Helen Gungywamp
Posted on 02/06/2008 5:59:48 PM PST by blam
What In The World Is A Gungywamp?
By MARLENE CLARK
February 6, 2008
Gungywamp is a 100-acre area in Groton that archaeologists consider a treasure. Its exact origins remain a mystery, but its unusual stonework and artifacts span centuries, if not eons.
Among Gungywamp's features are stone chambers that researchers believe were Colonial-era root cellars or animal birthing shelters erected by English-Scottish immigrants. Of these, two are intact.
One contains a solar calendar: during the spring and autumn equinox, the sun shines through an opening in the west wall and lights the opposite wall, which reflects some light into a smaller, interior, beehive-shaped chamber.
Solar timetables helped farmers decide when to plant and harvest crops or avoid crop freeze in the winter and crop rot in the summer. Archaeologists have found no evidence to support the popular theory that medieval Celtic monks built the chambers. Still, the lack of artifacts in the chambers leaves room for speculation.
North of the chambers are two sets of double concentric circles comprising 21 large quarried stones laid end to end. The circles, about 11 feet in diameter, were most likely part of tanning mills.
Gungywamp's southeastern area contains two disjointed rows of standing stones set in sockets of smaller stones. A bird is carved into one of the stones. Some researchers believe the stones are the remains of a stone wall, but others won't commit to any theory. And no one knows who may have carved the bird, or why.
Near the disjointed structure are stone bridges and various rounded stones atop boulders. This may have been a drainage system for water runoff, or Native Americans could have used them to entrap animals. Some stones also contain carved letters that may have been surveyor or boundary marks.
Archaeologists have unearthed pottery shards and crude stone flakes used to make arrowheads dating from 2000 B.C. to 700 B.C.
Some say ancient Native Americans used the area and built the structures for religious ceremonies prior to the Colonial era.
Researchers have associated the name, "Gungywamp," with ancient Gaelic, Mohegan, Pequot, and Algonquin terms meaning "church of the people"; "place of ledges"; "swampy place"; or "all powerful" and "white," respectively. Or it could be a corruption of the phrase, "spongy swamp."
Gungywamp is all on private property.
Researchers include members of the Gungywamp Society, an education and research group dedicated to preserving Gungywamp and other archaeological sites in Connecticut.
Information also is available at www.gungywamp.com and at www.stonestructures.org/html/gun gywamp.html.
You mean “Helen of Gungywamp,” I think.
Interesting...
Good Gungywamp! You find the strangest threads. ;^)
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Thanks Blam.Among Gungywamp's features are stone chambers... Of these, two are intact. One contains a solar calendar: during the spring and autumn equinox, the sun shines through an opening in the west wall and lights the opposite wall, which reflects some light into a smaller, interior, beehive-shaped chamber. Solar timetables helped farmers decide when to plant and harvest crops or avoid crop freeze in the winter and crop rot in the summer. Archaeologists have found no evidence to support the popular theory that medieval Celtic monks built the chambers... Archaeologists have unearthed pottery shards and crude stone flakes used to make arrowheads dating from 2000 B.C. to 700 B.C.RC dating of a hearth inside a structure at Mystery Hill VT was 2000 B.C. Such structures may have been used for a time opportunistically by post-1492 settlers from Europe, but they were not built by them, and "researchers" who insist that they were should be beaten to death with steel pipes. |
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I was thinking maybe gitwarts lived in them ..lmao!
HOLY CRAP! I used to go there all the time as a kid/teen. My friends and I would ride our mountain bikes there all the time - excellent trails, BTW. We also used to go explore all those neat little stone caverns - I’ll have to see if my dad still has the pictures we took from there. It’s really amazing that they’re still intact. Thanks for the PING, SC!
:’) My pleasure, glad Blam found it.
Well if you ever go out to the Gungywamp, well you’d better not go at night -
There’s things out there in the middle of them woods that’d make a strong man die from fright...
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See where Anna's hand is? A gungywamp is just inches from right there . . . |
Black water Hattie lived back in the swamp
Where the strange green reptiles crawl
Snakes hang thick from the cypress trees
Like sausage on a smokehouse wall
Where the swamp is alive with a thousand eyes
An' all of them watching you
Stay off the track to Hattie's Shack in the back of the Black Bayou
Way up the road from Hattie's Shack
Lies a sleepy little Okeechobee town
Talk of swamp witch Hattie lock you in when the sun go down
Rumours of what she'd done, rumours of what she'd do
Kept folks off the track of hattie's shack
In the back of the Black Bayou
One day brought the rain and the rain stayed on
And the swamp water overflowed
'skeeters and the fever grabbed the town like a fist
Doctor Jackson was the first to go
Some say the plague wasa brought by Hattie
There was talk of a hang'n too
But the talk got shackled by the howls and the cackles
From the bowels of the Black bayou
Early one morn 'tween dark and dawn when shadows filled the sky
There came an unseen caller on a town where road run dry
You'd swear there was found a big black round
Vat full of gurgling brew
Whispering sounds as the folk gathered round
"It came from the Black Bayou"
There ain't much pride when you're trapped inside
A slowly sink'n ship
Scooped up the liquid deep and green
And the whole town took a sip
Fever went away and the very next day the skies again were blue
Let's thank old hattie for sav'n our town
We'll fetch her from the Black Bayou
Party of ten of the town's best men headed for Hattie's Shack
Said Swamp Witch magic was useful and good
And they're gonna bring hattie back
Never found Hattie and they never found the shack
Never made the trip back in
There was a parchment note they found tacked to a stump
Said don't come look'n again
The Wreck of the Old Girl
In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors’ Cathedral
The church bell chimed, ‘til it rang 29 times
For each man on the Helen Thomas Gungywamp.
What In The World Is A Gungywamp?
Dunno, but I dated a grungy vamp not too long ago.
Do I get the prize?
This is one reason I love Freepers. Here I was, minding my own business, reading along about a serious topic - and here comes Helen Gungywamp, and I laughed so hard! I was glad I hadn’t been drinking something - my monitor would have been totally spattered. Nice one.
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