Eternal Idol

A little while ago, Jonathan Jones wrote a superb piece in the Guardian, bemoaning the abysmal state that Stonehenge is in and he concluded by saying “it’s the very people whose job it is to describe the unique nature of Stonehenge who make it sound as if it’s nothing more exciting than all the earthworks they dig up in bogs with a couple of wooden posts stuck in the peat. Stonehenge has been talked down by the experts. And now the philistines have an excuse to treat it as if it was nothing special.”

In this article in the Guardian, Mike Pitts responded, so you can read what he has to say, consider it and come to your own conclusions. In refuting Jonathan Jones’ accusation, he writes “Jones suggests Stonehenge’s uniqueness “has been talked down by the experts”. To the contrary: new research has deepened our understanding and should increase our wonder. Many of us had been desperately trying to get out the message that Stonehenge was special, that extraordinary measures had to be taken to save it.”

Now, I don’t doubt for a moment that Mike Pitts is as fascinated by Stonehenge as anyone else alive. He’s also written what I consider to be a superb book, Hengeworld, in which he enthuses about Stonehenge at great length, while his admiration for the builders and for the monument itself is absolutely beyond question. However, when he writes that “new research has deepened our understanding and should increase our wonder”, I’m not entirely sure what he means by this.

I’ll return to Stonehenge soon enough, but it strikes me that you could apply precisely the same reasoning to Silbury Hill. After all, a full-scale archaeological excavation’s been taking place there for almost a year now, even though I was under the distinct impression that it was supposed to be a conservation project because a hole had appeared at the top of the hill as far back as 2000. Quite what archaeologists were doing there when the primary purpose was for engineers to repair the hill, I don’t know, but anyway, they’ve been and gone, so by rights, we should have a great deal of new research to “deepen our understanding and increase our wonder”. When this research and cause for wonderment is going to see the light of day in a form that non-archaeologists can read, understand and appreciate, I really don’t know, but the moment I hear, I’ll be sure to post it up here. I wouldn’t hold your breath, though.

In the meantime, we were treated to a documentary that’s been shown repeatedly on BBC4, which shows every appearance of having been made with the co-operation and approval of English Heritage and their archaeologists. It was first broadcast a few months ago, but it was so utterly abysmal that I couldn’t be bothered to mention its existence, even though I think it’s fairly clear that Silbury Hill fascinates me almost as much as Stonehenge does. In fact, the programme was so excruciatingly bad that I’m at a loss as to where to begin, but insulting the intelligence is as good a place as any.

We were treated to the usual stuff about revised dates and Bronze Age metalworkers being like magicians, while there was some confusion as to whether it was all built in one go or in separate stages. When Professor Mike Parker-Pearson came out with the one shining gem in the whole programme, observing that while Silbury was being built, the nearby West Kennet Long Barrow was being filled in, whoever was responsible quickly cut away from the one original, informed and insightful observation in the whole sorry spectacle.

The main conclusion of this documentary seemed to be that Silbury Hill had been built to give the people of the time something to do, and the enchantingly beautiful female presenter signed off to camera with a sultry smile and with what I hope to God were the scripted words “With every bucketful of earth, our ancestors re-affirmed their link with the land and with each other” or some such banal nonsense. To describe Silbury Hill in these terms is to make it marginally less interesting than the sandcastles my children make on the beach, because while it’s certainly something that keeps them occupied, they invest the whole effort with an extra very special ingredient, so that a pile of sand becomes a citadel with a moat, containing all manner of armies, magicians and so forth.

Silbury Hill is Britain’s only official pyramid, as Mike Pitts points out on page 191 of Hengeworld, but you’d hardly know it from the underwhelming archaeological pronouncements. When I posted up an entry in November saying that Pete Glastonbury and myself had been inside this structure, I was amazed to receive emails from otherwise very well-informed people the world over expressing disbelief that Britain had a pyramid. The excavation/conservation project that’s been taking place should by rights have been on a par with the search for Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1923, but aside from the aforementioned documentary and a lamentable Newsnight piece a few months ago, there’s been precious little to fire the imagination.

Actually, the whole thing was even worse than that, so it’s certainly worth examining properly, because after I’d watched the documentary, I found it hard to believe that this was a programme about the same structure I’d visited back in November.

