Talk:Cairn

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This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, now in the public domain.

Cairn - I have an opinion that one of the first Cairns is referred to in the Bible. Joshua Chapter 6, Joshua had just crossed the river Jordan. Then the LORD commands that 12 stones be carried from the River Bed and piled up as a memorial. So whenever you see a Cairn you may wish to reflect on how the Israelite Tribes must have felt as they crossed the River Jordan into what was referred to as the Land Of Milk & Honey. This crossing is not to be confused with the crossing of the Red Sea which was led by Moses.

[edit] Proposed merge with Ovoo

• oppose - Both articles stand perfectly well on their own, without any content overlap. There's no point in forcing several entirely independent traditions under one title, just because they share a common construction material. --Latebird 22:07, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merging with either Inukshuk or Ovoo, good heavens, no!

Excuse me, but the proposition cannot be seriously founded! I am just an ordinary humanist and no authority on cairns and the like, but can see immediately that traditions, contexts and connotations are different altogether, notwithstanding perhaps accidental overlaps (and not more) in function. Or else, bring together all kinds of heaps of stone in one article (sea marks, boundary marks, mounds cleared from fields ... - most of which are also well-known targets of folklore.) I'm not meaning to dogmatically rule out possible historical connections between these three or a common psychocultural basis - but such things, you handle with in-article reasoning from each respective viewpoint and cross-references. Keinstein 02:42, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
What might provide a useful added arena for knowledge, on the other hand, would be a generic article where the broad outlines and general theories can be drawn - just as there are articles on language families while still each major language has its own article, etc. Keinstein 03:00, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Slightly amended Keinstein 13:33, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mining Claims

In the US cairns are used to denote the corners of mining claims, and in times past the documentation was placed in the traditional Prince Albert tobacco can lodged in one cairn. This may be required by the mining claims act of 1872. LorenzoB (talk) 20:00, 20 November 2007 (UTC)