an accumulated landscape. In other words, you start with something simple and other things are attracted to that particular monument. And if you could just bear these concepts in mind as I carry on, I think um that will help to explain the approach that I've used. Now, basically what I'm going to do in this lecture is to examine these changes and reinventions of the pillar of Elise and the mound on which it stands over time. Um, and I've only got time to look at some of the major reinventions. So, I'm going to look at the prehistory and at the early Bronze Age Ken, burial Ken. Then I'm going to look at the reinvention of the monument in the 9th century. um by Kungan um or Conan um the prince of Paris who died in 854 and its probable function as an assembly and royal inauguration site at that time. Then I'm going to look part at its reinvention of the monument as part of the monastic landscape of Valer Cruises Abby gives its the cross gives its name to the Zersian abbey in the early 13th century. Then the destruction of the cross probably during the civil war and as a result of that antiquarian recording. Then its final major reinvention um with the excavation and restoration of the pillar of Elise in the 1770s as part of the creation of the picturesque landscape of the veil of Langautlin. I'll briefly allude [laughter] if I have time to the row about prehistory which stems from this monument in the 1840s and to its coming into state care and guardianship. So let's go to the origins of the site immediately and um the excavation you here you can see the major um uh uh trenches that we dug um revealed a complex monument which had two major phases. And what you can see on the left here is the platform uh can and curb which was revealed in the trench nearest to us here. But in the other trench we found um once we'd removed the antiquarian intrusion fill we found two um uh kisss both with cremated bone in in them. one very small one which you can see over there at the top which had in fact been disturbed by the antiquarian intrusion but there was enough to get radiocarbon dates from what remain and then a major kiss which was set behind the curb um on the on the top right there and that is kiss three and this was the largest burial kiss with cremated bone that has ever been found in Wales. And it consisted of um uh at least six individuals in two separate phases of burial. They were probably buried in bags and um uh which were tied by um uh bone pins. Now um in the second phase the flat platform Ken with its curb is raised into a mound again of stone and you can see the two different phases here on the left and um a anotherist which we excavated was set into the upper part the second phase of the monument. Now unfortunately this only had token uh cremated evans evidence in it and it was not enough to get a radiocarbon date. No radiocarbon date was possible but clearly it must be later than the earlier ones. And um I just wanted to show you this because you can see that the lining of this large uh uh um kiss is is made of mud stone. So it's decorated with these mudstone flows and um that was evidently intentional in the way that the person or people were buried in this kiss. And these were the finds from the excavation. Not very many as you can see. You can see the bone pins which probably uh fastened bags um from uh the two deposits of cremated bone in um kiss 2. We also had animal bones that had been cremated and also the knife on the left there was in kiss one. The um little other small um early Bronze Age flint um came from somewhere else in the mound. Now the radiocarbon dates, we were able to get radiocarbon dates from KISS one and radiocarbon dates from KISS 3. And these provided us with an early Bronze Age date, very common for this kind of monument. Um, and uh around sort of 2,900 um uh BCE. So um uh this is the Bronze Age um uh beginning if you like of the site and um there was a um Howard Williams and um uh Mar Marietta Flores did a survey of um the GIS survey of the landscape through time which is published in medieval archaeology in 2017 and this raised the question as to what extent there was a ritual bronze age landscape in the prehistoric period and one of the things that made us raise that question is here's the pillar of Elise and down here is an aerial uh view here you can just about see what is probably an early mo um an Bronze Age ring ditch and um the ring it. We were not able for reasons of agriculture to investigate sites other than the pillar of Elise in the middle uh you know in on this site. So um it's very tantalizing to have this likely renditch and not to have been able to investigate it. So we go on now to the second major phase in then reinvention of this monument in the 9th century um AD. And essential to um understanding this is um the verses of England bevi the stanzas of the graves. Now, um it's been shown in a recent book by Patrick Sims Williams that um the stanzas of the graves are 12th century or earlier. It used to be thought that they were 9th or 10th, but now we can't be so sure. And that the stanzas of the graves are basically um short verses about where early British heroes, mythical heroes are buried. And this is thought to be in prehistoric monuments. And it's this idea of British heroes being buried in um early um in prehistoric ks and barrerows um who are being celebrated from their for their warrior prowess. And essentially it's because of that that Kungen chooses to use this site as the site of a cross. And in this early 9th century period, we can see a general interest in the writing down and reworking of early British history. And the classic text for that is Historia Bretonum, the history