A SEA voyage of over 4,000 miles from the Orkneys and Outer Hebrides to Malta provided the photographs for a new exhibition at The Wharf in Tavistock.
The passage, undertaken in a small yacht, by Elizabeth Ashton Hill and her partner Peter Marshall provided Elizabeth with the opportunity to photograph some of the major megaliths in Europe.
Elizabeth (pictured below) said: ?Here in the West Country we have some of the finest megaliths ? ?big stones? ? in the British Isles, but they are only part of a lost civilization of Europe which once stretched from Scotland down the Atlantic seaboard into the Mediterranean.
?This exhibition celebrates some of the major achievements of the Stone Age megalith builders who left a stunning array of enigmatic sculptures scattered across some of the wildest and most beautiful landscapes of Europe.?
The photographs show the extraordinary variety of patterns and shapes of the megaliths, which range from magnificent standing stones, circles, alignments and chambers to the delicate rock art of labyrinths and spirals.
?We have here a legacy of deep spiritual, creative and sophisticated civilization which lasted from around 4,000BC to 100BC,? Elizabeth explained.
Elizabeth has had many of her photographs published in books, journals and magazines. Her exhibition ?The Alchemy of Light? toured the West Country in 2000-2. Photographs from this exhibition appear in Peter Marshall?s book ?Europe?s Lost Civilisation: Uncovering the Mysteries of the Megaliths?, published by Headline.
A senior lecturer in media studies at the College of St Mark and St John in Plymouth, Elizabeth lives on the banks of the Tamar near Bere Alston.
The exhibition runs until October 29.