Have you heard of it? On a woodland walk to the south of the county, we met a charming woman in her seventies. She was Wiltshire born and bred and well-spoken but had never heard of Silbury Hill until I mentioned it to her. Of course everybody has heard of Stonehenge - including the touring Canadian couple we met outside "The Royal Oak" in Swallowcliffe but they had also never heard of Silbury Hill.
I love the fact that nobody knows why it was built over a period of a hundred years between 2400 and 2300 BC. There are plenty of theories but it seems pretty certain that it was not a burial mound. Perhaps it was a ceremonial meeting place. It is estimated that it took eighteen million man hours to build and that 248,000 cubic metres of chalky earth were used. It stands about forty metres tall and covers an area of five acres.
They embraced the unknown mystery of it all. In contrast, modern men dug tunnels into Silbury Hill in search of solutions and maybe treasure too. They didn't find these things and then typically they forgot to backfill their digs which later caused damage to the ancient hill. Earlier, Romans had also damaged it - building a settlement close by.
If only Peter Gabriel had sung about it instead of Solsbury Hill?
ReplyDeleteDamon Albarn refers to Silbury Hill in one of his songs.
DeleteI have visited Silbury Hill and also nearby Avebury (also not as well known as Stonehenge). There was certainly a lot of of that kind of barrow work being done more than likely burial grounds
ReplyDeleteThere is so much evidence of ancient life in Wiltshire.
DeleteI have passed Silsbury Hill many times when visiting friends in the area. It is tied up in my memories with Avebury.
ReplyDeleteAt one time I confused the name of the Peter Gabriel song Solsbury Hill with fhis one. Perhaps the two sites are similar.
We parked Clint at Silbury Hill and then walked to Avebury - just over a mile north. I have never been to Solsbury Hill - near Bath.
DeleteGlad that you had safe journeys on your travels.
ReplyDeleteNo, I haven't heard of Silbury Hill either, but it's dimensions are very impressive. That's the trouble with way back then - they didn't have many means of leaving records for future generations. Or perhaps they never even considered that we'd be interested. Unlike today when every single thing is recorded to the extent that our future generations will suffer from information overload!
We are obsessed with knowing everything, recording our knowledge, weighing and measuring. Maybe those people did not share the obsession.
DeleteMounds, pyramids- humans have always been attracted to these shapes, haven't they? I'd never heard of Silbury Hill which is to be expected but it's hard to imagine why a woman who was raised around that area doesn't know of it.
ReplyDeleteI guess that some people are not much interested in ancient sites.
DeleteIt looks as if one can walk to the top on a path. You didn't walk up to the top and take a panoramic picture?
ReplyDeleteVisitors are asked NOT to walk on the hill though I was tempted to ignore that guidance.
DeleteStrange indeed. Almost like the pyramids of Egypt or Mexico, or the ziggurats of the Middle East, but much more primative.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't just a question of piling the material up. There was a mechanical pattern to the construction - at least my reading suggested that.
DeleteI see it wasn't perfectly round as I expected it to be.
ReplyDeleteAfter four and half thousand years and with later damage the circle is now imperfect.
DeleteI had never heard of it but am now fascinated by it. Their immense creativity, determination and artistry far eclipses anything I can imagine. (or replicate)
ReplyDeleteAll done without mechanical aids.
DeleteWhy couldn't those ancients have left a guidebook to explain it all? That's what I want to know.
ReplyDeleteVery thoughtless of them!
DeleteAncient humans did some remarkable things. I wonder what kind of achievements they made that have been lost to time.
ReplyDeleteEspecially "achievements" that were not physical or visible.
DeleteThis reminds me of the song, Solsbury Hill.
ReplyDeleteThat hill is thirty miles to the west of Silbury Hill.
DeleteMy first thought was burial mound, but then you said no, so now I don't have a clue.
ReplyDeleteWhy do we need to know River?
Delete"Everyone knows
Deletethis mound
is just a belly full of gods
waiting to be born."
Taken from a poem by someone called Persephone (obviously not her real name). I have written so much about Silbury it could be a book. Paul wanted his ashes scattered on the hill, but then decided he would be happier in Yorkshire. Glad you are both safely back, Silbury was the place that stopped me in its tracks and I settled in Calne down the road.
Interesting! We have a mound called Mount Hoy not far from my home that we call "Mount Trashmore" as it was created as a garbage landfill. "Overall three million cubic yards of garbage and clay went into Mount Hoy, becoming a 150 foot hill. "
ReplyDeleteNow it is used for hiking year round and sledding in the winter.
Not sure where and when, but I know I have read about Silbury Hill before, very likely on another blog. Good photos.
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of it either, but it brings Peter Gabriel's song "Solsbury Hill" to mind. (An entirely different place, but also an Iron Age earthwork!)
ReplyDeleteI just read the comments above -- I see that many others also thought of Gabriel's song!
ReplyDelete