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The Megalithic Portal and Megalith Map : Index >>
Sacred Sites and Megalithic Mysteries >> Silbury hill re-opened 2007
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Silbury hill re-opened 2007 |
karloff
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|  Posted 26-10-2007 at 11:55
[quote]
On 2007-10-24 22:31, AngieLake wrote:It struck me while visiting West Kennett long barrow, that if someone important was being interred there, a ceremony on top of Silbury might start - maybe by lighting a fire? Meanwhile, anyone on top of Waden Hill, or to the East at The Sanctuary, would see this and start their own ceremony. Possibly a procession would set off from The Sanctuary and dance or walk up the Avenue? Likewise, anyone at the main henge at Avebury (and particularly someone sitting on the Devil’s Chair portal stone, who saw the signal given from the top of Waden Hill), would then start the accompanying ritual in Avebury’s sacred henge, knowing it would soon be joined by the procession from The Sanctuary.”
[Copyright: Angie Lake, July 2007] (for what it’s worth!)
Hi Chaps
Angie as you state the monuments need to be concurrent, however long barrows predate Silbury by about a thousand years and appear to have had a relatively short usage (probably 100 odd years). Also long barrows appear to be communal monuments which do not reflect a "important person" society which comes later with the construction of individual burials in round barrows and the construction of large monuments such as Silbury.
Keep coming with the ideas though as no-one knowns why Silbury was really built (even if Cropredy believes he does, he doesn't). 
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cropredy
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| Posted 26-10-2007 at 20:30
Karloff,
I see no evidence of barrows , especially long barrows having been built to simply inter someones remains.
I know bodies have been found, but I consider that they are to do with the non physical, not at all with physical remains
To view things in this way frees you from going nowhere physical evidence, however interesting and absorbing that avenue may be, it is limited.
You say that "I do not know why the hill was built"
Excellent, I look forward to your explanation of why it was built that must clearly over-ride my theories.
Kevin
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cropredy
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| Posted 26-10-2007 at 20:44
Vlad,
Could you please help to better explain Valhallas walls, and go to war with the wolf.
The numbers intrigue me because of fibonacci connection.
Silbury hill is difficult to pin measure to.
The pyramids of giza are easier as are our churchs.
Within the measure is the answer, and I consider silbury will be a scale model of the planet .
The soul is what I also consider was paramount, both its journey here, and its journey after death.
Kevin
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AngieLake
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from Newton Abbot, Devon
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| Posted 27-10-2007 at 00:28
On 2007-10-26 11:55, karloff wrote:
[Angie deleted the repeat of her earlier message here]
Hi Chaps
Angie as you state the monuments need to be concurrent, however long barrows predate Silbury by about a thousand years and appear to have had a relatively short usage (probably 100 odd years). Also long barrows appear to be communal monuments which do not reflect a "important person" society which comes later with the construction of individual burials in round barrows and the construction of large monuments such as Silbury.
Keep coming with the ideas though as no-one knowns why Silbury was really built (even if Cropredy believes he does, he doesn't).
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Thanks for putting me right so good-humouredly on this Karloff! I might have known it wasn't all possible.
I'm still intrigued by the 'seat' in the Devil's Chair, and the view from it, and whether it was used by the builders of the circle during rituals and ceremonies.
Of course, you don't need to be sitting there just to see what was happening on Waden Hill, but the summit WAS due south from that position. Maybe it was the tribal chief's chair to view the procession arriving from the Avenue into the circle?
WKLB does have those two obvious male/female stones in its end chamber (see my 'WKLB Possible Discovery' article), and if the infant's skull found on the floor between them was original, then the construction of that part of the long barrow must have been a 'wish-offering' to the gods.
Silbury's interaction with all these other parts of the Avebury complex must be the clue.
I wondered if the Romans, or other incomers, had buried existing stones inside the hill, too, to clear the surface for something they were doing. But didn't someone build a fort of some description up there?.... Unless they didn't know there were sarsens underneath them?!
(As usual, I can't recall the full story, and am too tired now to look at it again tonight.... zzzzzzzz....!)
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AngieLake
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|  Posted 27-10-2007 at 23:57
Karloff will wish he hadn't said "keep coming up with the ideas"..!!
I was thinking about those sarsens buried in Silbury Hill and the fact that someone thinks the hill is a kind of 'spirits' tomb.. or monument, or 'whatever'.
Well, someone has most probably thought of this already, but how about the stones being chosen for a certain feature - like the fertility-type ones in WKLB end (and largest, western) chamber? Or because they had some kind of 'face' shape on them? I wonder if anyone has studied them, or been *able* to study them, properly?
