Light at the end of the tunnel > the way megalithic art was viewed and experienced

...he came to a mouth of a passage covered with a square stone similar to that at [nearby] Plasnewydd, anxious to reap the fruits of his discovery he procured a light and crept forward on his hands and knees along the dreary vault, when lo! In a chamber at the further end a figure in white seemed to forbid his approach. The poor man had scarcely power sufficient to crawl backwards out of this den of spirits... (Reverend John Skinner 1802) There is a limited but significant passage-grave art tradition in England and Wales which, although restricted to two passage grave monuments in Anglesey, Bryn Celli Ddu and Barclodiad y Gawres and a destroyed megalithic structure located in a park in Liverpool, the Calderstones, marks the eastern extent of megalithic art in Britain and Ireland. The passage grave tradition is also one of the last megalithic architectural styles of the Neolithic. Outside these two areas are a number of sites that possess simple ABSTRACT – This paper explores how megalithic art may have been viewed during a period when Neolithic monuments were in use as repositories for the dead. The group of monuments discussed are primarily passage graves which were being constructed within many of the core areas of Neolithic Atlantic Europe. Although dates for the construction of this tradition are sometimes early, the majority of monuments with megalithic art fall essentially within the Middle to Late Neolithic. The art, usually in the form of pecked abstract designs appears to be strategically placed within the inner part of the passage and the chamber. Given its position was this art restricted to an elite and was there a conscious decision to hide some art and make it exclusively for the dead? In order to discuss these points further, this chapter will study in depth the location and subjectivity of art that has been carved and pecked on three passage graves in Anglesey and NW England. I suggest that an encoded grammar was in operation when these and other passage grave monuments with megalithic art were in use.