Another Centre Of The Universe

[poliphilo]

Silbury Hill really is a mystery. They've recently completed a dig which established that it was built in three stages- over a period corresponding to a long lifetime- but they're still no closer to establishing what it's for- or how it relates to the rest of Avebury's neolithic landscape. 

Michael Dames- whose books first got me interested in Avebury- argues that the hill represents the pregnant belly of the Mother Goddess. His work is unscholarly and largely discredited now, but his guess remains as good as any.  Maybe it's a centotaph (we can rule out burial mound because there's nothing buried there) or a ritual platform or an observatory or merely an extravagant piece of self-assertion by some forgotten tribal warlord-  "Gaze on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"

Looking again at these photographs, I'm struck by how anomalous it is.  A smooth-sided hill rising out of a valley bottom- it doesn't fit; it's against Nature. It's as if some gigantic child with a bucket and spade had just dumped it there. 

It's made of chalk. In its original state- like the ditch and walls of Avebury- it would have gleamed an unearthy white.

Comments

[mummm.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of surprised that it doesn't wash away.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Come to think of it, so am I.

[oakmouse]

Native chalk (ie chalk in the ground) is hard, and when you get it wet it becomes terribly slippery but doesn't go into solution very well. It does wear, but rather slowly. To get the soft chalk we use on blackboards and sidewalks, the hard stuff is ground to powder and then pressed into sticks.