of the Britons. And um that was written in 829 or 8:30 in North Wales. And we can see many of the same concerns on the inscription on the pillar of Elise as we can see in the histori Bretonum. And um so we can just see here that where the inscription on the cross shaft is. You can just about see it in the photograph, but um I'm afraid we can't read it from that. Instead, we have to um uh use antiquarian copies of the inscription. But before we do that, I just want to say a little bit about the form of the monument. Now, as it stands today, obviously it's lost its crosshair, and we'll come to that later on, but the actual circular form of the monument um is modeled well is the similar things in England in the 9th century such as the cross of Beckt St. Bridget in Cumbria, which you can see again is fragmentaryary here. But in closer to home in Cheshire and Staffordshire, this type of um cylindrical monument is relatively common in the late 10th and 11th centuries. And it's possible that there were wooden versions or versions that have not survived earlier than that. But there has also always been an idea that there was some kind of parallel with classical columns in Rome because of the round shape. And I've just put up there the column of Marcus Aurelius because these were victory columns like Trajan's column for example. And these essentially these crosses are also seen in this period as signs of victory. So we have two vers well we have two different antiquarians who recorded the inscription on the pillar of Elisek. By far the most important is Edward Fluid who lived um in the second half of the 18th century, sorry, the 17th century and he visited the site in 1696 and he as a result made two um he transcribed what he could see on of the inscription on the fallen monument and one of these survives in the British Library and I discovered the other in Banga University archives and special collections. Now the importance of the inscription is that essentially it's a piece of royal propaganda. It's written in Latin and the lettering is decorative and consciously antiquated um at the time of the early 9th century. And this is to add weight to the inscription because the document is couched in legal language and they use the term in Latin chyograph um which is similar to the words found in Celtic charters um and uh for example in uh the Landaf charters and it it also tells us that the monu the actual inscription ion was put together by a man called Kmark who was presumably an ecclesiastic advising um uh Kungan. Now essentially the monument was erected by Kungan in order to uh preserve the memory of his greatgrandfather Alise or Elise and um it was erected. We know that Kungen died in Rome in 854 and he was the last early medieval ruler of Paris and his grandfather Elise um was probably a contemporary of offer of Mercia and the inscription begins with a genealogy and then goes on to record the military success of Elise over the English in the late 8th century. Then it goes on to trace the origins of the kingdom of Paris back to the Roman user Magnus Maximus who died in 388 in um northern Italy and also to trace them back to the sub um Roman lead uh ruler in Britain Vortigan. So basically it's all about the origins of the kingdom of Paris. These are I mean invented but they're invented in order to legitimize the present rulers of Paris. The inscription also names uh demonstrates links with the church again legitimizing the dynasty through the um early gouish saint St. Germanis who is uh known as St. Garin um in Welsh and there's a hagography of him in the historian. So what we're dealing here is with a legal document that is all about legitimating the ruling line of poets at a time when they are increasingly under threat from Gwynez on the one hand but more seriously from Mercia on the other and at the after the middle of the 9th century the kingdom of pace disappears because it's taken over parts by gynev parts by the English and it doesn't reemerge till the um 12th century and we'll come back to that in a minute. So um now is this site a site of assembly and royal inauguration? Well, the major reason why we think that it's a site of assembly and possibly royal inauguration is because of the content of the inscription. In the early 9th century, we have a number of well during the course of the 9th century, a number of royal monuments, most notably um the Dupin cross at Fort in Perth which um are articulating royal power um through sculpture and um Fortivia is a it's not actually on the on the site of the major royal complex. Lex, but there's a series of sites at um Fortiviiet and they again begin in the prehistoric period and are reinvented in the early medieval period. There are also a number of Anglo-Saxon sites like that as well. And you can even um at Clulo in Cheshure, it's been suggested that this is an assembly site um on topographical grounds. Now as far as the pillar of Elise is concerned, you can see here um uh that it um uh lies on um in this valley of the lantry and in fact it's on the end of a glacial spur. So if you were standing on top of the um the mound, you could um proclaim to a whole lot of people underneath quite easily. And we know for example that the stone of Skoon uh sorry the the site of Skoon uh which also has an abbey um in um Scotland which replaced Fortivate as the inauguration site of the rulers of of of Scotland. um that this is a similar sort of topographical um uh confection I suppose and um Alexander III in 1249 was um inaugurated on the stone of SCO stone of Scoon. Um and the first thing that happened in the ceremony was that his genealogy was recited and this reciting of genealogies thinks seems to be important