Eneabba Stone Arrangement

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The main feature of the Eneabba Stone Arrangement is a circle of stones about eight feet wide.
The main feature of the Eneabba Stone Arrangement is a circle of stones about eight feet wide.

Eneabba Stone Arrangement, formerly referred to as the Circle of Stones, is an Australian Aboriginal stone arrangement that was once thought to be associated with survivors of the Vergulde Draeck ("Gilt Dragon"), a Dutch galleon wrecked on the west coast of Australia in 1656.

The arrangement is located at 29°56′43″S 115°5′46″E / -29.94528, 115.09611Coordinates: 29°56′43″S 115°5′46″E / -29.94528, 115.09611, about twelve kilometers (7.5 mi) east of the coastal town of Leeman, Western Australia, and consists of a ring about 2½ metres (8 ft) in diameter, with lines projecting outwards to distances of up to 14 metres (45 ft). It is composed of stones that appear to have been carried from the coast.[1]

[edit] History

The first European to sight the arrangement was surveyor Albert Earle Burt, who found it while engaged in a coastal survey in 1875. Burt and a companion had been raising trig points near the coast, but were forced to strike inland to obtain supplies. Unable to penetrate through an area of dense Acacia (Wattle) scrub, the men set fire to the bush. After the fire had died down, they proceeded inland, finding the arrangement in the area where the Acacia scrub had been thickest.[1]

Some time later, a Geraldton shepherd named William Stokes reported having found the arrangement while searching for lost sheep, and a man named King reported finding a line of stones pointing in the direction of the thicket.[1]

Later, Burt formed the view that the arrangement was associated with the Vergulde Draeck. This view fired the imaginations of treasure seekers, as the Vergulde Draeck is known to have had on board 78,600 Dutch guilders in eight chests. In the words of Malcolm Uren,

"That treasure was buried somewhere in the locality of the Circle of Stones and he who could read aright the riddle of the Circle would be directed to a fortune."[1]

Burt tried to relocate the arrangement, but was again unable to penetrate the thicket. In the late 1930s, an expedition under J. E. Hammond burned hundreds of acres of scrub and spend about a fortnight searching the area with the aid of a metal detector, but without success. However, shortly after this search, a bushman named Gabriel Penney told Dongara Hotel publican Jack Hayes that he had come across the Circle of Stones seven years previously, and the two agreed to visit the site together. According to Hayes, "we walked for what I thought was about fifty miles but which Gabriel Penney said was seven or eight miles, and we emerged from the bush not twenty yards away from the Circle of Stones. In all my life I have never believed such a feat of bushmanship possible." Hayes took photographs and made sketches of the arrangement, then the men dug in the centre of the ring. They soon found that the soil was no more than two inches deep, beneath which was a flat surface of limestone. They found nothing of value.[1]

An account of this discovery was published by Uren in his 1940 Sailormen's Ghosts. Uren hosed down speculation of a connection with the Vergulde Draeck, stating "the theory has persisted because age has given it an air of verisimilitude it never rightly possessed. Far more likely is that the Circle of Stones had something to do with native rites."[1] Nonetheless, the myths surrounding the arrangement persisted. In 1960, Bill Beatty, apparently unaware that the arrangement had been found, expressed his belief that the arrangement was where "the treasure, or the clue to it, is buried".[2] Even in the 2000s, the myth of "this elusive ring of stones" was still being reported.[3]

It is now accepted that the Circle of Stones is an indigenous stone arrangement. It has been afforded a permanent listing on Western Australia's Register of Aboriginal Sites, under the name Eneabba Stone Arrangement.[4]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Uren, Malcolm (1946). Sailormen's Ghosts, Sixth edition, Melbourne: Robertson & Mullens. 
  2. ^ Beatty, Bill (1960). A treasury of Australian folk tales and traditions. Sydney: Ure Smith. 
  3. ^ Jeans, Peter D. (2007). Seafaring Lore & Legend. McGraw-Hill Professional. ISBN 0071435433. Retrieved on 2008-02-13. 
  4. ^ Aboriginal Heritage Inquiry System. Department of Indigenous Affairs, Western Australia.