by trebor » Fri Nov 07, 2008 7:32 pm
Hi,
Here is my story...
As soon as I saw the jigsaw I thought cool not a rock but a fun challenge to put the jigsaw puzzle back together. Great idea for a puzzle. I soon worked out the only two pieces with writing on belonged together (ahh ain't that sweet) at the bottom right corner, and they said (Find the entrance to the "tomb").
My first impression of the jumbled pieces was that I was either dealing with something to do with hot cross buns or more scarily a tiger enclosure in a zoo which I definitley had no interest in visiting.
I went about it the difficult way I'm sure by manually copying the pieces using Paint and eventually the image started to come together.
Doh! Does anyone know of a jigsaw website with Reverse Photo option by the way?
Sorry, I forgot which pieces I had used near the end so one side of my image looks a bit strange, but I got the general idea of what it was. It was somewhere where the land meets the sea but where? And maybe a lighthouse? Mind you I was fretting on the way there in case there was something to see if I completed the jigsaw fully.
So, I used Google Maps and scoured the south coast first (not sure why) and came across a place which looked appropriate. On zooming closer I could see the cross roads (my hot cross bun) above a lighthouse, and nearby was an obelisk with a fine pyramid on top. I thought brilliant I found it! The Isle Of Portland connected to Dorset mainland by a spit or "tombolo", a place renouned for quarrying. Could the entrance be the "tombolo" on route to the IOP? The area with the lighthouse / obelisk is known as Portland Bill, so surely the jigsaw, once solved, was the place to go.
As there were no tigers in sight I started to research the place a bit more seriously and try to find a link with the clue. AA route planner showed it was 3 hours drive from my backdoor to the Obelisk, so had to be certain.
The obelisk is the Trinity House memorial (T.H.1844) and I found photo images of each side of it but no entrance. Only a horse shoe arrangement of stones in front of it, and the coin could be hidden underneath either of the first few stones, maybe on the T for Trinity side of the front of the obelisk?
So, off I went as far as The World' End ( a pub off the A31) and beyond stopping at the Botanay Bay Inn for refreshment (another pub a little past World's End), unitl I finally arrived at Portland Bill.
Trying to fit in with the other visitors I took out my camera and began looking around the obelisk / memorial for signs of an entrance taking pictures as I went. After photo number 35 and looking underneath the stones marking the entrance to the memorial I stopped looking there.
For some reason I went for a 45 minute stroll up the coastal path looking for tombs / graves / somebody called Tom / aha I need a Tom-Tom? Then 46 minutes after I started wondering I came to my senses and went back to the car. I put my hiking boots on (wait a minue must be serious) and went back to the lighthouse area. The vistor centre was shut so no help from there. I thought everyone was a potential Isis hunter so went about my business as naturally as one can with a small kid' s plastic beach spade sticking out of your rucksack.
I then saw two groups of heavy slabs which reminded me of monolithic burial chambers. There were two distinct chambers near the obelisk. I checked the entrance to both and found nothing! Then I thought I'd test the ground with my trowel to check for signs of disturbance, and as I stood up I saw some small pebbles on the ledge above the entrance. I pulled one away, followed by another and saw the edge of the Isis coin. Eureka!
Here are is my completed jigsaw and some photos I took on the day:
- Attachments
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- My Jigsaw Solution
- jigsaw.JPG (43.74 KiB) Viewed 9494 times
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- Tomb with Isis Coin, Lighthouse, and Obelisk
- isis 078sm.jpg (34.26 KiB) Viewed 9742 times
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- Isis Coin
- isis 076sm.jpg (34.42 KiB) Viewed 9742 times
Last edited by
trebor on Wed Nov 12, 2008 11:00 am, edited 1 time in total.