I've noticed that some features only emerge in the right light.
ie: the upside-down 'V' on Stone 16 at Stonehenge, and the 'vulva' mark (my name for it!) on the left of those two stones in WKLB end chamber.
If certain turfs [turves?] were brought to place in the beginning of the building of the hill from areas some distance away, maybe the stones were also, and represented various tribes' ancestors?
Imagine the whole hill shining bright white originally, and being seen from some distance, and the outlying tribes knowing that it contained a memory of their own particular ancestor, which someone from their tribe had placed there. Maybe it helped to unite the area and stop petty in-fighting?
Perhaps the various family tribes took turns to celebrate their own 'ancestor stone' with rituals on top of the hill at appointed times during the year? Maybe they used water from the Swallowhead Spring, or from the water (if any) collected in the 'moat-like' ditch?? Possibly they poured water into the ground up there, hoping to 'anoint' their own stone?
Just musing............
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ragnarok
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| Posted 28-10-2007 at 14:04
How about this idea to ponder on....
If we keep in mind that the 'Beaker people' arrived from the continent in the early bronze age - early centuries of the 2nd millennium B.C. (This is the culture that built round houses & round burial barrows....not always, but usually, single burials)
Wouldn't the native population think of them as a threat? Even if only regarding food resources?
Lets say that the native population of the Avebury had some warning of the Beaker people spreading their way - wouldn't they then take up some sort of defensive stance to protect their land & resources? I would think that highly probable.
I know dates vary but the sequence of Avebury is that the Inner N & S circles were erected first then the outer ditch & circle.
The Outer ditch was originally some 12 ft deep, with 12 ft bank which has various dates e.g. from about 2800 - 2690 bc.
Some centuries later this outer ditch was deepened to 30 ft & the bank correspondingly raised - this has been dated to about 2200 b.c.. That looks like a defensive procedure doesn't it.
The great size of the stones used at Avebury might also be defensive a) as a shield from thrown weapons b) stones would look rather scary to newcomers & give the impression of local strength.
As would Silbury Hill.
They now reckon that Silbury was started about 2400bc & finished about 1900bc. So it ties in well. Surely that would make any invaders think twice before approaching the area? And enable early observation of any strangers.
That all works for me! But I appreciate that it might be a little dull to some
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Aluta
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| Posted 28-10-2007 at 19:27
A very romantic notion, ragnarok. I know boys like forts. Nevertheless I would like to know what an expert on prehistoric war and defense would say about the practicality of Avebury as a fortification.
[ This message was edited by: Aluta on 2007-10-28 19:28 ]
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ragnarok
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| Posted 28-10-2007 at 21:23
Quote:
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On 2007-10-28 19:27, Aluta wrote:
Nevertheless I would like to know what an expert on prehistoric war and defense would say about the practicality of Avebury as a fortification.
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Not a fortification per se, as I don't consider Avebury/Silbury as a military stronghold. I didn't infer that.
I can think of no other reason why they would suddenly increase the combined depth/height of the ditch/bank from about 24 feet to 60 feet if it wasn't for defensive purposes....in other words to protect themselves. Can you? (Especially when you consider that 'newcomers' were arriving in Britain at about that time.)
If you look at later Iron Age, properly acclaimed, Forts they are made up of banks & ditches.
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Aluta
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| Posted 28-10-2007 at 21:43
Of course, all theories are in the running until proven untrue.
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Laughing_Ball
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| Posted 28-10-2007 at 21:54
Any theories why Avebury is not very circular?
They were clearly great builders so why not make it perfectly round - was this intentional or was it just too big to handle?
[ This message was edited by: Laughing_Ball on 2007-10-28 22:48 ]
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AngieLake
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from Newton Abbot, Devon
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| Posted 29-10-2007 at 01:20
On 2007-10-26 11:55, karloff wrote:
Hi Chaps
Angie as you state the monuments need to be concurrent, however long barrows predate Silbury by about a thousand years and appear to have had a relatively short usage (probably 100 odd years). Also long barrows appear to be communal monuments which do not reflect a "important person" society which comes later with the construction of individual burials in round barrows and the construction of large monuments such as Silbury.
Keep coming with the ideas though as no-one knowns why Silbury was really built (even if Cropredy believes he does, he doesn't).
[/quote]
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Hi Karloff
Have just been reading my EH/NT 'The Prehistoric Monuments of Avebury' booklet (albeit 2001 edition!), and looked up WKLB, quote:
"Burials..