in making kings in Ireland and Scotland and in legitimizing kings. And therefore [clears throat] the inscription on the pillow of Alise which begins with a um a genealogy seems to highlight this idea of legitimacy and the possibility of inaugurating a king on the a prince on the site. So um after the 9th century this uh early medieval monument for we just don't know what happens for several centuries but then it's reinvented as part of a monastic landscape and um you can see this uh monastic reinvention here on the left hand side because to begin with We had the accretion of the landscape um with the bronze age early Bronze Age mound with the early medieval cross placed on top of the can the burial k reinventing it. Well, now we get an accretion of the landscape from other monuments in that landscape and um this is brought into being with the founding of Valeris Ababi, the veil of the cross, Glenn Groce in Welsh in 1201. um a major cistersian um uh monastery which was founded by Prince Maddok at Griffith Mor and he was the ruler of Northern Paris. Now it's important to state and I can't go into the genealological um uh problems here but uh the family um are not related to the 9th century family. Okay. But what they are doing is using this site um to legitimize the ruler new rulers of northern Paris with the re resurrection of the kingdom of Paris which is happening in the second half of the 12th century. And what happens is that the Cistersian Abbey it becomes um is patronized by Prince Maddock at Griffith Mor and his descendants until the time of the Eduwardian conquest and also they are buried there and also the local gentry become buried there in the later part of the period and the um pillar of Elise though it is now kind of off on the side. It's not in within the immediate monastic con um complex. It lies outside the likely enclosure. Still it would be seen as a major monument for all those who are passing by on the way to visiting um the p visiting valley creatures Abby for example or to receive arms or as pilgrims or whatever. And we know from late 15th century poetry in Welsh by Giten Owen Owen for example that the monument was named a lot in his poetry and valued as um a an old monument um an old cross and it is a cherished local landmark and associated with this is not just falicious itself But over here the castle of Dinus Bran. So we have three monuments now. Um all in the same sort of area. And um Dus Bran was um built by the son Griffith of uh Madoka Griffith Mor. Um it's not occupied for very long, but it's a very atmospheric site. It's not very defendable um in as much as um uh it overlooks the D. It's there to um make a mark, a major mark in the landscape. It's a bit like Tintagel for example with the new medieval castle in that case on top of a major early medieval site. In this case, it's within an iron age hill for the chronology of um cast genus Brown is not very well understood and heneb are currently uh conducting excavations to try and um ascertain more clearly the chronology of the site. So um when we come to um uh the reformation of course everything changes very fast indeed and the attitudes to the pillar of alise changed not exactly overnight but it's now regarded did not as a cherished Christian monument where you might stop and pray on the way um uh north south um on that route for example [snorts] but it's now um seen as an object of uh superstition and therefore it's in danger of iconoclastic uh destruction. Now we know that Vikrru's abi was uh suppressed in the dissolution um quite early on probably around January in January 1537 or just before that and the estate is granted to Sir William Pickering. Now, so William Pickering was in Yorkshire and um there are a series of I I presume absentee landlords in in this period and uh William Pickering the first died in 1542. And um his job really was to see that people uh on his behalf and and and for the crown um strip the lead off the buildings and uh began to uh actually pull the buildings down, but they didn't get very far. And at the same time, locals were also taking advantage of an empty site and also pinching stone for local building. Now we I don't think it's in this period that the cross is um destroyed. And the reason I don't I think it's it's later on during the Civil War um is because Edward Floyd um following a comment by John Aubry in the 1680s the who and John Aubry was an antiquarian with very good Welsh connections. He thought um as a result of correspondence with another antiquarian um Moredith Moredith Lloyd I think his name was that it might have occurred during the civil war. There was a general feeling in the um 1680s that it had occurred then. And we know that in the 1640s um there was an order of parliament during the first civil war and I quote to remove all images and pictures from all open places whatsoever. Before that, the iconoclasm had tended to be within cathedrals and churches and and the stripping of the altars of um uh plate and and so forth and images and indeed relics. But I think that in this instance, we know there was a parliamentary army um in the area of Riin and Churk in 1644. And this would seem to be the most likely context in which the pillar of Elise was um essentially the the crosshair which is very common in in these instances was destroyed altogether. It's never been refound and the whole of the thing was toppled over and at that stage the inscription because it was on its side really started to deteriorate. The cross is sandstone. And as early as 1648, Robert Vaughn of Henort, who was a famous uh collector of manuscripts after um uh when they were dispersed from monasteries uh uh after the reformation, he