http://www.people.co.uk/news/news/tm_method=full%26objectid=19135302%26siteid=93463-name_page.html

Peace

Pilgrim

X

** http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/nav.17513

English Heritage's weekly update at http://www.english-heritage.or [...]Silbury_Hill_web_update_01.pdf no longer seems to be working.

"The end 500mm of an antler pick".

That's one hell of a big deer!

English Heritage wrote

Another conservation cock-up methinks. English Heritage, If you want to leave a time capsule at Silbury please leave it somewhere in the Silbury carpark - there are too many people here in the present (and no doubt in the future as well) who have no wish to look at Silbury knowing there is yet another intrusion lying at its heart (and no way of extracting it other than to dig yet another tunnel). Now, you wouldn't want the future to dig another tunnel to retrieve the mistakes of the past would you? Be careful how you answer, and how you act, the future is watching you.

There's not a lot more to be said about the Time Capsule being a wrong 'un but I thought I'd put down something about the way it is being defended as "community involvement" as I confess to getting just a bit peed off about that.

We've had seven years of non-community involvement and lack of openness in this project as everyone knows. The EH Chairman himself wrote to me years ago acknowledging that the information flow had been inadequate and saying things would change. They didn't, and the niggardly amount of information and photos coming out of the tunnel are the latest confirmation of that.

I can very well believe that getting the local kids involved at this very late stage is to do with UNESCO's requirements for cultural involvement. Indeed, unkind persons might think it was a quick and easy stunt to enable a hasty tick box to be ticked in the next report to them. But its no more than a token, seven years too late (and completely ill-judged as it happens). Shame the tick boxes aren't more specific and don't ask - "And has the public been kept fully informed throughout?"

Further, let it not go unchallenged that openness and community sharing is merely something recently required or originates only from UNESCO. It has been called for by the public, owed to them and withheld from them for 7 years. That should have been enough but wasn't. And even if the public are to be dismissed, the whole drift of professional sentiment has been along the same lines as what the public has been calling for - see the Institute of Field Archaeologists's code, the European Association of Archaeologists's (EAA) code of practice and the International Council of Monuments (ICOMOS) statement of ethics. They don't call for schoolchildren's paintings in scheduled monuments but they do imply public involvement. Supplying the former, too late, and presenting it as fulfilling the latter is completely untenable IMO and needs radically re-thinking. Increasing the number of photos from inside the tunnel from 6 to 106 next Monday would be an excellent start.

Just 2 more pictures and 187 words.

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/upload/pdf/Silbury_Hill_web_update_04.pdf

And so it goes on.

Silbury Hill Week 1 update (1863 Kb)

Silbury Hill Week 2 update (2475 Kb)

Silbury Hill Week 3 Update (1909 Kb)

Silbury Hill Week 4 Update (782 Kb)

Week 5 (485 Kb) ?

Week 6 (221 (Kb) ?

Week 7 (106 Kb) ?

Week 8 (23 KB) ?

Week 9 (2 Kb) ?

Week 10 zilch (Kb) ?

goffik wrote:

And Pete G's, "...I'm even loath to post anymore photos on my website at the moment..." Fact is that there are only so many telephoto shots Pete can get of the Atkinson entrance and the monorail before even the most devout Silbury aficionado's eyes begin to glaze over. And also this by Pete, "We are not even 1/3 of the way into the dig and the best bits will be when the centre is reached." We? Is Pete now working for English Heritage? Could be, especially his, 'best bits are at the centre' remark. Sounds like something Atkinson himself might have said (or a jam doughnut manufacturer ;-)

Bottom line is this: English Heritage set up an Ask the Experts page weeks ago. They have failed to publish a single answer to a single question on that page. Everything that's been said here and elsewhere to defend English Heritage's appalling lack of information on its activities at Silbury is whitewash. Full stop.

...if it was available. Is it late because of Father's Day? Or is it being a-void-ed?

Peace

Pilgrim

X

It's up (wos it something we said :-)

They don't seem to be sure whether to spell update as update or Update... nah, that's just being petty.

Hasn't it been intimated that there may be the remains of a missing woman inside. In which case the forensics bods will be in charge.

Update 6 now available.

You said you'd be our champion, a power to our cause
To stand like stones, upright and still, an influential force
Yet when we asked, our hands outstretched, your sense of duty failed
You turned your back, ignored our pleas, our trust in you derailed

You promised us your guardianship, is this how a guard behaves?
Can't you feel ten thousand corpses turning in their graves?
No passion in your governorship, a task but nothing more
Then ditch the burden as your predecessor did before

Oh, to see each promise kept, not cast aside with fear
No 'popular decisions' with one eye on your career
Just sense and sensitivity for all that could be lost
Preserving England's heritage, no matter what the cost

It's plainly apparent that English Heritage is not a favourite amongst certain TMA members, indeed the bile and abuse aimed at this organisation shows that feelings are strong.

