[Stones] The Erosion of Human Knowledge / Avebury

[Ric]

littlestone <littlestone at supanet.com> wrote:          "between 1986 - 1998 English Heritage spent some £146,850 restoring the 'Five Mile Chapel' which juts out into the wrecked South Circle at Avebury, and whose original congregation included one 'Stone-breaker Robinson', a character who boasted about destroying numerous Avebury sarsen stones in the 18th century. The South Circle's smashed Obelisk - the tallest stone at Avebury - was probably a victim of this stone-breaking madness. not one EH penny was spent restoring the South Circle."
   
  Well, that little factoid should go at the top of any pro-restoration argument!
   
  I don't think the arguments against restoration are predominately financial but more political and academic. Sometime ago I suggested that the standing of individual stones might be sponsored. I don't know if that would be successful but I suspect that a group like the Pagan Federation has enough members to raise funds for the standing of at least one stone. Again though I can hear howls of anguish from Avebury residents and the Christian and academic communities. But that's not to say that such a sponsorship scheme shouldn't be attempted (bringing in different people with different ideas to support the same objective is never a bad thing). I'd rather see a little plaque at the bottom of a resurrected stone that read something along the lines of, This megalith was re-erected with the generous aid of the Pagan Federation, than to see no megalith erected at all.
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  the meaning of the word philosophy is the love of knowledge - and is a hallmark of a civilised society. i would term the current overview of Avebury as barbaric, as I pass site after site of buried standing stone, and even the incredible spectacle of archaeologists re-burying standing stones they have discovered, perpetuating the violence and vandalism done to this site in antiquity. we can learn nothing from buried standing stones which can only be successfully considered in their original context, as constituent parts of a whole. i'm afraid this issue is larger than villagers worrying about tourists - the circle did not ask a mediaeval village to be superimposed upon it - Neolithic Avebury was there first - it has precedence - and it has a great deal yet to tell us about itself and, ultimately, about ourselves
   
  this knowledge and heritage is currently beneath fields and pastures lying mute and unseen; Avebury is art - it is architecture - it is land sculpture - it demands to be seen - it is the greatest British art theft in history, and the Establishment perpetuates the crime


ric
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