Layout and Location - The Stones and the Stars: Building Scotland's Newest Megalith - page 135

The Ordnance Survey sheets betray field junction points and
other features on these old sighting lines over distances of
many hundreds of yards.
And then they built a petrol station over it!
The disappearance of the site from literature is in some
ways even more extraordinary. Just one minor aspect of it is
that in Mackie's Science and Society in Prehistoric Britain , he
presented a map to show that the wooden henges, which he
suggests to have been the dwellings of the astronomer priests,
coincide with the discoveries of “Grooved Ware [ 13 ] .” Glasgow
is unique on the map in having Grooved Ware but no henges.
Although round bottomed ware was found in the few grave
shafts opened first at Knappers, Grooved Ware was found else-
where on site, and the late discovery of a “circular dwelling”
completes the correlation [ 14 ] .
Mann's emphasis on the supposed Druid connection was prob-
ably a factor in the eclipse of the discoveries. In the account above
we have screened out some very strange stuff - sticking with the
eclipse metaphor one might say 'obscuring matter.' For example
the feature here prosaically called 'first ring bank' he interprets
partly as 'Venus serpent' and partly as 'The Red Martian Water
Serpent or Tadpole' (Fig. 5.10 ). Who would not have paid to see
that in front of the Viking Lander cameras?
Earliest Glasgow , another pamphlet of Mann's held by the
Mitchell, is full of wonderful derivations of place-names from
Celtic mythology. Some of these would be gratifying if true, such as
Kow-Caldennis or Cowcaldanys for Cowcaddens, near Broomhill,
and translated as “the grove of the Moon goddess.” But a caution-
ary note is sounded when he identifies Rottenrow, the oldest road
in Glasgow [ 15 ], with Routeneraw, hence Rath-na-era, “the earth-
work of the Moon,” rather than with the more modern Route de
Roi, the King's Road, or Rattan Raw, the young women's road.
The Rath or earthwork in question, Mann suggests, may have
been the Grummel Knowe, a prehistoric mound 'just a stone's
throw from the Cathedral' and demolished in 1559 to surface roads.
There was a second mound in Govan and a third near the Briggait
called 'the Mutehill,' about which still less was known. As to the
derivation of its name, he remarks only that it may be cognate with
the adjectives Grim or Graham applied to the Antonine Wall. There