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| On Saturday I attended the excellent talk about Silbury by Jim Leary (Director of Fieldwork for English Heritage 2007-08). I won't go over the main content of the lecture here as it has been covered elsewhere. What really captured my imagination, however, was that near the end of the talk JL spoke about the possibility that the siting of Silbury was chosen to mark the southern source of the Thames - as the river Kennet is a tributary of the Thames. The Thames was thought to have been a 'sacred' river similar to the Ganges and in archaeological terms we know its banks were well populated in prehistory (although most ancient sites have now been eradicated from the landscape). According to Peter Akroyd's book Thames: Sacred River there are over 50 churches dedicated to St Mary (aka fertility goddess) along the route of the Thames. Although we can only speculate, it does seem likely that Silbury was dedicated to water and fertility - being deliberately constructed on low lying ground at the end of a chalk spur and at the head of the Kennet (land often flooded at certain times of the year). Jim Leary showed a well known image of Silbury when the ditch and ditch extension is flooded and there is a perfect reflection of the mound - at this point he referred to primordial creation myths with some enthusiasm, before he slipping back into his role as pre-historian. JL closed his talk with reference to the 'sacred' Avon and Mardon Henge being more or less equidistant between the Kennet and Avon. I suspect this may be old news to many of the people who post here but it is worth revisiting. Reply | with quote |  26th January 2010ce 03:27 3 replies: Re: Could Silbury mark a source of the Thames? (Paulus) Re: Could Silbury mark a source of the Thames? (tiompan) Re: Could Silbury mark a source of the Thames? (thesweetcheat) |
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