[Stones] The irreverent day

[Ric]

thanks,

this sounds odd to me?

Merewether never spoke of a 'matrix' of stone at the
base of the hill, and Atkinson doesn't record it?

it bothers me that people are still trying to pigeon
hole Silbury as a giant tumulus, in the full knowledge
that round barrows are an anachronism to the New Stone
Age?

cromlech or circular sarsen matrix, we are still
basically looking at a 'stone circle' whose integrity
has been compromised by yellow hatted men in muddy
boots removing these stones and piling them to one
side, like debris from a construction site: if the
precise find locations of these stones has not been
exactly recorded and documented - together with the
find context - there needs to be a public enquiry?

it goes without saying that these sarsen stones need
to go back exactly where they were found, they are
integral to the hill and must not be substituted by
plastic bags or 21st century polypropylene rubbish


--- littlestone <littlestone at supanet.com> wrote:

> Can't remember if I've posted this before or not -
> apologies if I have but the article's quite
> interesting in light of recent developments -
> 
> The souls of Silbury Hill are bared in burial mound
> dig
> 
> Researchers have long been mystified as to why the
> giant prehistoric mound in Wiltshire was built. But
> following one of the UK's most extensive and
> expensive digs, they appear to have found their
> answer: Silbury Hill may well have been a tomb, not
> for bodies, but for the souls of the dead.
> 
> The English Heritage dig, which cost £1m, tunnelled
> 85 metres into the 40-metre-high man-made hill,
> discovering that its Neolithic builders had
> incorporated hundreds of heavy sarsen stones into
> its matrix. Sarsen, the silicified sandstone still
> found in great quantities in Wiltshire, was also
> used to build Stonehenge and Avebury. Heavier than
> other types of stone, archaeologists have long
> suspected that the material was regarded as sacred
> by Neolithic man.


Avebury sarsen sparkles in the sun, because it
contains quartz - and quartz was also held in special
regard during the Neolithic - for example, the quartz
facade at Newgrange


> 
> Stones have been seen by many cultures as
> spiritually and physically interchangeable with
> humans - with a belief that particular stones
> contained the souls, spirits or even the transformed
> mortal remains of the dead. The belief was
> widespread, occurring all over the world.
> 
> Silbury Hill, researchers believe, could well have
> been built as a sort of spiritual tomb, filled with
> spirits rather than skeletons.*
> The article also suggests that, "...Silbury was
> associated with a form of river-related religious
> cult. Until the 19th century, the linkage between
> the Kennet river and Silbury was reflected by an
> annual local ritual in which water was collected
> from the main source of the river - the Swallowhead
> Spring.."
> 
> *
>
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article3093799.ece
> > _______________________________________________


yes, i actually spoke to an Avebury resident who, in
her youth, ascended Silbury with others on Easter
Sundays, and collected and drank water from the
Swallowhead Spring, to drink on the hilltop; she
didn't know why this was done, it was just a custom to
her - connected somehow with local church observances
- and she would have probably been horrified to
discover she was perpetuating a pagan rite, in the
early 20th century, going back over 4,000 years?


Ric



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