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Marlborough Mound

Prehistoric origins confirmed!

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thesweetcheat T
thesweetcheat Jun 2, 2011 22:03:29
Replying to tjj

tjj wrote:
thesweetcheat wrote:
StoneGloves wrote:
Hill altar is a persuasive term but - is there any evidence that things happened on them ? It's also possible that they were admired from nearby. Another question is whether the artificial hills were copied from natural ones - particularly drumlins - from landscapes with a different geology. Judging from the three I know best, Proudy Hill, Sugarloaf Hill and the one near Thornhope who's name escapes me, they were surrounded with other monuments, large and small.
Blakey Topping in North Yorkshire, with its nearby stone circle, is another possible "proto-Silbury". I think Copey suggests this in the papery TMA.
The Ring of Brodgar comes to mind which, apart from nearby Maes Howe burial chamber, also has a smaller mound close to the stone circle - no where near as big as Silbury but probably a similar size as the Marlborough Mound.

Is Dragon Hill at Uffington an artificial hill, because it even looks like an altar.

Blakey Topping is a natural hill, but from the right direction (including from the stone circle) it is very Silbury-esque.

S StoneGloves
StoneGloves Jun 4, 2011 05:21:38
Replying to thesweetcheat

"Blakey Topping is a natural hill, but from the right direction (including from the stone circle) it is very Silbury-esque".

That's the wrong way round, I think. Silbury is Blakey Topping-esque. Silbury is also very Sugarloaf Hill-esque. Now we need to find a word to replace the name of these hills. If you find a fossilised raindrop, in sandstone, and turn it the other way up, then you get the shape. It's not really a fossilised raindrop - it's the mark made in wet sand by a raindrop or hailstone. Anyone working sandstone, in times gone by, will have encountered these.

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