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  1. Stone rosette from the time of the emperor Ustinian, found in Nemanjin Grad (Nemanja's Town), the ruined fortress above Podgorica, Montenegro, legendary birthplace of Stefan Nemanja, who founded the Serbian Nemanjić dynasty in the 12th c.

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  2. Feb 1

    Which is why large boulder mortars were moved to churchyards where a lot of them were turned into holy water fonts. Well they already were seen as such before Christians appropriated them...I wonder if Christian stone fonts developed from stone mortars...Bread of life anyone???

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  3. Feb 1

    Which is why rain water, water that comes from heaven, accumulated in bedrock mortars was also holy and was used in religious, especially healing ceremonies...

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  4. Feb 1

    Large bedrock stone mortars were communal tools. Once made they could last for generations. This definitely made them special in the eyes of the farmers who used them. These mortars, being permanent in the impermanent world, must have eventually become holy...

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  5. Feb 1

    We know this from ethnographic records. This includes tools used for ploughing, sowing, harvesting, grinding grain and making bread. They all had religious significance and were seen as possessing supernatural powers...

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  6. Feb 1

    This stone from Latvia is called "Lielais Daviņu Akmens" which means great stone of giving, offering, great altar. It seems that the stone was linked to harvest rituals. For the farmers, anything to do with sowing, harvesting, grinding, eating grain had religious significance...

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  7. Feb 1

    These stone mortars were considered holy not just in Ireland and Scotland. In South Baltic region they were buried in the house foundations to protect the household...

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  8. Feb 1

    The fact that the same kind of stones like Bullaun stones (pounding stones) were in Scotland used as mortars means nothing in Ireland. The Irish are different... 🙂 I wrote (an unpopular) article about Bullaun stone being mortars few years ago

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  9. Feb 1

    Well, maybe not a confusion. In Ireland these kind of stones are called Bullaun stones. And there they are "definitely not mortars"...They are holy stones used for blessing and cursing. And when they get filled with rain water, the water acquires miraculous healing properties...

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  10. Feb 1

    One example of a knocking stone at the old St Macarius chapel site of Mackrikil near Dailly in Ayrshire has a prominent cross carved on one side. Locally it was known as the 'font' and that indicates an understandable confusion with a stoup used to hold holy water for baptism...

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  11. Feb 1

    A large pot-shaped cavity known as "knocking well" was cut into exposed bedrock or boulders. Grain was then poured into the cavity and pounded with a rounded stone or with a hardwood (oak) mell... These were basically bedrock mortars...

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  12. Feb 1

    They were once used by every farming household and abandoned examples are still to be found in Ireland, the Highlands and the Western Isles and remained in use in remote areas until the 19th century...

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  13. Feb 1

    Thread: Knocking stones, or Clach chnotainn in Scottish Gaelic were exposed bedrock stone or boulders with a pot-shaped concavity cut into them used for husking and pounding barley and other cereals before the introduction of other methods of milling grain...

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  14. Feb 1

    "Celtic" cross seal from Margiana Archaeological Complex, Bactria (region that straddles modern-day Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan). Late 3rd–early 2nd millennium B.C.

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  15. Feb 1

    But why are we celebrating bread festival in February? Well, remember this thread? The first farmers grew spring grains, which were sawn in February...This festival was celebrating the beginning of the sowing season. Bride, Biddy, was impregnated! Hurray!

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  16. Feb 1

    O yeah and Slavs like eating these sun shaped cakes while burning the effigies of Winter...

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  17. Feb 1

    And in Scotland they are made not on Imbolc, the firs day of Spring according to the Gaelic calendar, but on Pancake Tuesday....At the same time when Slavs celebrate their ancient pan cake (pan bread) festival Maslenitsa...When they bake and eat pancakes. Which symbolise sun...

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  18. Feb 1

    Irish and Scottish bannocks are made by virgin unmarried girls. At the beginning of Spring...To mark the arrival of Bride (Biddy), virgin Spring Earth...And these round pan breads, pan cakes when cut into slices look like a shining sun...Interesting...

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  19. Feb 1

    Bannock or pan bread (pan cake) is the oldest type of bread. The first bread was probably a result of a lucky accident in which a thick porridge dripped on hot hearth stone and was transformed into tasty crispy crust...

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  20. Feb 1

    Sautie Bannock was made by a single girl who was not allowed to speak. The other girls would try to tease her into speaking. A silver ring was worked into the dough. The cooked bannock was shared amongst the unmarried women and the one who found the ring would get married next...

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