At Uffington on the Solstice, it struck me again how peculiar this horse is. We're so familiar with it from the aerial image that it's impossible to know how it would have felt - or been seen - before the invention of the hot air balloon.

Whta is strange is that its makers could only have imagined its form (unless you believe in astral travelling) and it isn't drawn with foreshortening (like some road markings) so that when seen from a typical low angle it appears 'right'.

That makes you think that perhaps what mattered wasn't how it looked but how it felt - particularly in its making and ritual scouring.

The amazing natural ampitheatre beneath now seems much more significant to me in its positon in relation to the figure. It is so unusual and unique that it is easy to imagine it having many uses and you wonder if,in fact, this was the really important thing - a site for races, horse trading, a stud (this remains race horse country), a corral for horses (as Rhiannon pointed out) and that the horse was the banner above the stage for such equine events. The nearby Dragon hill seems perfect for presenting prizes (or divination by autopsy).

Looking yesterday ay a drawing of a flayed horse, it was noticaable how similar the folds of the ampitheatre wall are to horse ribs - as though a gigantic horse is partly buried - or partly emerging - from the earth here.

The other thing I wonder is how its antiquity is establised - can you accurately date chalk and chalk workings? - I haven't heard of other archaelogical finds which specificaly date it.

And anyway, how do we know its a horse? Why not a dragon?