In all, the skeletal parts of some 46 individuals had been buried on the floor of the barrow, over a period of at least 1500 years, from the first construction of the barrow, c3700BC, until the Beaker period in the late Neolithic c.2000BC. Few of the individuals were articulated (only one was complete),"
- [probably all 'legless and inarticulate' after a night at the Red Lion!] -
"and mostly bones had been jumbled up with the successive opening and insertion of new bodies into the tomb.".... "The final Beaker-period burial placed in the north-east chamber of the tomb, before it was closed, was the complete skeleton of an elderly man. The body was in a crouched position" ..... "he had apparently died from an arrowhead embedded in the throat."
In the description of its structure:
"...Originally, when the tomb was in use, the entrance would have been a curved forecourt, perhaps for funerary ceremonies. Once the tomb was filled, the Beaker people closed the entrance by filling the chambers, passage and forecourt with earth and stones, and blocked the entrance with the three huge upright stones that block it today. The blocking seems to have been an important and final gesture to the use of ancestal tombs, which ceased to be used after c.2200-2000BC."
On the programme about this summer's excavations, they say they can now carbon-date Silbury Hill's 1st phase to 2400BC and that a young person alive during that period could have seen it completed as an 'old woman' (or old man!)
In other words, someone alive in, say 2330, if they lived as old as that, would still have been around when WKLB was in use.
(Assuming the dates for closure of WKLB haven't changed!)
Ok - so maybe the whole body of the recently dead person wasn't put into the tomb, but they may have been carried along WK Avenue to The Sanctuary, perhaps.
Quoting again:
"... The large quantity of skeletal material from the Sanctuary suggests that the circular buildings may have been some type of mortuary house, where bodies were perhaps allowed to rot, before the burial of some bones in the barrows."
So - it is still possible that someone important was honoured by ceremony when their remains were put into WKLB... and maybe, Silbury Hill was part of that?
Thinking about it..... if only 46 persons' remains were put in there over a period of 1500 years, mightn't they all have been the more important members of those societies? Maybe the bones were taken out from time to time as part of their rituals? (It did say that the west chamber was predominantly used for adult males, the NE and NW for mixed adults, the SE for the old [so why was the old guy put in the NE one?], and the SW chamber for children.)
We can't prove what they did in their ceremonies, it's just speculation.
Going back to the arrowhead in the old man's throat...
Maybe there was a period of unrest when incomers threatened the peaceful tribes around Avebury? Maybe the old man was the revered tribal chieftain or 'high priest'-type, and had been killed in the fighting, and they hurriedly laid his crouched body in the nearest chamber and quickly* sealed it all up before the 'foreigners' could desecrate their hallowed ancestral tomb?
- *Well, as quickly as you can haul all that lot in place!
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Aluta
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| Posted 05-11-2007 at 21:15
Kevin, would you think the opening of Silbury this year had anything to do with all the rain this summer?
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sem
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| Posted 05-11-2007 at 21:47
Does anyone know what can be seen from the top of Silbury?
It might answer a few questions.
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cropredy
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| Posted 05-11-2007 at 21:53
Aluta,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMIq_pmHLAI
Kevin
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Aluta
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| Posted 06-11-2007 at 00:09
Kevin,
That reminds me, I've been meaning to say that since we bought the song "Meet on the Ledge" after you'd posted it, Eric and I listen to it quite a bit. Sometimes it gives me goosebumps.
Thank you,
aluta
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BERNARDQUATERMASS
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|  Posted 08-11-2007 at 15:10
Off Topic,
I think this is amazing:
http://www.circlemakers.org/totc2004.html 
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cropredy
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| Posted 09-11-2007 at 10:14
Bernardquatermass,
I don't feel it is off topic, but most upon here cannot comprehend of a connection between the physical material of the mass of Silbury hill, and the non-physical force that creates some of the crop circles.
There is huge diss-information thrown in both directions.
WHY?
Kevin
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Chyknel2
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| Posted 09-11-2007 at 11:25
Because you can't post a single picture here of a crop circle that wasn't manmade?
Or can you?
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Laughing_Ball
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| Posted 09-11-2007 at 11:46
Quote:
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On 2007-11-09 10:14, cropredy wrote:
most upon here cannot comprehend of a connection between the physical material of the mass of Silbury hill, and the non-physical force that creates some of the crop circles.
WHY?
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Because its not true.
If you know about such technology perhaps you might like to share it with the rest of the world or at least create a crop circle for us by this method?
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cropredy
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| Posted 09-11-2007 at 15:03
Laughing_ball,
if you want to debate about crop circles, you will find me on cropcircleconnector, I assure you I do know what makes them, and I can check the dimensions and patterns precisely.
You will not comprehend of the intelligence within the aether.
http://blog.hasslberger.com/2007/06/einstein_warped_minds_bent_tru.html
kevin
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