Tuesday 16 June 2020

A grave mystery cleared up

There is, to my certain knowledge, at least one reader who has been sitting on the edge of her seat, awaiting the outcome of further investigations into the carvings on the stone cross on Charles Dawson's grave.

This is the chappie who in 1912 found the bones of Piltdown Man and claimed that the Missing Link between man and the apes had lived and died in Sussex long ago, specifically in a gravel pit at Piltdown. 

Mr Dawson, a country solicitor with time on his hands, gifted with a profound interest in geology and palaeontology, and evidently suffering from a burning desire to be famous, presented Piltdown Man to the scientific establishment and was widely lauded for his discovery. Unfortunately, forty-odd years later, the arrival of carbon dating revealed that the bones were bogus, faked to look ancient, and that Piltdown Man was a hoax. I covered the story and background in fair detail in my post on 2nd May Discovered - Piltdown Man - not just a skull and jawbone! His very grave! 


I was referring to Charles Dawson's grave. I'd had a look at it, and noticed that the flowery carvings on the cross that stood at the head of the grave appeared to contain a couple of reptilian-looking bits. 

When Mr Dawson died unexpectedly in 1916 ('twas the certain fate of all that do meddle with the dead, mumbled the sage villagers of Piltdown in their curious Sussex dialect, so similar to my own) his sensational discovery, and the fame and scientific acceptance that flowed from it, were still recent events. Nobody would have thought it strange or unusual to celebrate such an important contribution to science. But perhaps his widow decided not to give instructions for a full nude rendition of Piltdown Man, nor even just the creature's grinning skull. 

However, she might have thought it appropriate to include a reference or two to contemporary dinosaurs, her late husband's passion. And when I first examined the grave, and the first photos I took, I thought there might indeed be ancient reptiles lurking in the carvings. It needed a jolly good second look, in the right kind of light. And before anyone chortles, and scoffs in mirth, and tries to point out to me in a condescending manner that 'dinosaurs died out millions of years before humans evolved', let me remind them that in the Fred Flintstone cartoons of the early 1960s, the family pet was a doglike dinosaur named Dino. It's all at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flintstones. So there.  

Thus my mission on a return visit was look closely at the carvings, and come away with photos that would stand as proof, one way or the other.

So, without further ado, here are the pix. I invite you to study them. Empty your mind of ape-men. Or Tyrannosaurus Rexes. Or velociraptors. Just look at what is there. 


The main place for lurking reptilia seemed to be towards the base of the cross, so I've taken several shots of that part, at varying distances, just in case distance matters.


Well, I don't know about you, but I can't (now) see anything suggestive of prehistoric animals, half-hidden or not. Just flowers and foliage of various kinds, somewhat worn by a hundred and four years of weathering. I have to say, it must have been a fancy bit of carving when new, although not the sort of thing a practical man of science would necessarily have chosen for himself. 

End of story, I think. 

5 comments:

  1. I think it just indicates that no matter how hard you try or how long you try, bindweed will survive you and thrive on your grave. Perspective of a gardner in battle aganst bindweed in my veg garden!

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  2. Wise words indeed. There were plenty of graves in this rather arcadian churchyard that had mature trees growing out of them, not just the usual culprits like ivy, and bindweed.

    I'm starting to wonder whether it's worth having a grave. Who will bother tending it, dozens of years after one has gone? Perhaps one could have the representation of a grave in a virtual churchyard in cyberspace, one among a zillion, all in perfect rows, and easily searchable and readable, so that - if you click on them once found - anyone can see the full range of saved information about the occupant. Photos included.

    One could be buried with one's Facebook account. Or in my case, the best of my blog.

    Seems like a neat idea. And no ivy or bindweed to spoil it all.

    Lucy

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    1. I never did fancy using up space in a graveyard. The old idea of boneyard then Ossuary was a bit better but dust to ashy dust for me. I shall be happy to live in a few people's memory for a short while then gone...

      If you fancy something of a more permanent memorial and can think of a way of keeping a permanent electronic memory out "in the cloud" then a plague with a QR code might be the way until they become obsolete. Triggered a memory of such a thing so I searched...

      A QR code can link to an obituary and can be placed on a headstone. In 2008, Ishinokoe in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan began to sell tombstones with QR codes produced by IT DeSign, where the code leads to a virtual grave site of the deceased. Other companies, such as Wisconsin based Interactive Headstones, have also begun implementing QR codes into tombstones. In 2014, the Jewish Cemetery of La Paz in Uruguay began implementing QR codes for tombstones.

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  3. Gosh, I didn't know any of that.

    Not sure about the longevity of QR codes - certainly not a hundred years!

    Lucy

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  4. So just flowers and foliage; what a shame. I rather like subtle jokes on gravestones, such as Spike Milligan's "I told you I was sick."

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