visited the site and he made a copy of part of the inscription um in his commonplace book in 1648. At this time he was trying to write a history of the British and he was clearly extremely interested in the monument um because of the genealogy. He was a genealogologist as well and this was what drove him presumably to visit the site and write down what he could. But for us the as I explained earlier the really important records are by Edward Fluid and he visited the site in 1696 and recorded the fallen pillar and I showed you the Banga University manuscript last time. This is the British Library version Harley MS 3780 folio uh 95. And I think you can see um his careful transcript, but you can also see very clearly that a number of the beginnings of the lines lower down the inscription are missing, which is why the reconstruction is has proved scholast, you know, for scholars really quite difficult to do. Now, um this these um uh anti-quarian records are the basis that we still use today. And they're also um because they were recording all these things because they were extremely worried about what was being lost altogether at the time. So um we don't get much scholarly work on the pillar of an egg now then until the early 20th century. There's an enormous gap. Instead what we get is the reinvention of the monument in the 1770s in a partic completely different way which I find absolutely fascinating. Now the 1770s apart from um the uh colonial things like the loss of America and the you know rapid growth of the British Empire elsewhere was also interesting because of um a resurgence of ideas about British and indeed well Welsh history, Scottish history, the time of Ashen for example in Scotland and also ideas about picturesque landscapes and uh or sublime landscapes and also concepts of the Gothic. Now I haven't got time to talk about this in enormous detail but I thought that what would give you a flavor of the period be best is um Thomas Jones wonderful picture of the bard in se which was painted in 1774 and you can go and see that um in the uh in amry and this um extraordinary picture was inspired by Thomas Gray's poem um which he wrote in 1757 called the Bard. And this is basically a mythical story of how only one bard was left in Wales because all the others had been killed by the army of Edward I. And you can see the kind of blighted trees, the very dramatic hilly landscape, rocky landscape, indeed a sort of Stonehenge in one point of the painting. and um the last bard I think with his liar there um uh sort of staving off the end. Now at the same time just before well in the next decade after this poem was written and the period just before the painting there was also the first Gothic novel um produced which I would heartily recommend for an extraordinary read. The Castle of Atranto by Horus Walpole. And this just shows you the opening um page of that. And this story um like many Gothic novels for example by Anna Radcliffe and indeed Walter Scott and um uh shows a complete reinvention of um late abbies in particular and castles to suit this uh Gothic taste um of them being used for torture and all sorts of things. And also um they recreate I mean the cast of Toronto has a monument that looks is a sort of tomb that looks rather like the pillar of Elise. Now um Oops. Sorry. >> Please. There we are. Now, at the same time as this resurgence of British and Gothic and picturesque, we also have um a large number of aristocrats going to Rome on the Grand Tour. And this is going on in the course of the 17th century. And the most famous from northeast Wales was um the young uh very wealthy aristocrat Sir Watkin Williams win. Um, and you can see that his dates overlap with the recreation of the pillar of Elise. And he went to Rome in 1768. And he was um painted by the major um uh portrait painter, Italian portrait painter of the day, Pompeo Batoni. And again, you can see that in Amy Vamry. And what they did was these aristocrats was they went to Rome and Naples and various other places and but they did things like measuring um obelisks and so forth which um very much makes and we'll see in a minute that the pillar of Elisek is now treated as an obelisk and not as a cross. Now there were artists also from Wales who were going to Italy at this time. The most important of these was Richard Wilson and he um began in Italy in the 1760s. He was painting um uh classical landscapes with um sort of local and heroic figures like this one of Lake Venus. they were influenced by um Claude for example and um but when he comes back from Wales he is patronized by Subatkin Williams win and so he paints Dinas Brown which you can see here and um this wonderful painting um is um now um in uh in Princeton I think in Yale sorry in Yale and um You can see the ruins there in this kind of romantic landscape that's bathed in sort of Italian light. And he painted two pictures for Sir Watkin Williams win. But from our point of view, the really interesting picture is a picture right at the end of his life because he painted this ancient British landscape. It's quite a small picture in um the National Library and you can see here uh again Dennis Brown a rather blighted tree here but it's an ancient British landscape and what has it got in it in the wrong place I might add but the pillar of Alisk and he died two years later after painting this picture because by that time he was living very close to where um to Flanglin so Um, so what was culture like in Tangotland in the 1770s? Well, we can see this through the work of the artist William Perry um and his family because they too um had the patronage of Sir Watkin Williams win. And we can see an early portrait by William