Here are our Main Ambres, made artfully moveable, a kind of altars, or pillars, the same as the pillars of Hercules so fam’d, and as little understood. They were the original patriarchal altars, for libations and sacrifices, and mean, in general, their Altars, whether moveable or immoveable: or as we may speak, their temples, which imply an altar properly, inclosed with stones and a ditch, or ground dedicated and set apart for public celebration of religious rites. For the word Ambrosius means in general, consecrated, dedicated to religious use.
Beside the petræ ambrosiæ of Tyre, and our main ambres of Britain and Ireland, we meet with another in Hephæstion’s History III. 3. “Speaking of Hercules, he mentions the Gygonian stone, as he calls it, near the ocean, which may be mov’d with the stalk of an asphodel, but can’t be remov’d by any force.” It seems this word Gygonius is purely Celtic. For gwingog signifies motitans, the rocking stone; and gwgon is what the boys with us call a gig, or little top. For these Gygonian stones are of that shape, pyramidal.
Stukeley Del.
Prospect of Vespasians Camp near Ambersbury. Augst: 7. 1723
Prospect from the 7 barrows east of Ambersbury, to the opening of the Avenue of Stonehenge, &c.
A. the beginning of the avenue
No wonder these matters are well nigh lost, in the mist of extreme antiquity, when even the meaning of the word ambrosius was hardly known, either to the antients or moderns, till Mr. Baxter discover’d it, in his glossary. It signifies oil of roses, rosaceum: the most antient kind of perfume. In the 4th Odyssy, v. 445. Edothea a sea goddess, teaches Menelaus and his companions, to cure the odious smell of the sea calves.
Ἀμβροσίην ὑπὸ ῥῖνα ἑκάστῳ θῆκε φέρουσα
Ἡδὺ μάλα πνείουσαν.——————
She put ambrosia to their noses, sweetly smelling. Again, in his hymn to Venus, the graces washt the goddess, and anointed her with oil ambrosial: such as becomes the immortals.