Silbury Hill
Silbury Hill is a massive artificial flat-topped mound which is located just south of the village of Avebury in Wiltshire, England. It is considered a part of the Avebury sanctuary complex along with the remarkable stone circle in the village of Avebury itself, the ceremonial avenue known as West Kennet Avenue, and the West Kennet Long Barrow.
The mound is approximately 130 feet high, and has a circumference of 1,640 feet. It is composed of over 12 million cubic feet of chalk and earth and occupies approximately five acres in a low lying area. Unless one is standing at a high point in the landscape such as the West Kennet Long Barrow, the mound is not really visible and is not a conspicuous feature on the horizon.
We now know that Silbury Hill was built in three stages and that construction of it began around 2,660 BCE. During the last phase of construction, six concentric steps or terraces of chalk were created which were then covered over with chalk, rubble, flints, gravel, and lastly soil, to form a cone-shaped mound. The six terraces were concealed from view within the general structure of the mound, with the exception of the uppermost terrace which is seventeen feet below the summit. This terrace can be seen clearly from the east side, but more or less disappears from view when seen from other sides of the mound.
Archeologists know very little about the mound, why it was constructed and what function it served during the period when it was in use, and field studies have not yielded much information. Legends about the hill abound; local folklore holds that the mound is the burial place of an obscure king named Sil or Zel, or of a knight who wore golden armour, or of a solid gold horse and rider. There also exists a legend in which it is said that in ancient times the devil planned to obliterate the town of Marlborough by emptying a huge sack of earth on it, but was prevented from doing so by the magic of the priests of Avebury, who forced the devil to put down his sack at the place where Silbury Hill now stands.
The archeologist William Stukeley, wrote that when the hill summit was excavated in 1723, only a few human bones and an ancient bridle were discovered. In 1776 and 1849 the summit was excavated a second and third time, and Richard Atkinson carried out a "dig" in 1967 when he was working in the area, but he was unable to learn anything about the mound or why it was created. He did learn from carbon dating that the mound dated back to 2,660 BCE. There was also some evidence that construction of the mound had begun in early August, probably around the time of Lammas and the Celtic festival of "Lugnasadh" which marks the beginning of the harvest season.
Because there has been so much archeological activity in Wiltshire and the Avebury area specifically, there are many drawings of Silbury Hill, and some of the first are the sketches made by William Stukeley during his study of Avebury in 1723.
There is an abundance of theories as to why Silbury Hill was created and what it was used for. It has been suggested that the hill symbolized Gaia or Mother Earth in an early form of goddess worship, and that it was also associated with neolithic fertility rites which would have commenced at the time of Lammas in early August. There has also been speculation that the hill was a neolithic observatory or a giant sundial. The meridian line from Silbury passes directly through the church at Avebury, one feature on a ley line running from Stonehenge to the stone circle at Winterbourne Abbas. This ley line also passes through two churches and the eastern slope of Silbury Hill. It has been noticed that the hill appears to be a kind of centre point, aligning prehistoric trails or roadways which were later resurfaced and used by the Romans as well as aligning a number of standing stones. The Roman road which runs between Marlborough and Bath heads directly at Silbury Hill and swerves just before it reaches the hill to go around it. This would seem to indicate that the Roman road followed an already existing trail or ley line. Last, but definitely not least, there is also speculation that the mound was constructed by aliens as a landing place for their star ships.
There is much room for speculation when thinking about Silbury Hill, and much of that speculation has to do with dragons. In ancient China mounds reminiscent of Silbury Hill were constructed along the dragon paths which were called "lung-mei", and it may be that Silbury Hill was sited by Druids along a dragon path, using a geomancer's compass. There is one theory which holds that there are dragon paths everywhere on the surface of the earth, and it is interesting to note how many dragon legends in Britain are connected with ley lines. One example of this is the famous ley line known as the St Michael's line which runs from Avebury to the west coast of Cornwall, which has been known as the "Lizard" peninsula since ancient times.
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