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Four small sarsen stones lying alongside some of the steelwork taken from the Atkinson Tunnel, and now in the English Heritage/Skanska compound at the base of Silbury Hill.

Presumably these sarsens are some of those recently mentioned in the press that have been found within Silbury. According to latest theories the stones may represent the souls of those who died at the time Silbury was being constructed.

The question now is, will these sarsens be returned to their right place within Silbury or be left exposed to 'the irreverent day' on a wooden pallet (along with 1960's steelwork form the Atkinson/BBC tunnel) before being deposited in a museum - or somewhere even worse? Will English Heritage confirm, either here or on their Silbury Updates website, that they intend to adhere to accepted principles of conservation and the religious concerns of some members of our society (concerns which do demand the proper treatment of these objects) or are we to expect yet again (and in the words of Lord Avebury) that they will be guilty of offending accepted, "...conservation principles, as well as the spiritual beliefs of some people."?

Looking at these stones (the religious equivalent of modern headstones perhaps) that were no doubt placed with care and reverence in Silbury by our ancestors more than 4,000 years ago, Emmeline Fisher's Silbury poem of 1849 takes on a new, sad and almost prophetic meaning -

Bones of our wild forefathers, O forgive,
If we now pierce the chambers of your rest,
And open your dark pillows to the eye
Of the irreverent day...

You're right - my suggestion would be simply to impound them. Not return them until their was an assurance of respect. The stone with the flat face toward the camera appears to bear a simple single cupmark. It would be unusual as the cupmark is little known in the south of the country. They're easily overlooked and particularly fresh when they've spent four thousand years buried. Please continue fighting ...

I'll try and capture Bolton's equivalent hill - same size but more oval - on winter sunlit 8mm Kodachrome.

There is a terrible sadness that lies at the heart of all this, the damage that has been done to Silbury over the centuries out of curiosity and the need for treasure, and then the simple truth that what did lie at Silbury's heart was this small mound surrounded by stones with simple offerings.
Taking the subject away from conservation for the moment, and focussing on the spiritual aspect, I believe that archaeologists have to come to terms with a respect for the beliefs of the past. Christianity exists besides many other religious beliefs, secularism strides over christian belief, but it is still respected. Archaeologists have to accept and respect this extra religious dimension when approaching the excavation of prehistoric monuments that obviously have deep symbolic meaning in their past history.
Dean Merewether for all his faults did record what he saw, but he was a man of the church highly intrigued by 'pagan' beliefs, and hardly sympathetic towards them. The stones are part of Silbury therefore should remain inside, they would hardly make an elegant centrepiece in a museum anyway.
The damage cannot be undone and that is what so depressing, but if, as many believe, Silbury has a spiritual meaning, then at least give it back its dignity for a 'remembered' past, and a peaceful future in which there are no further intrusions.