To recap, this was a BBC production made with the full blessing and co-operation of English Heritage and their archaeologists, while it was presented by Neil Oliver and Mary-Ann Ochota and commissioned by BBC specialist factual commissioner Martin Davidson. A promising start, but there was an increasing emphasis on exterior shots of Silbury and much speculation about what Bronze Age peoples in general got up to as far as metalworking and the like was concerned. It was a general discussion of the nature of the times rather than a specific examination of the monument itself.

I can’t reproduce it here, but English Heritage long ago produced a first class document on the hill containing graphics and plans of the hill’s features, including its apparent nine sides and spines, as well as computer imagery of the vast moat and cisterns at the base of the hill. It also contains some fascinating text dealing with Flinders Petrie’s excavation there in the early 1920s, at the same time that Carter discovered the tomb of Tutanhkamun, as well as perfectly legitimate comparisons with the Egyptian pyramids and other ziggurats. Why wasn’t any of this mentioned? Why was there little if any mention of the vast Roman settlement at its base? Why was Mike Parker-Pearson’s observation about the simultaneous filling-in of West Kennet not explored further?

Even more baffling is the lack of mention of what the hill’s been found to contain. As I’ve said, the programme left us with the comforting thought that Silbury had been built just to give the locals something to occupy their time and energies and I understand that this astonishing theory is still being sold as the official line. Did Silbury not contain anything else of interest? Did not the first “proper” excavation there in forty years yield anything else of interest to the archaeologists who spent so long minutely examining the confines? Apparently not, unless at some future point, some mislaid notes are going to come to light, whose contents will change the whole picture dramatically.

All this is very strange indeed and I’m at a complete loss as to how to explain it. The programme contained no discussion of the possibility of an asymmetric burial within Silbury Hill, even though this notion was put forward in 1959 and it receives a mention in the aforementioned official English Heritage study. I’ve got a few minutes of clear footage of an off-centre structure on my own Silbury film and it can be seen at the far end of the east lateral tunnel, staring everyone in the face, but this intriguing feature was only mentioned in passing on the official film.

Why? It looked to me like a mini version of Silbury 1 and there were postholes nearby, but they weren’t discussed either. Why not? If the original builders were just idly passing the time by piling up earth in a big mound, then they clearly went to some trouble to build another smaller mound nearby for some reason, while they also went to some trouble to dig at least one big posthole that I’m guessing once held a big post. Why did they do that? And why wasn’t it worth looking into?

It’s admittedly a guess, but if the original builders constructed a mini Silbury 1 off centre along with a few large postholes, then there’s at least a chance that they did the same thing elsewhere, possibly in a circle around Silbury 1. Well, you can look at the photos for yourselves and make up your own minds about it, but this doesn’t look to me like the result of people just scratching around for something to do, nor does it suggest to me that they kept building the mound without interruption until it reached its present size. If that were the case, then why build smaller mounds around it and why were there large postholes there as well? And why wasn’t any of this explored in the documentary? Did Neil Oliver and company not see these features? Did they not think they were worthy of comment?

Then there’s the bank and ditch, which you can just about make out from the graphics on the English Heritage site. At one point, these structures were roughly equal in size to those at nearby Avebury, which is an astonishing thought, but again, there was no mention of this and no graphic reconstruction. Of course, there were other things of great interest inside Silbury, as well as two phenomena; a smell like spicey soup, which we couldn’t capture on film, and a cold spot, which we could. Forgetting these last two for now, let’s look at the bare minimum of what we know for certain of Silbury Hill:

There was a mound in the centre, which had at least one smaller mound positioned nearby and this in its turn had sizeable postholes near it. Purely as an informed guess, the original mound was surrounded by these smaller ones, but the one smaller mound at least suggests the possibility of an off-centre burial in a mound that looks like the biggest barrow on Earth and which is reputed to contain a King Zil. At the same time this was being built, nearby West Kennet Long Barrow was also being filled in.

At some point, this whole thing was surrounded by a ditch and a bank on a par with nearby Avebury, while it may have been a causewayed enclosure of sorts, judging by the chalk spurs to the south. It was also surrounded by a vast moat with a cistern, then the builders went on to construct what’s probably the largest prehistoric earthen mound in the world on top of the whole thing. They also just so happened to build it like a pyramid or a ziggurat at roughly the same time that these exotic structures were being built elsewhere and for some reason, the site appears to be pretty much devoid of finds.

