Naquada

Following our last few days of myths, legends and all things weird, we blew out a day in London in favour of heading down to Avebury in Wiltshire. The stone circle and henge that surrounds the village of Avebury, is only one in a series of monuments concentrated in this small area. The site is a remnant of a ritual Neolithic landscape, which still survives although it’s degraded with time and the onslaught of various visitors over the last few centuries.

The stones that remain now are only a small proportion of what must have been an awe-inspiring place when it was in use over 4000 years ago. Avebury’s stone circle is thought to date from around 2600BC. The earliest focus of ritual activity in the area was at nearby Windmill Hill around 3700BC, at this time the first stages of West Kennet Long Barrow, a burial tomb a few miles away were also started.

Another IBM’er and my internal mentor lives within the village, and I’ve always liked Avebury more than somewhere like Stonehenge, There isn’t much folklore or legend associated with the stone circle itself, the legends relate more to individual stones and other features in the landscape.

The Devils Chair is one of the most massive stones within the structure, it sits where the West Kennet avenue joins the circle. So named because of the natural seat formation in the stone, young women used to sit here on May Day Eve and make wishes. A large stone known as the Diamond Stone, situated near the Northwest entrance, is said to cross over to the other side of the road when the clock strikes midnight. Which is quite a feat given the stone weighs around forty tonnes.

If we’re talking about odd things. there have been strange sightings around the stones. Small figures have been seen moving within the stones in the moonlight, and a woman called Edith Olivier heard music and saw lights amongst the stones whilst driving through the village at night.

We went to the henge shop, and bizarrely that book that stood out on the shelf at Glastonbury, fell off to the side on a bookshelf as I walked past.. I put it back upright and left the shop!!

I took some more photos of the stones, but it started to turn bitterly cold, so we had lunch at the Red Lion (also reputed to be haunted) and headed out to Silbury Hill.

Silbury Hill is the largest man made mound in Europe, an imposing sight standing 130 feet high (about 40 meters), the base of the mound covers over 5 acres and the flattened top is around 100 feet across. The hill itself has been to about 2500 BC. Although why it was built is still not clear. Legend says that it was the burial place of King Sil (or Zil), buried under the mound sitting on his horse, but in all the excavations on the hill, none have ever found any trace of a burial.

other legends state that The Devil was making his way to Marlborough with a huge shovel full of earth he intended to dump on the town. On his way he met a cobbler carrying a load of old shoes he was taking to repair. “Old cobbler, is it far to the town of Marlborough?”, asked the Devil. The cobbler had his wits about when he recognised “Old Nick” and replied, “It is a long way indeed, for I have worn out all of these shoes trying to walk there!”. Upon hearing this the Devil decided to give up and dropped his shovel full of earth by the road-side forming a huge mound. In this way the old cobbler saved the town of Marlborough thanks to his quick wits.

The hill’s suffered considerable damage over the years, most notably at the end of May, 2000 when heavy rain caused part of an old shaft to collapse. The shaft is about 100 feet deep and was dug in the 18th Century in an attempt to discover whether the mound contained a burial. Public access to the site is now restricted, although there are only security guards in the tourist season.. but you should respect the site and not climb it!!

I wanted to also go up to West Kennet Long Barrow as well. West Kennet Long Barrow is one of the many prehistoric monuments in and around Avebury. It’s one of the most impressive and well-preserved burial chambers in Britain, as well as being one of the most visited. The mound itself, of which the burial chamber is only a small part, stretches for 100 metres in an East – West orientation. The chamber, which extends 10 metres into the mound, consists of five seperate chambers, two on either side of a narrow passage, which then opens up into a further chamber at the far end. The tomb is thought to have been constructed around 3500BC, and was in use for a thousand years, until 2200BC, when the tomb was sealed with chalk rubble, and the gigantic sarcen boulders that now guard the entrance. When the tomb was excavated between 1859 and 1956 it was revealed that almost 50 people of varying ages were buried within the tomb.

Legend says that the mound is traditionally visited by a white spectral figure accompanied by a white red-eared hound at sunrise on Midsummer’s day. The strange atmosphere of the darkened chamber, and its associations in folklore and legend has led to it being used by modern day pagans and occultists. Unfortunately for the site, you’ll see a lot of occult symbols and markings on the tomb, placed there by modern day visitors.

The tomb is said to be haunted, and a high dynamic range photo that I took looking into the tomb does appear to be quite weird..

Tonight is another Spice Curry Evening.. that should warm us up…

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