Avebury - related topics

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West Kennet Long Barrow

There are even faces that can be seen inside West Kennet Long Barrow. This left-facing head is built into the wall of the barrow, and is possibly one of the best arguments for these faces not being an effect of erosion. No erosion has occured here since the barrow was built.

This photo ©Terry Meaden, is one available on a series of postcards.

New head found on Stonehenge site.

Quote from Terry Meaden's "The Secrets of the Avebury Stones", Souvenir Press, London, July 1999:
"For a long period there would have been close co-operation between the Avebury and Stonehenge peoples, especially while megaliths were being selected, shaped and transported from the Avebury Hills to Stonehenge. Similarities of religeous ritual and philosophy would not be unexpected, leading to affinities of design and execution".

You can buy Terry Meaden's book for less than the RRP by following thiese links to either amazon.co.uk or amazon.com.

Terry took this picture of Trilithon 54 when the sunshine was weak, and arrived too late to catch the shadows at their best. The carving of the sarsen is up to three inches deep, and is best viewed in the summertime between 1350 and 1440hrs.

Left hand photo ©Terry Meaden 26Jun1999.
Right hand picture (close-up with image enhancement) ©Frank Wayman 16Sep1999.

Trilithon 54Trilithon 54 close-up

Other Stonehenge carvings

Other heads have been noted at Stonehenge, but not all are accurately described. The Heel Stone has a head a little like a porpoise and another stone (poss. #2) has a very bear-like head on it (see Chippendale, "Stonehenge Complete",Thames and Hudson Books, 1983, p248-9). Stone #28 was noted by well regarded Stonehenge archaeologist Prof Atkinson to have a head on it, with similar squared-off human features to the example above (see Atkinson "Stonehenge", Pelican books, 1960, plate 24). Unfortunately, despite whetting one's appetite with photographs and captions, neither of these authors mentions the head-carvings in the text!

Stone circles and the Milky Way

Another interesting idea about the design of Stonehenge (and Stone Circles in general) is that they were built to reflect the way that the Milky Way appeared all around the horizon until about 2800BCE. The effects of precession in the last 5000 years mean that the Milky Way can no longer be seen like this. More on this topic can be seen on Rush Allen's site.

The animation shows the sky at Stonehenge as it was in 2800BCE, with the Heel Stone as the only megalith (it was the only megalith in 2800BCE). I have shown it in an upright position and NE of the viewer. The sky background, including the cloud-like Milky Way, was generated with SkyGlobe, a shareware astronomy program.
(n.b. You may need to adjust the brightness of your computer screen to see this animation properly.)

The perspective is that of a person standing in the middle of the henge and turning clockwise. As anyone who has ever used astral charts will know, any particular view of the sky will occur at different times of the day depending upon the time of year. For the purpose of this animation, I chose 11pm on a day in March.

It would certainly have been an interesting phenomenon to witness, but I personally do not think that the symbolism of circles and rings in ancient cultures can be postively attributed to it. There are many other possibilities, and we can never know what the builders' intentions really were.

Partial eclipse

Finally, this is what I was doing so far south from my usual haunt - this photo from Brixham Marina, Devon, really seems to capture the surreal spookiness of Britain's overcast total eclipse.
The photo was taken with Kodak Royal Gold ISO 200 film, a 70mm telephoto lens at f8 and 1/1000s. Filters used were a daylight UV and crossed linear polarisers giving the blue tint. The picture borders have been cropped slightly, but it is not retouched.

Please feel free to use it as your own personal Windows wallpaper, but ask if you want to publish it!

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