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Yeah it was either cos alot of his stuff was disprooved supposedly or politics no one really sure.
May god go with you in all the dark places you must walk.
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I thought that Childe was found dead at ther base of a cliff, having gone for a walk / climb without his spectacles. Whether this was suicide or an accident has never been proven either way
Beamo
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There is no evidence he committed suicide, it has just been assumed in a rather tabloid way by one of his biographers.
Top church for Pitt Rivers though.
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Quote:quote:Originally posted by beamo
I thought that Childe was found dead at ther base of a cliff, having gone for a walk / climb without his spectacles. Whether this was suicide or an accident has never been proven either way
According to the original report of his death in the Times, he was supposed to have fallen whilst exploring the geology of the Blue Mountains and his body was found 2/3 of the way down the cliff (rather than at the base). I have no knowledge of the circumstances leading up to his death, but personally feel that 1957 must have been one pretty devastating year to have been a committed Marxist. My interest in his burial place is purely prompted as a side line to occassional visits to Oz.
Thanks for the info on Pitt rivers by the way. I kinda guessed his burial place wouldn't be to far from Sixpenny Hanley. Would still love to discover where Mortimer Wheeler is buried....
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'The Bandstone cliffs of the Blue Mountains...seem the safest to fall over accidentally' wrote Childe to Clarke a few days before his death. A second letter included the manuscript of an article with the comment 'I have sketched what I can recall of the development of my thinking...that it may in time come in useful if only for obituary purposes'.
I see no need for an explanation beyond personal, rather than archaeological or political, events.
See p179 in: Fagan, B 2001 'Graham Clarke, an intellevctual biography of an archaeologist' (Boulder, Westview)
freeburmarangers.org
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I have just read Huw Barton' article in Antiquity regarding Gordon Childe's grave. It is located in the Northern Suburbs Crematorium Garden in Sydney. There is a small memorial plaque.
http://www.antiquity.ac.uk/Ant/074/0769/Ant0740769.pdf
I will have to visit the grave the next time I am passing. (Apparently, in the same Garden are buried the remains of Andrew 'Banjo' Patterson, the composer of 'Waltzing Matilda')
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Mortimer Wheeler died in Leatherhead in 1976.
Does anyone know if he is buried locally and would that be at the Dorking Cemetery?
Apparently Sir Mortimer was born in Glasgow!! It changes my opinion of him discovering that rather than typifying an 'Englishman' of a certain era, he should more correctly be thought of as Scottish.
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A bit like Tony Blair! (Another unpublicised Scot by birth)
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There is a very large cremation cemetery at Leatherhead on the road between Leatherhead and Cobham, I think this is the main Mole Valley cremation cemetery. If he was living in Leatherhead and was cremated then it will have been there. However, a good number of the churches in this part of Surrey do, even now, still take burials and cremated remains. I am not sure about Leatherhead parish church though.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi...id=2131085
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Hi Kevin and all,
I had a peek at the Hawkes biography at the weekend and on the last page he was def. cremated, it doesnt say where ashes were scattered etc. though.So def. no burial but we could pilgrimage to a crematorium!
G