"Seahenge" is a misnomer. But, when it was excavated in 1998, a clever journalist called it "The Stonehenge of the Sea," and the name stuck.
Seahenge, however, is a timber circle, created in about 2049 BCE.
Actually, there were many more timber circles than there are stone circles. Wood, however, decomposes.
Unless, of course, the wood exists in a low-oxygen environment. From the Salt-marsh to the Sea This monument was not, in fact, built on the beach. Back in 2049 BCE, sea levels were lower than now. Back then, the site of Seahenge was a salt marsh, teeming with wildlife- and sodden, low-oxygen soil. The tree trunks decomposed above the marsh, but endured in the marshy soil. Eventually, the sea inundated the marsh, and the remains of the timber monument hibernated beneath the sea floor. Then, in 1998, two amateur archeologists on the southwestern coast of England found some bronze axe heads and espied some unusual bits of wood sticking up from the sand. Sea tides had scooped away the sand and exposed the stubs of tree trunks. They notified the local museum, and experts quickly realized the significance of their find.
Oak trees do not grow in salt marshes, and it is thought that the trees were transported quite a long distance. The fact that a timber circle was preserved at all was noteworthy. But what makes Seahenge so astonishing is the up-turned oak tree in its center. The Inverted Oak Tree The oak tree trunk is a much larger tree than the rest; it measures 8 feet and weighs over a ton. As soon as the wood of the trunk and timbers were exposed to the air, they started to deteriorate rapidly. They were all removed and went through an elaborate preservation process, involving fresh water tanks, a special wax, and polyethylene glycol, which gradually strengthened the cell structure of the wood.
Sky Burial A sky burial is when human remains are left to decompose with the help of carrion birds. It's a practice most notable in Tibet and historically with some North American tribes. The remains are situated in some way to facilitate consumption by birds, and discourage consumption by larger animals, which would dismember and move the body around. The point is to have the remains excarnated, without being totally ravaged. Sometimes the body is elevated on a platform or tree. In the case of Seahenge, the remains were placed in the bowl-like shape of the tree root system, then the protective timber circle was constructed to keep larger animals away. The Tree of Life and Death But none of this answers the question: Why an inverted tree? Why not just a platform like what is in Holme II, another timber circle only 100 meters away? It could be that the tree root system simply created that bowl-like shape, suitable for cradling human remains. But I don’t think so. It seems to me it’s meant to imply the tree continues downward under the earth, into the underworld. My interpretation may be influenced by what I have learned about The Journey of the Sun, a Nordic Bronze Age theology, where it is believed the sun travels across the sky during the day, and then returns under the earth to rise again the next day. (To learn more about The Journey of the Sun, read my blog entries about The Sun’s Nocturnal Return, The Nebra Sky Disc, and Tree Burial I & II.) The Seahenge monument is from the Neolithic, and predates the Bronze Age by many centuries. But it still implies to me that there was a conception of an underworld, a place where the deceased go, mimicking the sun’s decent. This idea of cycles- day and night, life and death- is echoed in the inverted tree, symbolizing an upside-down world. Having said all this, my art isn’t just about objects and places from the past; it’s also about the passage of time and how we regard these objects and places now. So, even though this monument was created in a salt marsh, and wasn’t some beach driftwood sculpture, it’s inundation by the sea effects my imagination. The moment I saw images of it, I couldn’t help but envision this inverted oak tree as living under the sea, upside down in a subterranean ocean. My Artistic Process I am not actually that great of a shopper. I know it seems strange to think of this activity as a skill, but believe me, it is. My husband excels at shopping. He seems to relish it, knows what he wants, and never wanders into a store half-cocked. I, on the other hand, often launch forth without researching, without calling, just wandering out assuming that whatever it is I want will just be there waiting for me. This time was such a moment. I have been really good and disciplined about CALLING the art store before going to make sure they have the panel size I want. But this time, for some reason, I didn't. I just went. Following the visual impression in my mind, I wanted a 36x24 panel. They didn't have it. But when I am in this state of mind, it is difficult for me to accept the brutal fact that I should have called and now I have to go to another art store... or change my plans.
When done, I started to create bubble-like marks below. I did this by spraying or sprinkling rubbing alcohol on the acrylic paint, waiting a moment, then rubbing it off. The alcohol temporarily breaks down the acrylic so that it can be removed. The result is a speckling effect. I also dipped plastic lids of different sizes in rubbing alcohol, placed them on the panel to create little circles of alcohol, and then rubbing that off. The effect looks like a transparent bubble. After working on that top half for a while, I had to tackle the under-water tree.
But in this case, the tree is upside down. But the main act of painting was not the tree itself, but the water around it. Again using rubbing alcohol, I misted the panel, then used a rag to scrub away paint slightly, creating a back-lit effect around the tree. Using this technique, I created a luminous, sparkling atmosphere. Cycles of Life and Death As is so often the case in this series of Archeology Art, my subject ultimately is about the Life/Death cycle. We humans commonly reassure ourselves by believing that we don’t really die. Our loved ones still exist somewhere, and that when we die, we will go there too. Some visions on the afterlife are pretty bleak, some are frightening, and some are comforting. But it’s almost universal to believe in something other than the notion that when we die, we are simply… gone. It sounds macabre, and often it is. But just as often it is life-affirming, not nihilistic. Especially when the exploration of life's cycles results in monuments, or simple paintings, of beauty and wonder. ** There has been real controversy related to the excavation and removal of Seahenge. Neo-pagan groups have stated that it desecrated the intentions of the ancestors. Partly because of this, Holme II- another timber circle built nearby at the same time as Seahenge- has been left in situ. It's deterioration, due to the elements and its exposure to oxygen, is being studied by archeologists.
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