The Modern Antiquarian. Stone Circles, Ancient Sites, Neolithic Monuments, Ancient Monuments, Prehistoric Sites, Megalithic MysteriesThe Modern Antiquarian

Head To Head   The Modern Antiquarian   Silbury Hill Forum Start a topic | Search
Silbury Hill
Re: Silbury updates
669 messages
Select a forum:
scousemaiden wrote:
Our visit to Silbury Hill yesterday was wonderful. The archaeologists were so friendly, showing children various artifacts recovered from inside the hill and gave us all the opportunity to sift through the chalk removed from inside mound 1 of Silbury. To our delight we discovered broken antlers; tools used by our ancestors so so long ago. To hold the antlers was such an amazing and exiting feeling knowing how old they were, and were they had come from. We were advised that after sifting the original chalk it was to be put back inside the hill along with new chalk from Westbury so that it is local to the area. We spent about 1 1/2 to 2 hours at Silbury before returning to the N.T. Education centre to discuss the Time Capsule.
We were priveliged enough to handle the original material recovered from the 1849 capsule put inside the hill following the Mereweather excavations. The Time Capsule going inside this time is to be a glass cookie type jar, big enough to hold few things that the 19 children of Avebury school and the 20 or so year 5 children of Kennett Valley school feel to be appropriate ie photos, newspaper cuttings, poems , stories etc along with information regarding the work being carried out to restore the hill and fill in the tunnels and shaft in an attempt to preserve the hill.
I can only admire what is going on to try and preserve Silbury Hill. As for the Time Capsule; why is it wrong, why all the objections? History is here and now as well time past. We can't prevent another excavation in 50 years , 100 years whatever, so why not give future generations an insight into our here and now. The capsule is glass which will not erode or damage Silbury.
Myself and my two children lucky enough to be involved in all this feel proud to be part (be it a very small part) of the work being carried out by English Heritage.
Scousemaiden xxx


Hi Scousemaiden,

Glad that all the children enjoyed the visit to Silbury and got to know the 'feel' of history. Its a difficult line to tread to deny the children leaving their offerings in the Hill yet many people feel that this is wrong and for good reasons. Preserving what remains of the original Silbury monument IS important, unfortunately it has over time accumulated acts of vandalism by burrowing tunnels and a 19th century time capsule, but this does not make it valid today to leave a 'time capsule' from the village school - no matter how well meant, or that it won't really hurt.
Fundamentally Silbury should be restored to the best state that a prehistoric monument can be, there are rules and regulations laid down by ICOMOS to world wide heritage sites, and Silbury is in such a site, take for instance this..
"Legislation should be based on the concept of the archaeological heritage as the heritage of all humanity and of groups of peoples, and not restricted to any individual person or nation. "
It should in fact be left as free as possible of all other histories because it was originally built as a 'closed' structure with no access from the outside.
To be quite honest, it would be easier just to let the 21st century time capsule go into the Hill but it just would'nt be right, we are just repeating the same old mistakes that left it in such a terrible state that it has been in over the last century...
Moss x


 This topic is locked
moss
Posted by moss
30th June 2007ce
16:48

In reply to:

Re: Silbury updates (scousemaiden)

1 reply:

Re: Silbury updates (slumpystones)

Messages in this topic: