The Journal Of Antiquities

Ancient Sites In Great Britain & Southern Ireland


The Agglestone, Studland Heath, Isle of Purbeck, Dorset

The Agglestone on Studland Heath, Dorset.

The Agglestone on Studland Heath, Dorset, early 1900s.

Os grid reference: SZ 0236 8282. On Studland Heath 1 mile north-west of the village of Studland on the Isle of Purbeck, stands a strange rock formation called The Agglestone, which has now fallen on its side. Locally it has associations both in myth and legend with the devil who is said to have hurled the rock from the Needles on the Isle of Wight, to where it stands today but, as we all know and is often the case, he missed his target by many miles. But this strange rock formation has been gradually eroded away over many thousands of years by natural forces, ie the weather. The town of Swanage is 2 miles to the south, while Corfe Castle is 5 miles to the west, just off the B3351 Wareham road.

The Agglestone close-up (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

The Agglestone close-up. Photo Credit: Jim Champion (Wikipedia)

The strange-shaped Agglestone Rock is 20 feet high and is estimated to weigh 400 tonnes. It is perched upon a conical-shaped hill and is made of tertiary Sandstone, according to Wikipedia. Also known as the Devil’s Anvil, due to the shape we see today, or the Devil’s Nightcap. The name Agglestone could in fact be a derivation of Eagle Stone and, maybe locally ‘wobble stone’ because “aggle” is the local name for ‘wobble’ or ‘wobbly’, apparently! It is said, according to the myths and legends associated with the rock, that the Devil in anger decided to hurl it from the Needles on the Isle of Wight (where he just happened to be standing) to Corfe Castle to which he had taken a dislike, according to Janet & Colin Bord in their book ‘The Enchanted Land,’ or perhaps the city of Salisbury where the great cathedral stands, or was he aiming at Bindon Abbey near Wool in Dorset. It is also possible I would think, that the Devil intended the large rock to hit Christchurch, Dorchester, or maybe even Wimborne Abbey, in fact just about any Christian community in the south and south-west of England was in his reach, and quite a reach that would be!

Sources:

Bord, Janet & Colin., The Enchanted Land, Thorsons, Hammersmith, London W6, 1995.

Photo Credit:  Jim Champion:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agglestone_Rock

http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=12260

Copyright © Ray Spencer, The Journal of Antiquities. Up-dated 2021.


The Rock Cones Of Urgup, Cappadocia, Turkey

Urgup in Cappadocia (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

Urgup in Cappadocia (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

Latitude 38.660046 & Longitude 34.853611. On the Anatolian Plain in the Zelve region of Cappadocia, some 140 miles south-east of the capital city Ankara and 2 miles north-east of Goreme, stand the famous Rock Cones of Urgup, with hundreds of naturally-formed rock citadels: pinnacles, cones, domes, columns and pyramid-shapes, resembling giant mushrooms, which are known locally as Fairy Chimneys.

Since the 4th century Christian ascetics have sought sanctuary in some of the larger rocky structures and carved out churches and chapels from them, indeed some of the rock faces, nearby, have some quite astonishingly ‘beautifully’ hewn-out places of refuge and worship, while underground there are literally hundreds of subterranean cave-like dwellings, with passage-ways linking rock-cut rooms and buildings, many on different levels, with boulders that could be rolled into position across doorways in case of attack. But going further back – in the 1st century AD St Peter the Apostle is said to have brought Christianity to Anatolia, and then in the 4th century St Basil, bishop of Caesarea (now called Kayseri, 50 miles to the east), urged monks and hermits who were fleeing from persecution to follow an ascetic life on the Plain of Urgup and the Goreme Valley, nearby.

Fairy Chimneys of Cappadocia (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

Fairy Chimneys of Cappadocia (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

There are many hundreds of rock pinnacles, resembling lofty chimneys that seem to nearly touch the sky in places, which have been shaped by erosion and the softer rock around them gradually worn-away over millions of years to form the alien, moon-like landscape of today; many of the pinnacles being over 100 feet high (30-40 metres) and having windows and doorways, many even being joined together to form communities of people, with many more having churches and chapels built inside them. And below ground there are vast cavenous-like structures: tunnels, galleries, and passage-ways, with several different levels of underground buildings and rock-cut rooms. The main entrances have large boulders standing ready in position so that they could be rolled across in case of an attack from the outside, and if any would-be invader did get inside they would find the maze of passage-ways bewildering, if not down-right dangerous, and they would be dealt with in due course! A few of the larger, more interesting churches still retain their original medieval frescos, a lasting tribute to the monks and hermits who painted them many centuries ago.

A Rock Church in Cappadocia (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

Rock Church,  Cappadocia (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

These underground towns, cities, and communities of people would have been largely self-sufficent; they even had their own stables attached – both above and below ground, and also their own water supply through pools and large stone tanks. However, by the 13th century the rock chimneys of Urgup were being abandoned, and only a few solitary hermits and priests continued to live here in an equally solitary residence, but the man-made rock churches and chapels did continue to be ‘in use’ until more recent times, and today they are a tourist attraction, with some 600 or so churches surviving both at Urgup and at nearby Goreme – including the churches of St John the Baptist, St Barbara, St Basil, Church of the Apple and Tokali.

The geography of the Urgup and Goreme area is summed up as being: these strange rock formations were shaped over 8 million years or so to form what we see today. The cones or pinnacles have survived because they are formed from a much harder rock than the soft rock plateau that had originally surrounded them -which has worn away to leave the strange chimney-like shapes and, at the top of each cone a bulbous lump of basalt and small boulders has fused together, providing protection to the lower rock structure itself, looking like a sort of top-knot, perhaps, and giving each cone a chimney-like appearence – hence the local name ‘fairy chimneys.’

In the Reader’s Digest book ‘Strange Worlds Amazing Places’ the geography of this region is outlined in detail: “The process that shaped this unique landscape began when the volcanoes of Cappadocia erupted about 8 million years ago. They deposited countless layers of ash, lava, debris and mud, raising the altitude of the land by more than 1000 feet (300m) to form a prominent plateau.”

“Millions of years of compression turned the volcanic ash into a soft, pale rock called tufa. This was overlaid by a thinner layer of dark, hardened lava known as basalt. As the basalt cooled, it contracted and split, laying itself open to the erosive action of the weather. Streams and floods crisscrossed the plateau, cutting ever deeper, and earthquake shocks and winter frosts helped break up the layers of tufa and basalt.”

“Today the process of erosion continues, slowly wearing down the pinnacled landscape and exposing the multi-coloured layers of earth. These range from the palest tufa, through tones of ochre, russet and deep chestnut (caused by mineral impurities), to the black of the basalt.” Another Reader’s Digest publication ‘Book of Natural Wonders’, tells a similar story.

Sources:

Reader’s Digest, Strange Worlds Amazing Places, The Reader’s Digest Association Ltd., London W1X, 1994.          

Reader’s Digest Book Of Natural Wonders, The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc., New York, 1980.

Michael’s Guide Turkey, (series editor: Michael Shicor), Inbal Travel Information Ltd., Tel Aviv, Israel, 1990. 

Photo Credits:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cappadocia

http://www.turkeytravelcentre.com/blog/cave-churches-cappadocia/