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| Screen grab of this blogger's article on the Ancient-Origins website, published April 7, 2016 |
Title: Was Neolithic Silbury Hill Designed as a Welcoming Home for Omnivorous, Upwardly-Mobile Earthworms?
Google has been quick to pick up my solution to the Silbury enigma: here's what one currently sees when entering (silbury hill) into the search engine.
More will follow here in a few days time, after I've had an opportiunity to deal with any comments that may appear on the ancient-origins site (though none as yet!).
The basic idea: Silbury Hill was designed as a community necropolis with multiple interments of one or more vital organs of the recently deceased (heart especially), together with soil from the deceased's locality, with intentional inclusion of EARTHWORMS. Composting action served to biodegrade the soft tissue, freeing the soul from mortal remains. Discussion of the fate of the skeleton, disposed of elsewhere, i.e. not within the hill, will be deferred for now.
Here again is a link to the article:
Here's the URL in full:
http://www.ancient-origins.net/opinion-editorials/was-neolithic-silbury-hill-designed-welcoming-home-omnivorous-upwardly-mobile-020800
Today's task (Sunday 10 April) will be to update my Silbury Hill/Stonehenge site that blossomed briefly in the spring of 2012 - yes 4 years ago no less! It was a brief diversion from this blogger's long-running interest/research programme to do with the Turin Shroud.
(Yes, I think I know how it was done by one very determined, very focused medieval entrepreneur).
Here's how the Home page of that Silbury site of mine looks right now, showing the last of 4 postings on 8th April 2012:
New topics to be addressed over there? We, there will be some ideas/explanation for the mysterious sarsen stones (portable variety) that stud the interior of Silbury Hill, which have been likened to "raisins in a cake", not ignoring the presence of animal bones (ox ribs) next to one such stone. Yes, their presence, and orientation (concave side down) fits beautifully with my theory that Silbury Hill evolved incrementally as a communal necropolis for interring human remains! The site will also be the logical place to recount details of my recent visit with wife to Silbury Hill, West Kennet Long Barrow and Avebury stone circle, but also Silbury Hill's smaller little-known sister a few miles east in the grounds of Marlborough College.
(Fortunately my wife and I arrived at the gate out of term time, and were allowed in where I was able to take pictures, and have since learned that Dr.Jim Leary of the University of Reading's Archaeology Dept., co-author with David Field of the excellent book on Silbury Hill, did some recent test borings into the so-called Marlborough Mound, confirming it be of Neolithic-era origin, not just a country squire's self-indulgent garden feature as some had imagined).
Late addition (April 12, 2016): see the latest posting on my re-activated Silbury/Stonehenge site, the first since 2012, but still "preaching the same message" re the utilitarian role that the proto-Silbury Hill appears to have played on the chalk uplands of Neolithic Wiltshire.:
Link:
Here's a follow-up to the above posting, on the same site, posted earlier today (April 12): it addresses the question of why Silbury Hill is studded with rounded sarsen stones (local silicified sandstone), scores of them, "like raisins in a cake" to quote the words of the distinguished archaeologist Richard Atkinson who oversaw the 1968 "dig", if tunnelling can be so described.
Link:
More will follow here in a few days time, after I've had an opportiunity to deal with any comments that may appear on the ancient-origins site (though none as yet!).
The basic idea: Silbury Hill was designed as a community necropolis with multiple interments of one or more vital organs of the recently deceased (heart especially), together with soil from the deceased's locality, with intentional inclusion of EARTHWORMS. Composting action served to biodegrade the soft tissue, freeing the soul from mortal remains. Discussion of the fate of the skeleton, disposed of elsewhere, i.e. not within the hill, will be deferred for now.
Here again is a link to the article:
Here's the URL in full:
http://www.ancient-origins.net/opinion-editorials/was-neolithic-silbury-hill-designed-welcoming-home-omnivorous-upwardly-mobile-020800
Today's task (Sunday 10 April) will be to update my Silbury Hill/Stonehenge site that blossomed briefly in the spring of 2012 - yes 4 years ago no less! It was a brief diversion from this blogger's long-running interest/research programme to do with the Turin Shroud.
 |
| Home page: this blogger's specialist Shroud of Turin site, 10th April 2016, with its posting summarising the proposed "flour-imprinting" model. |
(Yes, I think I know how it was done by one very determined, very focused medieval entrepreneur).
Here's how the Home page of that Silbury site of mine looks right now, showing the last of 4 postings on 8th April 2012:
 |
| Shortly to be reactivated - this blogger's long-neglected specialist Neolithic Wiltshire site (Stonehenge AND Silbury Hill). |
New topics to be addressed over there? We, there will be some ideas/explanation for the mysterious sarsen stones (portable variety) that stud the interior of Silbury Hill, which have been likened to "raisins in a cake", not ignoring the presence of animal bones (ox ribs) next to one such stone. Yes, their presence, and orientation (concave side down) fits beautifully with my theory that Silbury Hill evolved incrementally as a communal necropolis for interring human remains! The site will also be the logical place to recount details of my recent visit with wife to Silbury Hill, West Kennet Long Barrow and Avebury stone circle, but also Silbury Hill's smaller little-known sister a few miles east in the grounds of Marlborough College.
 |
| Marlborough Mound (this blogger's own photograph taken 22nd March 2016) |
(Fortunately my wife and I arrived at the gate out of term time, and were allowed in where I was able to take pictures, and have since learned that Dr.Jim Leary of the University of Reading's Archaeology Dept., co-author with David Field of the excellent book on Silbury Hill, did some recent test borings into the so-called Marlborough Mound, confirming it be of Neolithic-era origin, not just a country squire's self-indulgent garden feature as some had imagined).
Late addition (April 12, 2016): see the latest posting on my re-activated Silbury/Stonehenge site, the first since 2012, but still "preaching the same message" re the utilitarian role that the proto-Silbury Hill appears to have played on the chalk uplands of Neolithic Wiltshire.:
Link:
Here's a follow-up to the above posting, on the same site, posted earlier today (April 12): it addresses the question of why Silbury Hill is studded with rounded sarsen stones (local silicified sandstone), scores of them, "like raisins in a cake" to quote the words of the distinguished archaeologist Richard Atkinson who oversaw the 1968 "dig", if tunnelling can be so described.
Link:
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