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Silbury Hill

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nigelswift N
nigelswift Nov 20, 2003 13:46:06
Replying to nigelswift

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Silbury Hill, built by our stone age ancestors 4500 years ago, is Europe's greatest prehistoric mound. It is part of the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site and although less well known internationally than it's famous neighbours it has a legitimate claim to be regarded as their equal or even to surpass them in significance.

Judged purely in terms of effort expended on it's construction, perhaps 18 million man hours, it represents a far greater achievement by the ancient peoples than both of the others and could therefore be regarded as their greatest legacy.

Yet there is still more about Silbury that compels our attention and demands that it should be nurtured by the British public as nowhere else.

To see Silbury for the first time is to understand. To suddenly become aware of it's sheer size and unmistakable conical shape rising out of the placid and orderly Wiltshire countryside is an unforgettable experience. Silbury, indisputably, proclaims itself to be a true wonder of the world. As we speed through that small corner of Britain in our cars our ancient forebears actually speak to us directly, as nowhere else, and tell us that it is their country just as much as it is ours. Such is the power of Silbury.

Silbury speaks, yet Silbury reveals nothing. Theories abound, excavations and surveys proliferate, but still we in the modern world have no inkling of what Silbury is. A burial mound without a body? A temple to the stars? A symbolic deity? Archaeology has revealed much about the past but Silbury is an ancient wonder that refuses to bow to modern science, Forty five centuries ago it was built with passion, for a purpose, and more than that it will not share.

Instead, it tantalises to the point of humiliation. Dominating a spacious flood plain, yet built hard up against a natural hill that all but hides it from the edge of it's builder's world, the Ridgway, and the centre of their world the Avebury Henge, just a mile away. But not quite. From both locations, a mere sliver of it's summit is visible. Silbury, it appears, was inspired by modest megalomania.

Continued

N nigelswift
nigelswift Nov 20, 2003 13:46:56
Replying to nigelswift

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Many people regard Silbury as the spiritual and emotional heart of Britain. No-one who visits it can fail to be seduced by it's mystery and power. It is our national treasure, worthy of the utmost care by each generation. And yet right now, under our watch, it is in an appalling and possibly perilous state, probably as never before in all the previous centuries. An old excavation shaft has collapsed, leaving a gaping hole at the summit, ringed by unsightly fencing. Further internal collapses have followed on from the first, so that cavities have developed. No-one can say with authority when these cavities will collapse further.

It is a mark of a civilised society that it cherishes it's heritage. In the case of Silbury that duty of care is of crucial national and international importance. We at Heritage Action believe that:
1.) The time that has elapsed since the collapse of part of the Silbury Hill World Heritage Monument in May 2000 should have been sufficient for the necessary investigations to have been carried out and an appropriate remedial programme to have been devised and completed.
2.) We lack confidence in assurances that the monument is currently stable and doubt that a definitive expert opinion to that effect can be obtained.with regard to further upwards migration of the internal cavities, bearing in mind they are in loose chalk rubble.
3.) We call upon the responsible body, English Heritage, to end the speculation and widespread concern that has been engendered by both the delay and the extreme lack of information that has been divulged.

If you wish to join with us in making these points please sign our worldwide on-line petition HERE.

Additionally, you may wish to write to English Heritage yourself. Their address, and an appropriate letter for printing out can be found HERE.

Heritage Action believes that English Heritage has interpreted it's role as statutory guardian of this national and international treasure in an unfortunate manner, sometimes bordering on the proprietorial, and that this has been manifest in a self-evident lack of willingness to release information, whether trivial or significant, to the wider public. Whilst some matters quite properly fall within the confidentiality perameters of the Freedom of Information Act there is much available information that has been witheld without this or any other apparent justification.
The concerned international public, as a whole, has much more to contribute in terms of both opinion and expertise than can possibly be encompassed within English Heritage and it's consultants and the whole process, in our opinion, should have been on that basis. We believe that much of the low esteem in which the organisation is widely held is directly attributable to it's culture and we call for an urgent reversal. Such a fortress-like stand combined with Silbury having already remained unrepaired for longer than it took to build the Channel Tunnel is a potent recipe for public disquiet about the safety of the monument and the competency of it's guardianship and we call for an urgent reversal for the sake of both English Heritage and Silbury.