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.
Image credit: Anonymous
Littlestone
Making History: Antiquaries In Britain, 1707-2007
15 Sep—2 Dec 2007. Main Galleries, Royal Academy of Arts, London.
“This exhibition explores the work and achievement of the Fellowship of the Society of Antiquaries of London since its foundation in the early eighteenth century to the present day.
“It features works of art, antiquities and manuscripts of unique historical importance, such as a processional cross of King Richard III and his defeated Yorkist army recovered from the battlefield of Bosworth (1485). Also on show will be the earliest known medieval manuscript illustrations of Stonehenge,* as well as drawings and paintings of this and other historic sites and monuments by great artists such as Constable, Turner, Girtin and Blake.“**
* The 15th century Scala Mundi manuscript?
** More at royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/makinghistory/ and royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/makinghistory/ charles-hamilton-smith-the-grand-conventional-festival-of-the-britons-1815,450,AR.html
The Rotherwas Serpent
“Herefordshire Council has found a section of laid stone surface dating from the early Bronze Age, the only discovery of its kind in Europe.” The surface appears to be made of fired pieces of stone laid out in the shape of a serpent. Part of the surface will be intersected by a new road but, fortunately, not destroyed; the new road will be laid over the Bronze Age surface and the rest investigated.
More at -
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hereford/worcs/6268900.stm
smr.herefordshire.gov.uk/news_events2/RotherwasNews2.htm
anthropology.net/2007/07/04/rotherwas-ribbon-a-bronze-age-site-unique-in-europe/
John Aubrey (1626-1697) visited Clyffe Pypard in, or around, 1660 – some twelve years after his visit to Avebury where he records being, “...wonderfully surprised at the site of these vast stones, of which I had never heard before, as also the mighty bank and graffe (grass) about it.” At Clyffe Pypard he describes the Church of St Peter as, “Here is a handsome Church, and have been very good windowes.”
While the tower, nave, aisles and porch of the Church of St Peter were built in the 15th century there remains some 14th century stonework in the south porch. Further study may show that the Norman church was built on the foundations of an earlier Saxon one and, as at other Christianised sites, the Saxon church may have been built on a pre-Christian structure. Six of the buttresses have sarsen stones under them, only one of which has been cut to the shape of the buttress. The other five sarsens, one of which is very large, are left protruding as they do under the buttresses of the Church of St James, Avebury; the Church of St Katherine and St Peter, Winterbourne Bassett and the Church of St John the Baptist, Pewsey.
The Church of St Peter is situated at the bottom of a steep escarpment and is set in a well-cared for graveyard surrounded by trees.* There is a distinct air of a ‘grove’ about the place which is reminiscent of the grove, and its disordered sarsens, by the river close to Pewsey Church. The leafy and sarsen-paved footpath that leads east past the church comes out on a secluded meadow with a magnificent oak tree at its centre. Nearby is a stream and lake. Nikolaus Pevsner, art and architectural historian and author of The Buildings of England, is buried with his wife at a place between the lake and the church – their grave is marked by a headstone of slate.**
About a mile from Clyffe Pypard, towards Broad Town and close to Little Town Farmhouse, is the cottage which Pevsner used as a country retreat. The cottage was formerly the home of the poet and literary critic Geoffrey Grigson, whose friends included Paul Nash and John Piper. Nash and Piper between them produced numerous paintings of Avebury, West Kennet Long Barrow, Stonehenge and other megalithic structures.***
* The ‘Clyffe’ of Clyffe Pypard refers to the adjacent escarpment. ‘Pypard’ refers to Richard Pypard who was Lord of the Manor in 1231.
** gsd.harvard.edu/research/publications/hdm/back/21_long.html
Image credit: Littlestone
John Aubrey (1626-1697) visited Clyffe Pypard in, or around, 1660 – some twelve years after his visit to Avebury where he records being, “...wonderfully surprised at the site of these vast stones, of which I had never heard before, as also the mighty bank and graffe (grass) about it.” At Clyffe Pypard he describes the Church of St Peter as, “Here is a handsome Church, and have been very good windowes.”
While the tower, nave, aisles and porch of the Church of St Peter were built in the 15th century there remains some 14th century stonework in the south porch. Further study may show that the Norman church was built on the foundations of an earlier Saxon one and, as at other Christianised sites, the Saxon church may have been built on a pre-Christian structure. Six of the buttresses have sarsen stones under them, only one of which has been cut to the shape of the buttress. The other five sarsens, one of which is very large, are left protruding as they do under the buttresses of the Church of St James, Avebury; the Church of St Katherine and St Peter, Winterbourne Bassett and the Church of St John the Baptist, Pewsey.
