The Anathemata
Rite and Fore-time (continued)
Nine-strata’d Hissarlik9
a but forty-metre height
yet archetype of sung-heights.
David Jones notes
9 It was in a strategic key-position, on the mound of Hissarlik (‘place of forts’), some three to four miles from the Dardanelles, about forty metres above sea level, that Troy stood. Nine successive cities have occupied the site.
additional notes
The archaeological site of Hissarlik is known in archaeological circles as a tell. A tell is an artificial hill, built up over centuries and millennia of occupation from its original site on a bedrock knob.
comments
Let us recap how we got to Hissarlik, as this is typical of DJ’s wandering round his semantic net. The journey went Mass -> Last Supper -> pre-ordination -> even before the world (including its mountains) was made -> great cycle of summer and winter as the agent for the formation of mountains -> some mountains in Welsh legend -> some other legendary mountains -> Hissarlik (the mound of Troy); the link between Wales and Troy is explained in DJ’s note to the last line on the previous page.