It includes a tunnel that connects to a roundish beehive room. The largest and probably best known stone chamber in Massachusetts is the Upton Stone Chamber near Worcester in Upton. Hirundo Stone Structures, Alton and Old Town, Maine Visitors can tour the Gungywamp through the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center. Gungywamp is preserved, but many of the structures stand on private land.
It thus allows a shaft of sunlight to fall directly on a smaller chamber within the larger structure. A vent at one end of the chamber aligns with the spring and fall equinoxes. Gungywamp’s most famous chamber is the so-called ‘calendar chamber.’ Archaeologists suspect the colonists originally used it for storage for a nearby tan bark mill. They argue ‘Gungywamp’ means ‘church of the people’ in Gaelic. Some theorize that 8th-century Irish monks built certain structures. There is plenty of speculation about the purpose of the Gungywamp stone structures. Some features of the site suggest they were originally built as fortifications. Colonial settlers built others with purposes such as root cellars and birthing chambers. Some of the structures are thought to be Native American and perhaps had ceremonial functions. The 100-acre Gungywamp archaeological site in Groton, Conn., contains such stone structures as beehive chambers, petroglyphs, a double circle of stones, cellars and walls. Pynchon heard ‘a report of a stone wall and strong chamber in it, made all of stone, which is newly discovered at or near Pequot.’ Many had roof openings that allowed a little light to illuminate the interiors.Īs a result, early mercenaries to the Northeast wrote about ‘Indian stone castles.’ Furthermore, John Winthrop the Younger in 1654 received a letter from John Pynchon of Springfield, Mass. Typically they were one story high, circular or rectangular and as long as 30 feet. New England colonists found many stone buildings, when they arrived. Here, then, we bring you ancient stone structures (or maybe colonial root cellars), with at least one in each New England state. They then built their stone structures along those routes. Some speculate that perhaps ancient voyagers frequently traveled the Merrimack, the Thames and the Connecticut rivers. Tiny Rhode Island has only 12 stone structures, but still more than Maine, which has only four. The state has 105 sites containing stone structures.Ĭonnecticut also has quite a few at 62, New Hampshire has 51 and Vermont has 41. Massachusetts has the densest concentration of beehive-shaped stone chambers like those built by Culdee monks in Ireland. Most noteworthy, just three Northeast counties account for the majority of stone structures in North America: Putnam County, N.Y. Did medieval Irish monks, American Indians or Vikings build them? Or did the English colonists just built them as root cellars?
Speculation now runs rampant about the origins of the mysterious stone structures. A few have what are probably stone beds or sacrificial altars. They also stand near megaliths, cairns or dolmens. Some of those ancient stone structures are oriented to the stars and planets.
0 kommentar(er)