Some time later, the Romans came along and built a settlement nearby that was the size of 24 football pitches, while all this effort had been expended on the building of Silbury Hill for no purpose other than to “reaffirm links with the land and with each other”. It simply defies credulity that this documentary was the level best that everyone involved could manage. Without the supernaturally-keen powers of insight and acumen that a Degree in Archaeology or Media Studies would have automatically bestowed upon me, it’s admittedly very difficult and frustrating trying to make sense of these lofty matters, so I just have to stumble along in the dark as best I can.

So, I’m assuming that even if the original builders of Silbury were hell-bent on “reaffirming their links with the land and with each other” by monotonously piling up a huge mound of chalk, at least some of them were sidetracked somewhere along the line, and for a considerable period of time, by building other complex structures such as the satellite mound. And the postholes and whatever they held. And possibly others around Silbury 1. Oh, and the Avebury-sized ditch and banks, then for some reason, this splendid array that had taken so much time and trouble to put into place was gradually buried beneath a highly sophisticated pyramid that’s also the biggest of its kind, at the same time that the nearby West Kennet Long Barrow was being filled in layer by layer. But none of this was looked into.

I’m also assuming that English Heritage, after all their hard work, were eagerly looking forward to seeing Silbury Hill and the work of their archaeologists done full and glowing justice in what was, after all, a specialist factual commission by the BBC. I don’t remember hearing any howls of outrage about misrepresentation when this programme was broadcast - not on BBC1 or even BBC2, but on BBC4 - so unless everyone concerned has somehow made a sterling job of concealing their bitter disappointment, I can only assume that everyone concerned was perfectly happy with and indeed proud of this shameless, inane, uninspired and misleading dross.

Cock-up? I’ve seen some in my time, especially in the world of archaeology, but it’s simply beyond the ability of humans to “forget” to explore everything I’ve mentioned above.

Conspiracy? To what possible end? The official line, after all these months of expert analysis and consideration, is already that Silbury was built for simply for the sake of it, so a lot of people are going to look at best pretty stupid if they suddenly “miraculously discover” some big postholes, minor off-centre mounds, huge banks and ditches, some teeth and a few other bits like a nine-sided ziggurat structure, a moat, a curving path, perhaps and a shedload of sarsen stones from the top of the hill that somehow got overlooked when the original documentary was being made. In this edition of Current Archaeology, they spell out that “Pits, stakeholes, and even a small satellite mound have also been recorded within Silbury 1… the 2007 Silbury Hill Conservation Project has quite literally recorded every single inch of the tunnels, and a fascinating “virtual reality” reconstruction as well as extremely detailed 3D sections have been created using photogrammetry.”

Which brings us to the most depressing possibility of all, which is that no one could really be bothered with informing the public to the fullest possible extent of the people concerned, so a Wonder of the World will be quietly forgotten and we’ll all be the poorer for it, including the reputations of the truly astonishing people who labored to put this thing together four and a half thousand years ago. Or to put it another way “it’s the very people whose job it is to describe the unique nature of Silbury Hill who make it sound as if it’s nothing more exciting than all the earthworks they dig up in bogs with a couple of wooden posts stuck in the peat. Silbury Hill has been talked down by the experts.”

Not only that, but by another truly astonishing coincidence, the most recent excavation at Stonehenge took place in a blaze of worldwide publicity just as the work at Silbury Hill is quietly coming to an end. I’ll be fascinated to see what dating evidence this most recent Stonehenge excavation has brought to light, but it can hardly be more amazing than the fact that the excavation itself just so happened to be scheduled for when it was i.e. at the Eclipse of Silbury, according to the Price/Glastonbury Almanac.

And what about Thornborough Henges? It’s a little-known location, but it’s one that’s been described by a senior English Heritage official as the most important archaeological site between Stonehenge and the Orkneys. A fervent band of enthusiasts have been campaigning to save this precious remnant of our past from the depradations of the developers; their sites announce to the four winds, to anyone who’ll listen, that a truly amazing prehistoric landscape is under threat of being lost forever. You can see the results of their efforts at Timewatch and Friends of Thornborough, but again, when we examine the official archaeological diary, you’d be forgiven for thinking that there was nothing more exciting there than a few molehills, judging by the tone.