Perry of a young Sir Watkin Williams win um in um uh in 1770 here with his um dog. And then we can also see that um William Par's father, sorry. Yeah, William Perry um uh was father was um a famous harpist. Um, sorry. John Perry was his father was a famous harpist who um was blind and um he uh was played in London and in the area around Tangotlin for the Watkin Williams um family and the other character is probably William Par's brother. But William Perry also painted the man who excavated the antiquarian intrusion in the pillar of Elise and that was Trevor Lloyd and you can see him over there on the right with his staff but also Val um Dennis Brown behind him. So um what was Trevor Lloyd's excavation consist of? Well, basically he dug downwards and then outwards and um before the pillar of Elise was reinstated. And um you can see the area of the antiquarian intrusion is marked here in dark gray. That's just uh we've done that so you can see it. And in the area of the antiquarian intrusion, a number of pieces of 17th or 18th century pottery were found. also clay fragment pipe clay pipe fragments which were clearly the workmen who were actually conducting this antiquarian um you know dig if you like and we know that they found at least one kiss the kiss that we reexavated which was um on the right hand side of that antiquarian intrusion. Now um he in se did the excavation in 1773 and in 1779 he reerected the pillar in the base which had been on top of the mound throughout. But as you can see he mounted the the base on a plinth and there's a he put a Latin inscription on the back of the cross. Um and in that he tells us that which remains of this old monument long removed from eyes and neglected tidy of Trevor Hall finally restored in AD 1779. So why I suppose the question one asks is what he was what was he doing in the excavation? Well, I think what he was doing was that he was trying to find the burial of Elise essentially because from this time onwards, it's equated with a burial, an early medieval burial site, not anything prehistoric. And we need to bear that in mind in what happens later on. Now what Trevor Lloyd was doing was he was creating um and I suppose recreating elements in a picturesque landscape and um what we have here is um Valley Cruises um and you can see a summer house here. He erected that summer house. It's got his initials on it in 1773. And the idea was that you could view the monument from Valley Cruises Abby. You can see it from that uh uh little summerhouse over the caravan site. Now um just there that's the view from the summer house. So um the main object of visitors was Valerie Cruises followed by Dinus Brown. But they were also encouraged by their excavation to also visit the pillar of Elisek as the grave of um the early medieval ruler of Paris. Now um now how was this these ideas promulgated so to speak? Well um it was the time from the 1770s onwards and particularly during the Napoleonic wars in the 1790s and early 19th century we have um visitors were not able to travel overseas. So instead they did visited the lakes or they visited for the picturesque landscape or they visited the veil of Langotland and essential to promulgating tourism in um the Fangotland area was the works of um Thomas Pennant. Now Thomas Penant clearly uh knew Trevor Lloyd I think um and he produced his a tour of North Wales between uh it was published between 1778 and 1783 and he's the only person that actually tells us that the excavation took place within these last few years. the tumulus was opened and the relics of certain bones found there placed as usual between some flat stones. So he he actually tells us that they dug up um kisss and the guide book essentially tells you how to go around these monuments. It provides you with a route and um the it's accompanied by one of his two artists uh the more famous Moses Griffith. And you can see Moses Griffith's drawing of the pillar of Alise here before it was reerected but when it has the inscription on on it and uh that was an engraving in the book. Now by this period um it it's doubtful whether um the pillar of illeg was seen as a cross at all because this was there was still feelings I think um religious feelings against such monuments but um instead it was seen as an obelisk and we know this because um a sketch by um The antery James uh Barington dated to 1773 shows the cross before you know when at the time of the excavation down um the actual sketch is was sent was by probably by Moses Griffith but it was sent by and James Barington and displayed in a meeting of the society of antiquaries in London on the 20th of May 1773 and you can go and see it in the minute book of the Society of Antiquities. And this shows the the um the actual uh cylinder of the cross shaft on the floor shows this on the base on top of the mound. But then it shows a reconstruction as an obelisk. And at this time a number of monuments uh former crosses were being reinvented as classical obelisks. And this is one uh a medi later medieval market cross from um in riffin uh which was reerected in that way in 1760. So it was natural to think of them as columns not as crosses. So it's the sort of ultimate reinvention if you like as something else. Now during the period of the um Napoleonic wars in particular there were large numbers of travelers and artists came to the veil of Fangotlin um and a number of extremely interesting sketches and and paintings were conduct you know were carried out. I just want to show you two. And the first um was is by Turner. And um you can see uh this uh very pale um notebook sketch. He probably visited it in 1794 um when he was only about um 19, wasn't he? and he just before he um