Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Celtic Coin Hoard

Metal detector hobbyists have discovered a hoard of Celtic coins in the Channel Islands. And it's a big hoard.

Imagine digging a hole in the ground and uncovering 50,000 coins. Oddly, they were fused together in a solid block weighing three-quarters of a ton. Archaeologists needed a crane to lift this tangled mass.

Initial assessments date these coins to around the year 50 BC -- roughly the time of Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul. If accurate, that would make them over 2,000 years old, as explained in this Coin World article:
Hoard yields thousands of Iron Age coins

Why does this fascinate me so? I suppose it’s because I've always dreamed of uncovering.... hidden mysteries. As to what those might be, I'm quite flexible. It doesn't have to have monetary value. No, the hidden mysteries I'm interested in include the forgotten, the abandoned, or things that are just plain hidden and old. A few examples:
Sadly, hidden mysteries are tough to locate in Las Vegas, even with the most powerful metal detector. Yet this sort of thing happens regularly in England. For example, the Bredon Hill Hoard is described here: Metal detectorist makes find of lifetime with hoard discovery
And the more contemporary Hackney Hoard:U.S. gold coins found buried in garden

Thursday, July 05, 2012

The Holy Grail by Arthur Edward Waite

Thirsting for esoteric knowledge, I set forth to read The Holy Grail: History, Legend and Symbolism by Arthur Edward Waite. It's one of the most obtuse books I’ve ever encountered.

On page 18, we have the following sentence: “The literature which enshrines this Mystery, setting forth the circumstances under which it was from time to time discovered and, in fine, its imputed removal, with all involved thereby, is one of such considerable dimensions that it may accurately described as large.” Oh my Gawd! That’s what I call writing.

Undaunted, I drilled down to page 480, where all was revealed. To paraphrase the learned Waite: The Grail itself is the manifestation of God. The quest for the Grail is the search for God, as well as presentation of the Christian life as perceived by a 13th century mind. Galahad is God’s own minister, charged with a mission which is far beyond his personal concern. It says so, right here in "Book XII: The Secret of the Holy Grail."

Ah, now I understand.