And so to Stonehenge - let’s start at the top end of scale. Every year, the Stonehenge Riverside Project carries out excavations in the area and as far as I’m concerned, these are a model for how such things should be conducted. The public are allowed to watch the excavations as they’re taking place, they’re allowed to take photographs and they can ask any questions they like of the archaeologists, even while digging’s in progress. There are facilities nearby at Stonehenge itself and Amesbury, while there’s also a visitors’ hut and just about everything else you could reasonably think of, including open days, flint-knapping, archery contests and so forth for children, all of which is in stark contrast to the clandestine and elitist goings on behind firmly closed doors at Silbury Hill. The Salisbury Journal enthusiastically supports and regularly gives good coverage to the Stonehenge event and there’s also a detailed website that anyone can inspect, so it’s impossible to see how it could possibly be better.

Furthermore, I have it on exceedingly good authority that on June 1st, the National Geographic Channel is broadcasting a two hour long drama documentary about Stonehenge, based on the findings of the Stonehenge Riverside Project, with Donald Sutherland doing the voice-over. The programme contains a few minor inaccuracies, as well as no mention of the bluestones, but otherwise, it’s extremely heartening to hear of such an ambitious and lengthy production. For those who weren’t able to make it there while the excavations were taking place, you’ll be able to see it unfolding for yourselves from the comfort of your sitting rooms and all being well, there’ll be more excavations this coming season where the public are welcome.

To give full credit where it’s due, there are also some excellent books written by Aubrey Burl, Mike Pitts, Christopher Chippindale, Professor John North, Timothy Darvill and Julian Richards, to name the ones that most readily spring to mind. All these books, in their different ways, try to make the ruins accessible and all of them speak in tones of clear admiration for the monument and for the builders. Every now and again, there’s a documentary on Stonehenge and even if we don’t learn anything really new, there’s no doubting the desire to exalt the monument, even if this desire is often couched in the traditionally cautious and often dreary archaeological terminology of monumentality in the late Neolithic, etc.

However, I think Jonathan Jones is absolutely correct when he writes that “Stonehenge is a miracle, a mystery, like the ancient world sites that are its peers: the pyramids of Egypt and Mexico.” He then writes something else that’s well worth examining in depth - “official archaeology only tells us what we shouldn’t think: we must not believe that this is about astronomy, or druids, or mathematics, let alone - as Oxbridge scholars argued in the 1950s - that the dagger carving on stone 53 betrays a link with the ancient Aegean world.”

When I read “We must not believe that this is about astronomy…” it instantly conjures up a vivid image of some ancient astronomer-priest, one of a long line who’d kept patient watch inside recently-completed monument, suddenly hitching up his skirts and legging it wild-eyed across the downs to see whoever’d built Stonehenge, yelling something like “Bloody Hell! You’ll never believe it! You know that big pile of stones you dumped back there on some random site as a ritual meeting place? Well, if you look closely, it lines up perfectly with Midsummer Sunrise, Midsummer Sunset, the northernmost moonrise appears over the Heelstone…” etc, etc. Professor Gerald Hawkins wrote about precisely this as far back as the 1960s, only to be ridiculed by archaeologists and for his findings to be lost then miraculously “rediscovered” by certain insightful others in recent years.

Of course, the public are fascinated by this idea of ancient star-gazers (listen for yourself!) and it’s difficult to think of a more evocative subject in connection with Stonehenge. It was certainly interesting enough for the Vice Director of the Vatican Observatory in Arizona to make an original contribution on this of all sites, but as far as some archaeologists are concerned, the stars above Stonehenge, like the Nine Billion Names of God, are going out one by one; a bleak prospect if ever I saw one, especially when Professor John North wrote a huge book on the subject and concluded with the words “the evidence is overwhelming that early religion was intimately bound up with the stars, Sun, Moon, and the heavens in general” adding “the astronomer might in the end prove to be right.”

And the Druids? Well, they put in a surprise appearance a little while back, so they’re not completely off-limits, but I know of at least one professor in the north who’s threatened to mark down his students’ exam papers if they so much as mention Druids in the same essay as Stonehenge; his precise words were “I’ll take marks off for crediting this New Age nonsense”. However, Aubrey Burl and John Michell, to name two well-known authors, have given a lot of thought to the lineage of the Druids and I’ve looked into this matter as best I can elsewhere on these pages. Despite the supposed fact that they’re done and dusted as far as research is concerned, there’s the inescapable Druid “bridge” in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s account, which I went into in the last post. I’ve also found that Pomponius Mela’s use of the word ’specus’ when describing Druid meeting places would certainly apply to the swallets on the Mendips, so I don’t doubt that there’s a lot more to be discovered as far as their link with Stonehenge is concerned. Mike Pitts himself entertains the possibility on page 313 of Hengeworld, but otherwise, Jonathan Jones is right again - we must not believe that this was about Druids.