Personally I cannot comment on the issues regarding Silbury, firstly through ignorance and secondly because I live the north of the UK and have no attachment or interest in Avebury, Silbury etc. However I would like to comment on an English Heritage project in my part of the world.

Every summer since 2004 English Heritage have been conducting an excavation at the Chester Amphitheatre. The site is freely accessible to visitors who are encouraged to walk the site and observe the excavation team in action. All the staff are helpful and willing to stop and chat about their work. Across the road at the Chester Visitor's Centre there is an exhibition of finds on display and the official website is informative and kept up to date.

Now I do not doubt that there may be shortcomings with the current Silbury excavation but my point is that at least in Chester they have got it right and deserve to be commended for that.

http://www.chester.gov.uk/amphitheatre/index.html

Excellent! Got me reply from the busy bods at Silbury today...

"There are no plans to allow the school children on visits into the hill. As I'm sure you can appreciate, the health and safety issues surrounding work of this nature mean we cannot allow members of the public into the tunnel.

Currently, only staff involved with the project are allowed into the hill, and are subject to a series of safety checks and measures before they enter"

G x

Some six weeks in and not a single word on English Heritage's Ask the Experts page.* English Heritage's incompetence speaks for itself.

* http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/nav.17513

Apologies if this has already been explained, but it's a long thread.....

I personally dislike the idea of leaving a time capsule in Silbury Hill, but is there any problem with it from a strictly archaeological perspective? What's the informed basis for objecting to it?

There are so few children in number perhaps each could be accompanied by an adult and allowed to put some chalk into the backfill or a dumper truck. If they can't go in the tunnel or close up because of health & safety an alternative is that the children are given buckets and bags, they write their name and a message on the bag, they fill it full of chalk, and that is put in the bucket and taken into the tunnel ceremoniously by an archaeo or engineer and this is photographed.

The bags and photographs are then collected and used as a catalyst for an archive and collection in connection with the school, this could be kept at the AK or at the WHM in Devizes, and hopefully be added to by past pupils and teachers.

It might even be possible to put details on a board and mount it at the site. Job done.

The integrity of the hill isn't compromised, no conservation arguments, it wouldn't encourage folk onto the site, no-one might be encouraged to dig for it, there is no encouragement for others to bury their own throughout the WHS. And everyone happy we hope!

If this is a daft idea, sorry, I was just hoping we might stop the divisions and arguments. If however it appears sound I am prepared to put it to EH.

VBB :o)

It's that time again.

Silbury Hill Week 7 Update

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/upload/pdf/Silbury_Hill_web_update_07.pdf

I'll leave it up to you.

Peace

Pilgrim

X

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=465540&in_page_id=1770&ct=5

It's probably well old and you lot probably know all about it anyway, but I thought I'd show it here cos it's sort of vaguely related to the thread*... :o)

G x

* But only in a miniscule way...

Week 8 update has arrived with a rather interesting alluvial layer on the original neolithic surface....

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/upload/pdf/Silbury_Hill_web_update_08_20070709134949.pdf

hope the link works...

Update number 9 now available. Two and a half pages of the update detail 'an investigation into the acoustics of Silbury' while one page details a 'Mini-Mound building event'.

Next month there's a rumour that a Punch and Judy show will be held on site with the possibility of a media circus to follow ;-)

Part of a letter in today's Guardian from Lord Avebury -

"My grandfather purchased Silbury Hill, introduced the first legislation to protect ancient monuments, and placed the hill under permanent guardianship. As owner of the site, I am concerned by the conflicting messages now being sent out by English Heritage, such as their plan to allow a "time capsule" to be buried in the monument. The current Silbury Hill conservation project, for which EH deserves credit, is designed to restore the original fabric by backfilling with pure chalk. Placing a foreign object in the monument offends conservation principles, as well as the spiritual beliefs of some people."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,2129468,00.html

Good on the Guardian to print Lord A's letter but did anybody see this at the back of the Family section last Saturday.....just got round to reading it over toast..

Mr H

Go to Avebury in Wiltshire
Pete May

I've finally cracked the meaning of the Avebury complex in Wiltshire - neolithic humans built it to amuse their kids. My daughters are trying to climb the huge sarsen stones, and running down earthwork ditches. Then my eight-year-old is asking, a little too loudly, "But, Mummy, why would people have sex beneath the stones?" having overheard our discussion on fertility rites.

