Do we really have to have the same endless, boring, dead-end argument about the climbing of ancient hills on this forum?

I'm beginning to feel this place is like a hellish coffee morning for the perpetually dissatisfied or the unimaginatively disgruntled.

Of course Silbury would come up under a topic such as this but it is not really a hill is it. It is a Neolithic mound with some very specific reasons as why its a bad idea to climb it. Glastonbury Tor is a 'sacred hill' and hundreds of people climb it every day.

PS:
I made a return visit to the enigmatic Hetty Pegler's Tump (Uley long barrow) today. Now beautifully restored and open - though sadly some idiot has scratched graffiti onto the entrance stone, also inside. Absolutely no reasonable excuse available for such actions.

Is anyone actually going to discuss the article? Did anyone even read the article? Particularly the outraged Evergreen Dazed, did you not read it, did you not have any response to it at all (rather than just slag my thread off)? It wasn't about Silbury, it was about Uluru and I thought we might discuss attitudes to that, with the Silbury thing as a parallel. Not as the main event. But now the thread is derailed, is that what you wanted?

http://www.environment.gov.au/parks/publications/uluru/pubs/management-plan.pdf

I have only read the first few pages, and find myself humbled by a spiritual allegiance to land that us 'secularists' cannot begin to understand or even imitate. ' Culturally appropiate behaviour' is what they are striving for, to protect such things as their religious and philosophical base lines, the deep connection with the land and its animals and plants that provide their food and the ancestral track ways that cross the land.

To be honest Rhiannon I am not too sure you can talk about such things on TMA, and you really should not have mentioned or hinted at that firecracker word 'Silbury'. Threads always goes pear-shaped with mention of that word, it must have the evil eye ;)*

The report does look encouraging, less people going up, but who' 'craps' up on a sacred hill, must be us white Europeans that have no respect for other peoples strongly held religious views!

edit before I upset Rhiannon... I also get bored with Silbury/climbing etc, but today I learnt that the 30,000 files on that green hill so far away are being archived for posterity - which is a great relief, and that the brave archivist has managed to reduce the files to about half.....

http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/blog/2013/07/the-silbury-hill-archive-the-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel/

I suppose it depends on what people nowadays on TMA classify as a "sacred hill". Some of these "sacred hills" are truly wondrous...

http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/img_fullsize/94756.jpg

Something "disrespectful" about climbing that? I think it is beautiful, but I think a lot of West Highland mountains are beautiful... but what exactly makes this mountain "sacred"? Having a cairn? Fill us in! Better let The Scottish Mountaineering Association know about it too! And the Skye Tourist Office...

Or Dumbuck? Sacred? Really?

http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/2810/dumbuck_hill.html

Someone had better let the people of Dumbarton, Cardross and Bowling know that they should start filling the big hole in...

http://binged.it/13ASdhs

As for the horsefeathers in the paragraphs of the 8 Feb 2002 "folklore" entry which deem this a "sacred hill" ... words fail me...

http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/1663/hills_of_dunipace.html

Someone had better let the good people of Larbert and Denny know. I'd love to read those roman literary sources too. I've read pretty much all the known Roman literary sources which apply to Scotland and Septimius Severus... none of them mention Dunipace or a treaty signed or broken there. And Roman involvement doesn't make somewhere "sacred"... does it? Or a proximity to Bonnybridge and their "UFOs"....

My neighbour down the road is Burnswark. A Caledonian Hillfort yes! Two big Roman camps straddling either side of it with ballista emplacements - yes! First major Caledonian defensive fort North of Birrens (Blatobulgium) - yes! Sacred Hill? Why - because someone found a story about a fairy. What made Cottingley famous... made a "sacred hill" outta Burnswark!

http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/6412/burnswark.html

As for this next "sacred hill" all I know is that every archaeological find and survey associated with it is for settlement (kitchen middens, house platforms, wee agricultural terraces...

http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/6020/berwick_law.html

Maybe its the whalebone arch maybe erected for Bonnie "Mince" Chairlie?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hamishfenton/4161660352/

Or another fairy mibbe... who knows...

These are examples of "sacred hills" on TMA. Only "sacred" in the eyes of TMA-ers. The Hill of the Old Woman ("Must be sacred!") or some legend that William Wallace hid there ("Must be sacred!") or worse... it stands out clearly in the landscape ("It really must have been sacred!"). "I've found a fairy story!" - then that hill must really be sacred! No evidence - just fanciful dreaming - harmless - until it is believed by someone important enough and the fences and "Keep Off this Sacred Hill" signs go up.

I'd say "Walk up any old hill you like! Take your litter home with you. If any fairies complain, apologise and explain that you'll leave after you've reached the top and eaten your sandwiches. If any fairies are cheeky or disrespectful to any TMA-ers please let me know and I'll go and sort them out."

HD