Re: Science vs Scholarship and the Newport Tower

On Sat, 08 Dec 2007 22:50:42 GMT, "David B." <tronospamchos@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Eric Stevens wrote:
On Sat, 08 Dec 2007 21:42:49 GMT, "David B." <tronospamchos@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Eric Stevens wrote:

Here is the final
paragraph of chapter IIX of Godfrey's thesis (page 137):

"In spite of the great numbers of fragments of various kinds found,
it cannot be said that the collection shed more than the faintest
light on the problem of the Tower. Fascinating as it is to browse
around the many boxes containing tantalizing fragments of our
ancestors culture, the pieces do not tell when, why, and by whom
the Tower was built. One could speculate endlessly about the
portion of the neck of a Spanish oil Jar: where did it come from,
how did it get here, but its position indicated that it arrived
long after the Tower's builder departed. China doll fragments
suggest a world of pathetic young misses in crinolines, weeping
over their broken treasures, but do not suggest who moved the
stones, mixed the mortar, and designed this strange structure. For
that solution, we must look further."

I am not aware that Godfrey was able to progress past this point.
You're not understanding the passage- what Godfrey is saying there is
simply that the evidence he found gave no indication as to who built the
tower.

You are misparaphrasing him.

He actually wrote "the pieces do not tell WHEN, why, and by whom the
Tower was built."

Fair point, but...

However, the datable items he found were all 17th century or
later, so elsewhere he tentatively assigned a 17th century date to the
building- in the absence of earlier finds.

Which is a conditional date - an upper limit to a date range if you
like (which I am sure you don't :-).

No I don't, because it isn't. As Peter pointed out, the presence of 17th
century artifacts in conjunction with a surviving building does not
indicate that the building was constructed in the 17th century. However,
the absence of pre-17th century artifacts in conjunction with a building
does make a pre-17th century construction date significantly unlikely.

Agreed. But it doesn't make it impossible. Nor does it have any
bearing on the reliability of the H&J radiocarbon dating which is the
thread where this discussion properly belongs.

[David B. wrote:]
And the documentary record IS clearly related to the NT, unless the 1677
stone mill within that plot of land is not the 1777 old stone mill.

We can't presently answer that implied question.

We can answer it with an extremely high degree of probability, given
that the sole building within the upper 8-acre part of the same plot of
land was referred to as the "old stone wind mill" in Edward Pelham's
will (1741).

You have to make a number of assumptions to accept that. They may be
reasonable assumptions but they remain assumptions.

A number of assumptions? Can you be more specific?

For a start, you have assumed that the 1777 'old stone mill' is the
1677 stone mill. I agree that this is a reasonable assumption but it
is just an asumption. There is no point in continuing the discussion
along these lines apart from acknowledging there is a great deal we
don't know for certain.

PS- going off at a bit of a tangent. Is the stone used in the mill
local? A lot of flattish blocks of stone would probably be brought into
Newport as ship ballast.

Everything I have read speaks of the stone as being the local rubble.

OK. Port towns tend to have problems with ballast, which can ruin a
harbour if dumped overboard in preparation for taking on a full cargo,
so ballast stone gets used quite a lot for construction.

I accept that but if ballast stone is going to be dumped is it not
more likely to be used for construction at the water's edge rather
than lugging it to the top of the nearest hill? Apart from that, I
understood that ballast was more likely to be in the form of river
dredgings (alluvial gravels) than largish blocks of stone. See
http://www.dailypress.com/features/family/dp-61191sy0jun19,0,6998506.story?coll=dp-opinion-bothead



Eric Stevens
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Science vs Scholarship and the Newport Tower
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