King Sil IS in Silbury, probably.

Silbury Hill 180

Image by Littlestone

nigelswift Oct 5, 2007 08:38:10

To my mind the case put forward here by Rev AC Smith for Silbury being sepulchral, i.e. being built to contain a (as yet undiscovered) burial, is ever so convincing.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KDYGAAAAQAAJ&dq=The+Wiltshire+Archaeological+and+Natural+History+Magazine+By+Edward+Hungerford+Goddard&pg=PA1&ots=2QvYknPk0s&sig=9RzuoCa7-9VydT1MBo8BVWO5Q_k&prev=http://www.google.co.uk/search%3Fhl%3Den%26q%3DThe%2BWiltshire%2BArchaeological%2Band%2BNatural%2BHistory%2BMagazine%2BBy%2BEdward%2BHungerford%2BGoddard%26btnG%3DGoogle%2BSearch%26meta%3D&sa=X&oi=print&ct=result&cd=1#PPA144-IA2,M1
(Page 144 onwards)

The general presumption that it is a very exceptional and puzzling non-sepulchral monument arises from an all-too-facile assumption that the body would have been in the centre, but he offers extremely good reasons for thinking it may equally well not have been.

EH have now almost finished excavating and haven't found a burial, which is hardly surprising since they have broadly kept to the areas already investigated. But Rev Smith's reasoning remains just as strong, what hasn't been found may well still be elsewhere, undiscovered. On this basis, EH's starting ambition to "finally" discover the true nature of Silbury can hardly be said to be fulfilled and was never going to be.

"King Sil" might be sleeping peacefully just ten yards from the central excavation or be doubly and irrevocably entombed within the collapsed material. So hopefully, assuming no-one ever decides to tunnel into it again, the true purpose of Silbury will remain an eternal mystery. Good!

Littlestone Oct 5, 2007 10:24:19

Replying to nigelswift

Haven't got round to reading Rev Smith's paper yet but it seem's just as reasonabe that a burial chamber would have been placed off-center than at the centre of the structure. Having said that, earlier in the week I was looking at the Silbury Conservation Risk Assessment (Fachtna McAvoy, May 2005 - second link down at http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/nav.17594 ) and wondered what the large block (of stone?) might be that's shown in the photo on Page 52, Fig. A14. Apart from the (broken?) right-hand side the stone looks pretty symmetrical. Note how the left-hand side and top seem to have been dressed. Looks almost like one end of a sarcophagus. Natural or otherwise someone in 1969 took the trouble to measure and photograph the cavity in the top - a cavity which seems to be about a foot deep and about two foot long.

The next photo (Fig. A15) is also interesting and shows what looks like Atkinson on the left with a colleague on the right; the colleague seems to be working on the stone with a trowel. The helmet shown on the extreme right is the same helmet belonging to the person working opposite Atkinson (double exposure - there are actually only two people there). Note also the bucket at the base of the stone. Are Atkinson and his colleague removing debris from the top of the stone that's shown in photo A14?

If the shape of the stone (if it is a stone) is just natural and not dressed it's still of interest and, hopefully, still in situ (though English Heritage don't seem to have mentioned either its presence or absence in any of their updates - perhaps it's mentined elsewhere).

Rhiannon Oct 5, 2007 11:31:20

Replying to nigelswift

He was saying that as the hill was built up, the original centre would have become less important, or less obvious? to those building. So the burial would have ended up being a bit off-centre.
I was quite convinced but then.. Does it not depend at what stage the burial was inserted? I mean would you make a little mound first, then work on the bigger diameter and bring it up to the level of the little one (in which case it would be quite central, surely). If you inserted it later you might as well put it in the middle because it'd be easy enough to see where the middle was.
You'd think such a major bit of engineering would need careful mapping out on the ground, you couldn't just go adding a bit here and then a bit there.. wouldn't the Plan require quite exact behaviour or the whole lot'd slump?
OBviously I have no idea. but I'm not so sure about the Rev's argument now.

BuckyE Oct 8, 2007 11:54:22

Replying to nigelswift

Seem to remember the earliest pyramids had the burial and other chambers dug into the ground under the sites, then were covered with the pyramids. Possibility at Silbury?

Rhiannon Oct 13, 2007 08:29:19

Replying to nigelswift

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/programming/a77570/lion-to-reveal-silbury-hill-for-bbc-four.html?rss

News of a one hour documentary about the recent goings-on.

BuckyE Oct 15, 2007 13:42:58

Replying to nigelswift

Is there no imaging system capable of penetrating the whole Hill and its underground area? I know nothing about it, so am curious.

Anew Nov 4, 2007 07:22:57

Replying to nigelswift

Nigel wait

In 1776 Colonel Drax and the Duke of Northumberland dug down from the top. Accounts tell us only that they found a small sliver of oak and ‘a man’, presumably a skeleton, at the base of the shaft, though a newly discovered report says the hill consisted ‘of chalk and gravel thrown together by the hands of men’ and that ‘there were many cavities in it’.

from http://www.britarch.ac.uk/BA/ba80/feat1.shtml

If the account is to be believed, there was at least one burial, apparently a simple one, but on center. It was excavated in the Eighteenth Century by treasure-hunting nobility. If they didn't leave the body where found, it could have wound up in the spoil, or (at a stretch but not unreasonably) have been reinterred to the Duke's own cemetery (if any) or that (again) of the Colonel's regiment. In any case, we may have this simple fellow to thank for their not digging clear to the bottom and destroying what was later encountered by Merewether, (& Atkinson after him). The mention of gravel in the later report seems to indicate they got through Silburies 3 & 2 ... the 'man' being atop or in the outer layers of Silbury 1, (close call)

For those interested, the thread "Silbury Hill, why build it?"
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=Forum&file=viewtopic&topic=565&forum=4&start=140
in Burnham's Megalithic has a lot of theorizing, (some mine), together with friendly discussion, evolving ideas, a referenced debate, all around gentlemanly conduct [;-)] and more

Also to be considered is that the monument might be better understood in the context of Greater Avebury; a topic explored in the thread "Silbury, Silbaby & the Environs"
http://www.stonepages.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=1114
on Stone Pages, (holy smokes, 15,548 views)

It seems possible to make educated guesses as to the purpose of the Hill ... but that 'final answer' is probably beyond reach