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the recent history
of Silbury Hill has been rather worrying. In 2000, the collapse of the 1776
excavation shaft (due to heavy rainfall)
produced a substantial hole in the top
of the earthwork. The one positive aspect of this disaster was that it enabled the English Heritage Society
to undertake a seismic survey of the mound to probe the extent of the
damage caused by the collapse. Fortunately, the ensuing repair work led to
further archaeological investigations
of the earthwork, which revealed the
possible spiral staircase mentioned
previously, and the first secure radiocarbon date from the site. Since this
collapse, in order to preserve the longterm stability of the site, the Silbury
mound has been off limits to the public. But despite the signs prohibiting
the act, people continue to attempt
to break in to the site and climb to
the top. The worst offenders so far
have been the Dutch couple Janet
Ossebaard and Bert Janssen, professional crop circle enthusiasts and alien
hunters. Suspecting Silbury was some
kind of ancient power plant, the
couple, along with another crop circle
hunter, tunnelled under the temporary roof installed by English Heritage
and abseiled into the shaft, damaging
the mound in the process. There is
even a commercially available video of
the couple's investigation inside
Silbury, which shows "the descent into
the hole, the spontaneous burning of a
cell phone display, the appearance of
beautiful colored balls of light, and the
discovery of secret chambers inside
Silbury Hill." The couple later
receieved a £5,000 fine for their act of
vandalization and trespassing.

    In November 2005, new plans to
stabilize Silbury Hill were revealed by
English Heritage. Their strategy
    includes the infilling with chalk of
various shafts and cavities caused by
the often clumsily performed investigations of the site in the 18th and 19th
centuries. Over the coming years,
English Heritage will also investigate
the erosion on the monument resulting from the thousands of years of enthusiastic visitors climbing on the
mound. Unfortunately, while there
remains no supervised access to the
site, there will always be people willing to ignore the warning signs and
attempt a climb to the summit. Hopefully English Heritage will take this
into consideration when they implement their new strategy. All this brings
us no closer to finding an explanation
and a meaning behind the construction
of Silbury Hill. Most importantly, the
great earthwork needs to be considered in the context of the sacred area
of Neolithic monuments in which it
lies. The meaning of the mound may
be inextricably linked with the surrounding landscape, and the other
neighboring monuments, such as the
West Kennet Long Barrow (a rectangular earthen burial mound) and the
Avebury Henge and stone alignments.
The whole Avebury area functioned as
a monumental religious center for generations, and perhaps the method of
preserving the memory of ancestors in
a preliterate society was to give it
material form. Silbury Hill is perhaps
one such surviving memory of our
remote ancestors.

     

Troy: The Myth of I,he Lost City
    Photograph by Adam Carr. (GNU Free Documentation License).
    Walls of the excavated city of Troy.
    The legendary city of Troy, scene
of the 10-year-long Trojan War, is inextricably linked with some of the
most prominent characters in Greek
myth. From the goddesses Hera,
Athena, and Aphrodite (and the
matchless beauty of Helen) to the action heroes Achilles, Paris, and
Odysseus. Most people are familiar
with the story of the fall of Troy. But
is there any truth to the tale of this
mighty conflict caused by the love of
Paris for Helen, which only ended
when the Greeks introduced the
Trojan Horse? Did the war really take
place? Was there a city called Troy?
    The myth of Troy begins with the
marriage celebration of King Peleus,
one of the Argonauts who accompanied
Jason on his quest for