And what about a link with the Aegean world, as suggested by the dagger carving on stone 53? As far back as 2002, when the Amesbury Archer or King of Stonehenge was discovered in Boscombe, I noticed some intriguing possibilities which I looked into, wrote up and published on a previous incarnation of this site. The “Archer” came from continental Europe, he was one of the very earliest metal-workers, his wealth alone made him a ‘man of repute’ and he was notably lame, as demonstrated by the injury to his left leg. Hephaestos, the Greek version of Vulcan, was the blacksmith of the gods and therefore the earliest known metalworker, while he was notably lame and was thereby known as “The Famed Lame One”. I consulted some Homeric experts, who very kindly supplied all the relevant references from Homer, and I discovered that Hephaestos was also known as an ‘anax’ or king to the ancients, while there are still other similarities that I’ll go into another time.

Two “Famed Lame Ones?” Both kings, both early metalworkers, both men of repute, both lame? One from Stonehenge, the other from ancient Greece? There’s a great deal more where this came from, while I’m as sure as I can be that there’s another more detailed written account of Stonehenge from antiquity in addition to the one provided by Pytheas of Massilia in 350 BC. However, ancient Greece simply isn’t on the radar as far as the archaeologists are concerned, so it’s hardly worth writing about it when so few people are even aware that there might be some Aegean connection with Stonehenge.

Jonathan Jones blames “official archaeology” for the shortcomings in promoting Stonehenge, so let’s look at what this means. In one sense, it’s the mindset that threatens to mark down students for mentioning Druids in connection with Stonehenge, but it has many other unpleasant manifestations. I know for a fact that a good number of senior, experienced archaeologists have some extremely interesting and thought-provoking things to say about Stonehenge, but they won’t do so because of the ongoing trend for others in their profession to relentlessly and wilfully misinterpret what they write. This might not seem like such a big deal, but when some people are less interested in examining the message and more interested in shrieking with glee when they’ve spotted some minute error in a presentation, then it encourages others who are equally feeble-minded to immediately join in what is quite simply bullying and the suppression of thought. As such, it’s hardly any surprise that so few original ideas on Stonehenge are put forward by “official archaeology or archaeologists” because it’s simply more trouble than it’s worth and the end result is that we and the monument are all the poorer.

For my part, I long ago took Colonel Kurtz’s advice and I split from the whole programme; as such, I tend not to lose a great deal of sleep over the shrill exclamations of outrage that occasionally come my way from the exciting new generation of desk-bound archaeologists and my other detractors in high places.

My sole interests lie in trying to unravel the past and in trying to do full justice to the astonishing achievements of our ancestors. Here at Eternal Idol, we have more original material in the form of text, film, photos and “information” than we can put out, on account of time and resources, but we’re doing our best and we’ll continue to do so. At the same time, I’m extremely grateful to all of you who send in comments, because if they’re written in praise of this site, then it’s very gratifying to read, naturally. If anyone feels they can add to the sum total of Mankind’s knowledge about Stonehenge and Silbury Hill, then you’re more than welcome to write in, even if it’s just with an opinion, because that way, the rest of us get to think. I’ve had some comments pointing out mistakes, for example from Dr Rob Ixar concerning the bluestone, so I’m just as pleased with these because no one wants to persist with a delusion.

Eternal Idol won’t be a place where Stonehenge or Silbury Hill are talked down, that’s for sure.

To be continued, sadly.

Words by Dennis Price. Photographs copyright Pete Glastonbury 2008.

Categories: Archaeological discoveries 2007, Archaeological discoveries 2008, Silbury Hill, Stonehenge, The Druids
5 Comments »

There are a great many intriguing aspects to this most recent excavation at Stonehenge, so I intend to cover them all as time allows. For now, it’s worth looking in detail at what seems to be the main thrust of Prof Wainwright and Darvill’s argument, that Stonehenge was some kind of prehistoric healing shrine and that it functioned as such on account of the bluestones from Wales, which once surrounded healing springs in the Preseli Mountains. On a number of occasions, these two men refer to Geoffrey of Monmouth and to the folklore about healing stones; as I don’t believe anyone’s ever looked into this subject thoroughly, this is as good an opportunity as any to do so.

