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VenerableBottyBurp V
VenerableBottyBurp May 28, 2005 12:39:55
Replying to nigelswift

It is grouting being summarily dismissed that is the big clue to what is going on here. I personally do not think that grouting as things stand is the best solution (pun unintended), but it should not be dismissed until all the facts are known. Based on the knowledge we have at present, grouting, whilst undoubtedly requiring addition holes drilled into a flank that are undesirable, is surely and obviously less of a risk than attempting to dig out the tunnels ?

My own would differ from Nigel's opinion in one respect, in that I cannot fully pin the move down to a research agenda. There are those that are rubbing their egos with glee at the prospect I suspect, but I think the majority are good honest people who simply want to do right after so many wrongs have been inflicted on Silbury by archaeologists. This is more compulsive and persuasive than gaining a name for oneself, and it is this driving the suggestion the tunnels have to be redug.

I want to stop this re-dig and would like to know if there was ultimately a collapse of the voids how much surface area would be lost and estimate regarding what archaeology could be recovered form that surface area beforehand ? Silbury could be monitored for up to ten years to see what is happening, but actually I don't see them going for it.

VBB

I Ishmael
Ishmael May 28, 2005 12:52:18
Replying to VenerableBottyBurp

>My own would differ from Nigel's opinion

You get kicked out of Heritage Action for that you know!

M moss
moss May 28, 2005 14:26:10
Replying to VenerableBottyBurp

A permanent tunnel should not ever be contemplated. Perhaps if people would go and look (theres a good picture in Burl's Prehistoric Avebury) at the Marlborough/Merlin Mound they would understand what a terrible disfigurement doors would do to the hill. That mound is in a terrible state, the tree cover does it a service. The idea that Silbury and its surrounding landscape should be turned into a peepshow like Stonehenge does'nt bear thinking about.

N nigelswift
nigelswift May 28, 2005 18:39:27
Replying to VenerableBottyBurp

VBB, you say
"grouting… should not be dismissed until all the facts are known."
That's all we've ever asked.

"good honest people who simply want to do right"
Nearly all, yes. I bent over backwards from the start at the demo to stress that (to the extent that a drunk at the back started shouting, as he thought I was from EH).

"who simply want to do right after so many wrongs have been inflicted on Silbury by archaeologists."
… by correcting tunnelling by tunnelling a bigger tunnel!
On which planet does that make sense?
(A blue one, I suppose).

As you know, a long article in British Archaeology was dedicated to persuading people on a single point: that EH, as successors in title to the body that allowed Atkinson to cock up his tunnel and make inadequate notes had a MORAL DUTY to go back in and make good his omissions. Professor or not, that's the stupidest most obviously agenda-driven argument I ever heard.

Moss:
"The idea that Silbury and its surrounding landscape should be turned into a peepshow like Stonehenge does'nt bear thinking about."
What can I say? Read the minutes.