Silbury Hill
Location
Beckhampton, Wiltshire, England.
O/S - SU 100 685
(51° 24’ 50’’ N, 1° 51' 24" W)
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Description
- The largest artificial earth mound (pyramid) in Europe. Conical in shape, and rising to a height of 130 ft, with a circular base more than 200 yards in diameter. Its total volume has been estimated at 405,000 cubic feet. Excavations at the top and sides have revealed no skeletal or funerary remains. There are indications that a large pole may have once topped the hill. (1).
Silbury Hill
is a
part of the complex of Neolithic monuments around
Avebury in Wiltshire (which
also includes
the
West Kennet
long barrow). It reveals the immense technical skill and
a prolonged control over labour and resources. Archaeologists calculate that
Silbury Hill took 18 million
man-hours to dump and shape 248,000 cubic metres (8.75 million cubic ft) of
earth on top of a natural hill.
The base of the monument is 167m (550ft) in diameter and it is perfectly round. Its summit is flat-topped and 30m (100ft) wide. There have been three excavations of the mound: the first when a team of Cornish miners led by the Duke of Northumberland sunk a shaft from top to bottom in 1776, another in 1849 when a tunnel was dug from the edge into the centre, and a third in 1968-70 when professor Richard Atkinson had another tunnel cut into the base. Nothing has ever been found on Silbury Hill: at its core there is only clay, flints, turf, moss, topsoil, gravel, freshwater shells, mistletoe, oak, hazel, sarsen stones, ox bones, and antler tines.
Chronology -
Silbury hill is estimated to have been constructed around 2,600 BC. It is now known that the construction took two phases: soon after work was started, a re-design was ordered, and the mound enlarged. It is constructed in steps, each step being filled in with packed chalk, and then smoothed off.Tradition and Myth
- According to legend, this is the last resting place of King Sil. Another legend states that the mound holds a life-size solid gold statue of King Sil and yet a third, that the Devil was carrying an apron of soil to drop on the citizens of Marlborough, but he was stopped by the priests of nearby Avebury.Archaeo-Astronomy -
The proximity of Silbury hill to the Avebury complex places it on the St. Michaels ley-line, which crosses England on the azimuth of the may-day sunrise. The suggestion that a pole may have once topped the hill (9), is an indication that the site could have served as a means of determining the time of year (i.e. by the shadow cast), a similar theory to that proposed for the pyramids of Egypt by various researchers.Alignments -
Nearby Avebury sits on the 'St. Michael's Ley-line'. Which, together with Stonehenge and Glastonbury, forms a right angled triangle across the English landscape. (Click here for more on this subject)References:
1) Rene Noorbergen. Secrets of the Lost Races. New English Library. 1977.