Richard Colthor the famous antiquaryy acts as his patron. So at this time he's clearly interested in British history and British history painting and he goes on to do a watercolor of values and he also his painting later on for um uh the when he becomes a royal royal academy mission um is of Dolbaden Castle and that is a British history um painting. On the other hand, we've got Thomas Rollinsson um in 1797 and he shows a guide showing tourists the monument and you can see also Valley Cruises down on one side. Now by the 1820s the guide there's a new guide book Simpsons guide book and by this time it's made into a kind of mythical status you know and um it goes on about a coin a silver coin being found in the coffin and the of presumably the grave of Elise eggg and that the skull was gilded to preserve it and then seen uh deposited with its kindred bones. Now this is classic kind of Gothic romanticism and it's made up. So the monument is being reinvented in this kind of mythical um way. Now I suppose finally the row about prehistory now because the pillar of Elise was now perceived to be the burial place of Eliz the prince of Paris in the late 8th uh late 8th century. Um by the time we get the foundation of the Cambrians in 1846 um to Saturn, one of the two major founders was re the Reverend John Williams known as Abel. And as you can see, he was a cleric, but he was also very much a romanticist who believed in things like Oen and believed in um how yolo moan. So in um archaic camis in 1851 he writes we have in the monument in question a remarkable proof of the late period to which the custom of burying in tumuli was carried down by the Britain. So what he's arguing is that prehistory is extremely short. um going back to the biblical model um and that what we're seeing is prehistoric customs of the ancient Britons being continued up to the time of Elise because they're still being buried in prehistoric type kes and the idea of a deep time and prehistory was very slow to catch on in Wales and the major reason I think why it was was because um of the notions that Abbeel put about about the pillar of Elisek. So in the second half of the 19th century um the pillar becomes essentially a forgotten monument and this rather interesting 1905 image of the abbey fields with um the pillowise egg which has by then trees growing which was why we were still getting rid of bits of tree in 2010. Um uh you you can see it was used as a bore war um uh training camp site. I mean there was a bore war militia militia after the bore war and they used this site as a training camp and we did in fact find uh artifacts like pen knives and things which were almost certainly to do with this campaign. Now it was only with Sir John Reese's article in 1908 in a cumbraor the name of the article's all around the Ricanin um that and and we get the reassessment of the early medieval significance of the pillar of Alisk. He looks at the inscription in depth and he's drawing on um Edward Lloyd and the work that I did in the early uh 2000s is essentially stemming from that article and um so what Sir John Reese did and also the foundation of the Royal Commission on the Ancient Historic Monuments of Wales in the uh early 20th century, they're bringing this monument back as a uh um in an academic fashion and they're also calling on it to be protected because by that I mean there's various a lot of letters which um Sean Reese has looked at indicating its poor condition and of course in a sense um the monument was scheduled early on on the 29th of December 1923 and the deed of guardianship ship was in 1937 which is again early and um in some senses it protect obviously guardianship anduling protects the monument and you can see how the monument looks today um rather pristine after um returfing after the um excavation and you can see its current um interpretation the Radford version on the left and the modern Kadu version on the right. And in some senses, I suppose it sets a monument in aspic. We're not going to get in the foreseeable future the reinvention of the monument in such radical ways as I've tried to show today because the monument, as I hope I've shown, has both a fascinating and a very complex biography. And um there's a need I think to think very hard about the ways that we explain monuments of this kind when they have such a complex history. So what I've tried to do is to show you the prehistoric origins, the early medieval reinvention, the kind of accretion and reinvention in the later medieval period. its destruction, its radical reinvention in the late 18th century and then it's the final um brought into kind of an archaeological professionalism in the early 20th century. Darian Thank you. Well, thank you so much. >> Oh, yes, >> there's a microphone if you don't mind. >> Thank you so much for that fantastic display of a monument through time. I think it's just so fascinating looking at any monument through its different um uh different phases and different interpretation how we look at a monument and I think it's only by doing work of that sort jolly pine painstaking and and long term takes that we can really understand the monuments that we've inherited today and we have to look after and it's so important when you explain the whole transformation of this monument this landscape and even before the bronze age what did it look like before the bronze age? Um so it's just just so uh important that we understand them fully and so that we can look after them better. I bet you anything that we haven't put it into aspect looking at the work that Kadu's been doing just recently on monuments I think that um things do change quite a lot now but yes we are in a different phase