The Church of St Peter is situated at the bottom of a steep escarpment and is set in a well-cared for graveyard surrounded by trees.* There is a distinct air of a ‘grove’ about the place which is reminiscent of the grove, and its disordered sarsens, by the river close to Pewsey Church. The leafy and sarsen-paved footpath that leads east past the church comes out on a secluded meadow with a magnificent oak tree at its centre. Nearby is a stream and lake. Nikolaus Pevsner, art and architectural historian and author of The Buildings of England, is buried with his wife at a place between the lake and the church – their grave is marked by a headstone of slate.**
About a mile from Clyffe Pypard, towards Broad Town and close to Little Town Farmhouse, is the cottage which Pevsner used as a country retreat. The cottage was formerly the home of the poet and literary critic Geoffrey Grigson, whose friends included Paul Nash and John Piper. Nash and Piper between them produced numerous paintings of Avebury, West Kennet Long Barrow, Stonehenge and other megalithic structures.***
* The ‘Clyffe’ of Clyffe Pypard refers to the adjacent escarpment. ‘Pypard’ refers to Richard Pypard who was Lord of the Manor in 1231.
** gsd.harvard.edu/research/publications/hdm/back/21_long.html
Image credit: Littlestone
Stonehenge, by I Cowley in his 1744 map of Wiltshire for R Dodsley’s, The Geography of Britain.
Image credit: Littlestone
Sarsen under the north-east buttress (thanks to Nigel Swift for spotting this).
Image credit: Littlestone
The larger of the two trapdoors can now be lifted revealing a sarsen beneath.
Image credit: Littlestone
Willow and Stones at the Swallowhead Spring (1995)
Image credit: Littlestone
“By the agrarian revolution of the third millennium BC Stonehenge was already an important site, but its extension about 2300BC was clearly intended by its guardians to make it a major pilgrimage attraction. This needed some sensational draw, and what could be more sensational than a henge composed of the fabled Preseli bluestones, fount of a hundred holy wells? It was worth any Olympian expense.
The medieval historian Geoffrey of Monmouth told of a belief in the healing power of Stonehenge’s stones, brought by Arthur’s magician, Merlin, “from Ireland”, where stones have long had magic properties. Geoffrey’s stories are ridiculed, but his folk memory might contain a grain of truth. Could the appeal of the bluestones lie not in ancestor worship or astronomical ritual but in the power these objects were thought to hold back in Preseli? In his new book, Stonehenge: Biography of a Landscape, Darvill points out that the arrangement of the stones at Stonehenge even reflects their geological location back in Wales.”
More at – guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1961517,00.html
Ancient Britain in its European Context (AHOB 2)
“The second phase of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project (AHOB) is funded to run until 2010, thanks to a grant by the Leverhulme Trust. The project, which started in October 2001, has made groundbreaking discoveries dating human occupation of Britain back as far as 700,000 years. Phase two of the AHOB project (AHOB2) will continue to add data on the earliest human colonisations of Britain, but the project will also carry out more comparative studies in continental Europe.
The first year of the AHOB2 project will include an attempt to recover DNA from a fragment of jawbone found at Kent’s Cavern in Devon. This will help determine whether it is a modern human as previously believed, or a late Neanderthal. With a newly estimated date of 35,000, this fossil lies right at the time when modern humans could have first encountered the Neanderthals in western Europe.”
More at -
nhm.ac.uk/hosted_sites/ahob/index_2.html
and info on phase 1 of the AHOB project at -
A three-year-old from 3.3m years ago
Today’s Guardian reports on the discovery of the bones of a three-year-old from 3.3m years ago.
“Fossil hunters working in Ethiopia have unearthed the fragile bones of a baby ape-girl who lived 3.3m years ago, the earliest child ancestor discovered so far.
The fossilised remains reveal a critical moment in human evolution that saw our earliest relatives shaking off the legacy of ape ancestors to take their first tentative steps along a path that ultimately led to modern humans.
The remarkably complete skeleton’s lower half is almost perfectly adapted to walking upright, while the upper body is more primitive, with gorilla-like shoulderblades and curved chimpanzee-like fingers suited to clinging and climbing trees.
The intact skull and nearly full set of teeth show the large, pointy canines that distinguish apes from early humans have disappeared, leaving only substantial chewing teeth.“*
* More at -
The sarsen under the north-west buttress of the Church of St James, Avebury.
Image credit: Littlestone
The sarsen under the south-east buttress of the Church of St John the Baptist, Pewsey. The stone has a soft red hue and appears to have been dressed. The tip (foreground) was perhaps the top of the stone when it was in a vertical position.
Image credit: Littlestone
Humans in Britain 700,000 years ago
“New research shows early humans were living in Britain around 700,000 years ago, substantially earlier than previously thought. Using new dating techniques, scientists found that flint tools unearthed in Pakefield, Suffolk, were 200,000 years older than the previous oldest finds.“*
Four thousand year-old structure found in Russia
Two years ago Russian archaeologist Ilya Akhmedov made a sensational discovery; he found an ancient structure ‘resembling’ Stonehenge near the site of the ancient settlement of Staraya Ryazanin in the village Spasskaya Luka.
Source english.pravda.ru/science/19/94/377/15764_stonehenge.html
“A retired fisherman has discovered an ancient stone head which experts say could be 24,000 years old – the oldest found in Britain.” The five-inch stone head was found off Long Island in Hampshire and according to archaeologists could be a piece of Neanderthal art. “A similar stone head was found in a Neanderthal cave in northern France and was dated back to 28,000 BC.”
Full story and photo appear on page 7 of The Times, 2 October 2004.
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