They love a good death story too, and are delighted by the museum's exhibition of a rusting pair of scissors found in the pocket of a 13th-century barber who was crushed to death while trying to remove and destroy one of the "devil's stones".

We climb Silbury Hill, and I explain that this took as much human effort as building the pyramids, yet no one knows what it was for. "Maybe they climbed up it to collect the cup," suggests my perceptive daughter Lola.

And then we walk to West Kennet Long Barrow, climbing inside the stone chambers beneath the earth. "And this is where the skulls were stacked, and this was for legs," I say, explaining how neolithic people talked to their ancestors via their bones. We picnic on top of the mound, gazing at Silbury Hill.

"Can we hear the ancestors talking?" asks five-year-old Nell, hopefully.

"Yes, you can listen with this," says her mum, handing her an empty mineral water bottle and letting the wind reverberate in its lips. She is transfixed.

While the cancellation of the time capsule in Silbury is not yet quite assured I hope we may have won the battle on that one (we've certainly won morally). Thanks to Nigel Swift for his years of diligent work on the whole Silbury conservation issue; to all who support Heritage Action, and to others who have worked behind the scenes to get English Heritage to see sense on the time capsule issue. However, there is now the little matter of the 1968 Atkinson door. English Heritage's take on this is -

The Atkinson door and lintel must be removed in order to conform to accepted principles of conservation. Full stop.

Googling around trying to get some knowledge on Silbury Hill, I came across this news item dated May 18.

http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/nwh/ART21824.html

"Our Chief Executive has responded to the concerns of the Heritage Action group in writing and members of Silbury Hill project board have offered to meet with the group to address their points in person. We look forward to working with the group constructively in the future."

Any updates on this please?

Heritage Action will be staging a protest on May 29, called the Fourth Anniversary Protest, it begins with a march from Avebury to Silbury followed by an open air conference.

Did this happen? I must have missed it on the news. Anyone arrested?

Local radio reported earlier today that the future of Silbury is causing great concern. It would appear that fears are growing that it could implode due to a massive volume of water accumulating in the structure as a result of past tunnelling.

The National Trust have said they are now gravely concerned about Silbury.

Mr Carr, you have posted a couple of dozen comments on this thread, and perhaps another dozen comments elsewhere on TMA (including your somewhat irrelevant thread of Stonehenge at Live Earth, where you merely wittered to yourself). In all, your comments seem to comprise of taking issue with what others post and little else.

Nigel Swift (and others at Heritage Action and on TMA) have campaigned tirelessly over many years for the right course of action to be taken with regard to the conservation of Silbury while minor irritants such as yourself do little other than try to subvert threads, and the incompetents at English Heritage continue to flap from one disastrous course of inaction to another.

If I may ask you a question Mr Carr: do you actually have something of megalithic interest to contribute to TMA or are you just here to irritate those of us who do? If the answer to that question is yes (you do have something of megalithic interest to contribute) I am sure we will all look forward to further exchanges with you. If the answer is no there seems little point in engaging with you further.

FOTH, thanks for what you have imparted so far. Since you seem to be close to the action might I request that you post more, as much as you feel able?

There are a lot of people out here who have a lot of emotional attachment to the Hill and are in a position not unlike having a critically ill relative in hospital but being up against a virtual wall of silence from the doctors, picking up tiny hints and fearing the worst.

This has how EH has conducted the project for seven years so its hardly a surprise but their conception of public outreach has been to say as little as possible and spin what they do say to make it sound like they are perfect in every respect. That attitude is particularly unsustainable just now as things are obviously very serious and pinning it on God for delivering an exceptional period of rainfall, like he does periodically as we all know, isn't going to be enough to explain it all is it?

I think, if you can give some details where you know them of the perceived cause and source of the saturation, the anticipated mechanical and chemical changes it is likely to have resulted in, the scale and position of the collapses and an idea of the sort of risks that may be being faced it would do a favour to the public. And indeed to EH - better the plain truth should be out, however serious, they'll get more understanding and sympathy in the horrifically difficult task they now face than if they persist with mumbling and hints. Yes, I know they don't know a lot and simply can't give definitive answers, but they sure as hell know a lot more than they're sharing. There is no respectable reason why what the public knows shouldn't equate with what they know but I have long given up thinking they will ever act in an open and transparent way. If people like you can get us to the position we would be in if they did then it would be beneficial all round.

Thanks.

Do we have any news today at all?

From anywhere?

Any news sites? EH? Other forums? Friends of friends?

The silence is deafening..!

G x