now we're in different a phase of sort of um public archaeology public accessible monuments and it's just fascinating to see how attitudes have changed um I think we surely will have some questions and we got some zoom people as well um and Chris is going to look after them. But in the first instance, could we have questions from the the floor? >> Yeah. >> Um the depiction of Vortigan in the Historia is not very flattering. >> No. >> Do you think that's significant? >> Um not in is not is not flattering in bead either, is it? >> No. No. I think if and I think that's the crucial thing to go back to the um the thing is that the um in the history of Bretonum the Vortigan is linked with the area of Paris sort of further down um and it's also thought to have died down there if I remember rightly and I think that there are probably more than one story or myth or combination of the two about Vortigan that's going on at this time because the essentially what they're doing with the pillar of Elise if I have interpreted it correctly is that they're using um first Magnus Maximus as the progenitor if you like of this um line though in fact the line is probably only comes in in the 8th century. So they're inventing it and then they are grafting on to this um person who died in Aqualia um a longstanding British element and they actually have Vortigan um his wife on the inscription is Seira who is Magnus Maximus's daughter. I think I've got it right. And um and then there's a son called Britu uh which um who Bengai thinks might be an eponym I think for pace itself. So that is essentially it's all manipulation and I think that's why it gets a better press in in this instance than what bead for example or historian was saying. I when I was the inspector for the area, I did notice always the great drop off between the field next door and the uh mound itself. And um I'd often wondered whether in fact uh when the landscape was being sort of manipulated for picturesque reasons um and the view from the um from the oral window in the in the summer house whether or not actually the ground level was uh lowered or the mount actually enhanced the we think that where the feel Yeah. We well it was put on top of a little plinth so you can see it. you couldn't see it before and the plinth that um what's what's odd is that in some of the painting you pictures like Turner's little sketch um and indeed um the other one I showed you the plints doesn't look very tidy but I think they're making it look kind of romantic you know um because they move the monuments round you know they often show Dennis Brown which you can't see from the pillar of the Lisa um and but we came to the conclusion when we did the liar survey I didn't have didn't discuss this I didn't have time that the the where that field boundary is that it has been manipulated >> and it's all to give um the impression when you're moving up towards it that it's higher than it is and you have to remember that it's on the end of this glacial ridge it's quite pronounced the glacial terribly um really really acidic soil but when you're there you get this idea. um we did sort of play around with how far sound you know you could project your voice from there and it was quite a way and that's why one of the reasons for thinking it might be an assembly site because of that position but of course if it's changed um in order to make it this gothic monument uh or British early sort of British heroes monument in the 18th century they are going to change it aren't they I mean I I have yet to contact I'm one of the things I need to do is to contact the Lloyd family because they own the portrait that um I showed you to see what they I've been through various archives but there's not an enormous amount about him in public archives that I can find. Um so they might have things as well that might might be helpful. The other uh just occasionally mismusing in a sort of um um mental iconoclastic sort of way is is whether or not the the cross was always on the top of that mound. Um we got it down the bottom and we got bits of stone and so on. But if it was an assembly site, it's very mileage and thinking that actually and there were probably other mounds, other prehistoric mounds around there. Could we possibly having the person who's doing the declaiming on the top of the mound and and uh >> somewhere possible? All we know from the um Moses Griffith drawing that went to the site of Antic was it was on top of the mound when >> then there was a rakish angle. >> Um I think it likely it was on top of the mound. Um there is enough room for people to stand on top of the mound and for the genealogy to be read read out and you know um or whatever um to an assembled audience beneath. And I mean because of the acidic soil we're very unlikely to find much in the way of artifacts. And I mean I toyed with the idea well you know masked tents or something which would is perfectly possible but it wouldn't leave anything behind because of you know I think the soil is something like three or four. We did a pH and uh it was very very acidic. >> Yeah. Yes. >> I have two questions. Um first of all about the the [clears throat] bone needle that you found. >> Yeah. It had a notch in it rather than Oh, yeah. Do you think the >> I think it's broken. The bone was broken. Yeah. One of the bone pins if you like um was uh broken in two and the other one was more but it wasn't completely whole. >> Okay. >> And I think we were lucky we got anything to be honest with you other than stone because of the the soil. >> The second question is um it it it's not easy to to break up a cross the cross head. >> No, >> without leaving fragments around. >> I wonder whether