Show me more… »

Categories: Archaeological discoveries 2008, Bluestone, Stonehenge, Stonehenge Sentinel, The Druids
13 Comments »

I’ve been in a fairly unpleasant limbo for a few weeks, unfortunately, so the first thing I did when I managed to haul myself back into the 21st century was to look through the BBC site for the videos dealing with the most recent Stonehenge dig. To my absolute amazement, the first thing I saw was a face looming out over the drummer’s right shoulder, something you can see in its entirety on this link. I didn’t sit down to scour the video for anomalous faces, but there was no missing it and furthermore, on some frames, the face seems to me to overlap the drummer’s garments.

Show me more… »

Categories: Archaeological discoveries 2008, Stonehenge
10 Comments »

Dennis is currently unable to update the blog but of course there is lots going on presently with Stonehenge and people continue to visit this site to see if Dennis will add commentary… I like many of our readers am looking forward to hearing from Dennis on his insights and opinions that the recent digging at Stonehenge will quite literally turn up! We received a feedback post to one of our stories from a Yvette Hakim who works with the Smithsonian Channel, partnering with the BBC and helping with their online coverage of the first dig at Stonehenge in 50 years. I am grateful for her thoughtful posting to us and she has supplied some interesting links that you can use to keep in touch with what’s happening…

They have a landing page here with daily video updates and discoveries and even more timely info:

http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/site/smithsonian/show_stonehenge.do

Also, the Executive Producer of the Channel, David Royle, is live blogging from Stonehenge with video feeds for the next few days.

http://community.smithsonianchannelcommunity.com/droyle

There will definitely be more than archaeologists making new discoveries that we’ll hear about on David’s blog. I hope you take a look and enjoy the new videos!

Thank you Yvette.

For the UK viewers who have not already found it… here is the link to the BBC Timewatch program on the same Stonehenge dig.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/stonehenge/

- Posted by the EternalIdol Site Admin.

Categories: Archaeological discoveries 2008, Stonehenge
9 Comments »

I was working in the Communications Department at Wessex Archaeology at the time that the Amesbury Archer was discovered, and when it was learned that this man had originated from as far south as the Alps in 2,300 BC, a number of film crews from Germany travelled to Wessex to see the discovery for themselves.

A week or so ago, I was contacted by Dr Angelika Franz, a very pleasant and intelligent lady who asked me a great many questions about my piece on the Stonehenge Sentinel. I was happy to help her out to the best of my ability and there’s now a feature about this in Spiegel Online, which includes a photograph of the Sentinel’s remains shortly after they were uncovered in the ditch surrounding the monument in 1978.

Stonehenge receives something in the region of one million visitors every year from all over the world, but if Dr Franz’s online feature introduces just one extra person to the most amazing prehistoric monument on Earth and gets them to take an interest in the place, then I’ll be very pleased, as the monument needs all the help it can get.

Categories: Stonehenge, Stonehenge Sentinel
No Comments »

Fifteen hundred years or so down the line, another great Arthur from the West Country has gone to join the ancestors among the stars. If any human being ever possessed an imagination and insight to match that of the creator of Stonehenge, then it was Sir Arthur C. Clarke, whose uplifting visions of the future of humanity never failed to inspire.

Categories: Uncategorized
2 Comments »

The Welsh built Stonehenge and now they’ve won the Grand Slam again - oh joy!

Categories: Uncategorized
2 Comments »

Last week, Jonathan Jones wrote a feature on Stonehenge “The Final Insult” which contained an admirably clear and damning verdict.

Show me more… »

Categories: Archaeological discoveries 2007
No Comments »

Three newspapers have run stories on the piece I wrote about the Stonehenge Sentinel (below) and the BBC asked to do a radio interview as well. I was almost as pleased by this as I was by Wales winning the Triple Crown earlier today - why? Last week, Jonathan Jones wrote a feature on Stonehenge in the Guardian newspaper entitled “The Final Insult” and it was by far and away one of the best and most insightful pieces I can remember reading.

Show me more… »

Categories: Silbury Hill, Stonehenge
1 Comment »

“And there is also on the island (Hyperborea) both a magnificent sacred precinct of Apollo and a notable temple decorated with many offerings…spherical in shape [and] a city is there which is sacred to this god…and the kings of this city and the supervisors of the sacred precinct are called Boreades, since they are descendants of Boreas…”

Show me more… »

Categories: Pytheas of Massilia, Stonehenge, Stonehenge Sentinel
14 Comments »