This eagerly-awaited map of ancient Glastonbury and its surrounds is unique in that its design is based on ancient and medieval sacred places, ley alignments and the coasts and islands of the Somerset Levels. It highlights the mystical archaeology and ancient history of the area.
The map shows ley alignments between sacred sites big and small - hilltops, ancient settlements, hillforts, megalithic remains and medieval churches. It highlights Somerset's hills and the wetlands of the ancient 'Summerlands'. Also featured are the giant effigies of the Glastonbury Zodiac.
Glastonbury's spiritual heritage spans 5,000 years and more, embracing the pre-Megalithic, Megalithic, Bronze Age and Celtic-Druidic cultures, Roman and Saxon times, the High Middle Ages, secular urbanism and, today, a New Age subculture. All these features of the Glastonbury 'landscape temple' are written about on the reverse side of the map.
It is a map that will draw you in to the magic of the Moors and Levels, the legendary hills and monuments, and it will take you back in time to the Isle of Avalon, when it was surrounded by bogs, marsh and the sea.
This isn't just a romantic preoccupation with the past though. As Palden points out in his introduction, studying the patterns of the past will give us new insights into key 21st Century issues: bio-sustainability, food security, climatic re-balancing and re-enchanting humanity and the land with a new magic - a magic which lies at the centre of the solutions we are nowadays challenged to find and bring into being.
PALDEN JENKINS has lived and worked in Glastonbury since 1980. He is webmaster of Glastonbury's IsleofAvalon website. His books include Healing the Hurts of Nations, Living in Time and The Only Planet of Choice, and he is the founder of three educational projects. Currently he works as a humanitarian peacemaker and webmaster in the Holy Land (see Jerusalem Peacemakers).