they've been used as target practice during the Civil War. >> Um well, I wouldn't know whether they'd be used as target practice, but um I think it likely that they're either in the wall bits are in the walls round about and there's major hedges and you know all the rest of it. Um or they were carted off somewhere for building material. And I mean a large number of crosses, Anglo-Saxon crosses and um you know crosses in Britain and Ireland particularly Northern Ireland rather than the south survive as essentially the shafts and the bases and they're reinterpreted as obelisks because I mean from the point of iconoclasm um you get rid of the top but these monuments are often treasured and therefore you get rid of as little as possible. I mean, we know that the white cross in Tarvin um in Cheshire was actually brought down by Civil War soldiers, you know, per um on Cromwell's side and they did find in an excavation, archaeological excavation, they did find part of the cross head, but that is exceptional because the the um actual uh documentation, you know, in the Civil War actually describes them at Tarven. And I've been I've tried to do this for the pill which is why I know they were in Riin and in Churk in 1644 but obviously I haven't got them. Um and we looked at the post-medieval pottery that is in the antiquarian. Um and they and um uh I'm just trying to think of the first name of Julie Edwards who who um looked at the pottery for us. She couldn't be absolutely sure what was 17th century and what was 18th century, but she did think it was possible that some of it might have got into the mound in the antiquarian um uh you know excavation, but had been in fact dumped in the um 1640s. But she couldn't, you know, it's just too precise. >> Is there a question over there? Yeah. Yeah. >> Yes. If if there's time, um I actually wanted to come back to the Reverend John Williams Athell because um he would have been anything but alone in the middle of the 19th century even amongst thinking and articulate and sensible people in wanting to put history within a >> biblical framework. Absolutely not. history um too. And it sounded a little bit as if you were suggesting there was sort of cause and effect relationship between what he said in 1851 and then this actually really quite strange neglect of the monument for the next 75 years which >> I if I just sort of ask if you really >> well I suppose I no I suppose I simplified it. Um, on the one hand, I mean, it's not really until, if I remember correctly, it's the 1870s or so that, um, uh, that the Cambrians [snorts] begin absolutely, you know, um, accept a longer prehistory. Um, I do think that in the kind of that the romantic view of the veil of Flangotlin had essentially changed and one of the reasons for this is industrialization. Things like the building of the Ponerti aqueduct in the 1820s is it >> bit before that. Yes, >> bit before that. Right. and the arrival of the railways. I mean, George Borrow is the last of um the uh sort of he he's a romantic and he hates going on the railway and he arrives by railway it fair um you know in Northeast Wales and then walks around North Wales but he um is thought to be very outdated by the time he was doing what he was doing this romantic out view and I I think essentially what changes is um the romantic outlook but in the case of Abbe it's very interesting and he dug at Valley Cruises actually um uh is that it's I suppose the last time that this very very conservative view um of using the early medieval period to shorten prehistory is that I could you know in Wales it's it's used I mean it's used in plenty of other ways so it's not it's a contributory factor >> any Zoom questions anything more anybody would like to contribute doesn't have to be a question we can we can take um comment can we not anybody else any views yes yeah >> it's not a view it's just a question [laughter] would be a very early photo shoot. There was some um redug to be dug before top of the mound. There was some foundations >> what looked like foundations. >> Yeah, I don't think they were foundations. Um they the in the 1920s I think there's a certain amount of repairing going on and it looks a bit tidier these days than it did because they put up the railings and that sort of thing. Must have been the photograph with in St. John Reese's article I think that's the earliest photograph I show. Um it was early in your lecture. >> Oh right. Okay. See if we can find it. quite early on. >> Oh, we're not going to be able we're not going to be able to find do it, I'm afraid. It's just too difficult. But um I mean obviously um the pillar, you know, has been kind of uh periodically looked at by Kadu, you know, to maintain it, hasn't it? And um I mean there's some interesting graffiti actually on on the um on the cross base um with little bits that have been stuck back on and they put their initials on the bits. Um, and but I I've sorry I can't really help with that, but my suspicion is that there's been a [clears throat] quite a lot of repairs over time because it's dry stone essentially and uh you know well if that's brought everybody's comments. No, Elizabeth, will you wave? No, no, you won't. Sorry. Um, uh, I'd just like to reiterate our great thanks to you, uh, indeed for not only giving us the lecture, but the extraordinary amount of work that's gone into it. As I said, if if, uh, if we could all have the amount of time to look into every one of our Kadu monuments, wouldn't that be absolutely fantastic? We'd understand them so so much better. And it's just terrific to see that this work has been done on this particularly interesting and atmospheric monument. So, thank you very much indeed.