Silbury Hill 180
Image by juamei
Silbury Hill

The Archaeology of a Monumental Mound

tiompan T
tiompan Jan 30, 2010 20:24:12
Replying to Littlestone

Littlestone wrote:
That point about the sarsens and antlers representing the "ancestors " is purely 21st C speculation and isn't even based on folklore .
I think I may have missed the bit about antlers representing the ancestors but the small sarsen boulders found within Silbury may be a different matter. It is true that a connection between the boulders at Silbury and the ancestors may be 21st (and 20th) century speculation but so too is much of the speculation found on these pages - speculation which has subsequently been accepted by the academic community.

It's good to see this topic now opening up on TMA and, while not wishing to detract from that, an interesting parallel discussion will also be found here - http://www.eternalidol.com/?p=6179

The speculation often originates from the academic community .In this case MPP ahs really foregrounded " the ancestors " in realtion to Stonehenge /Durrington . Julian Thomas was one of the earlier archies who suggested that the sudden appearance of Long Barrows was a way of achieving land rights as the the spot was now the home of the ancestors .It's a fine idea but some evidence relating to the age of and length of use of the monuments , shows it may not be appropriate for some of the earliest monuments in Wessex .

L Littlestone
Littlestone Jan 30, 2010 22:24:39
Replying to tiompan

The speculation often originates from the academic community .
Absolutely. If there is a difference between 'them' and 'us' it is, perhaps, that we're not quite as confined by the 'rules' of academia as they are (the Calling Rock Art Aficionados thread here is a good example of that).

But getting back to speculation on the presence of the sarsen boulders found within Silbury, we could just say that they were placed there for structural reasons - then again (given their size) we might also say they were carried there (perhaps from all over the country) in a final gesture of respect for a departed one. And in so doing adding to an accumulated statement of a unified identity - something like a cenotaph perhaps?

It's not, after all, dissimilar to what we do today at Westminster Abbey where the remains of the good, famous and fallen are laid together in a unified statement of 'us'.

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