Silbury Hill- a Mysterious Marvel

In a landscape of pristine verdant stretch of greenery , the 41meter high Silbury Hill- a rare Chalk grassland stands as a lone witness to the mystery of its creation . We were at the tallest prehistoric man- made chalk Mound in Avebury England created for inexplicable reasons 4000 years ago or before ! Strangely, it reminded me of  a green Pyramid and the Indian Shivlingam !

Neolithic Landscape of Silbury  

We were carrying a map that marked various Neolithic – New Stone Age sites and monuments around Silbury Hill that can be visited  and are all a part of the Avebury World Heritage Site. Between the years 2600- 2000 BC new Pottery, new Burial rites and Metal work arrived in Britain which led to concentrated building activity in the Avebury area. The Silbury Hill and the Avebury Stone Circle were created around this time.

Later the Romans constructed a road and a town around the foot of the prehistoric Silbury Hill . Further it is believed that when there was a Viking invasion in this area then the Silbury Hill was used as a defensive Post . 

The Construction of the Silbury Hill 

As we moved closer to the Hill we noticed that there is no access to the hill and nothing to prevent erosion of plants and archaeological remains. No wonder it is a Site of Special Scientific interest for being a rare species rich Chalk Grassland ! To this day the cause for creating the Silbury Hill remains a mystery. It appears as if the Mound was made over centuries when each generation brought chalk and soil to put on the top of the previous layer that grew bigger and bigger ! It has been proven that a pasture existed here before the Mound was created .

We turned towards the engrossing coloured diagrams on a Board closeby that explained the building of the Silbury Hill . The first diagram depicted  people stripping the ground of top soil and stones and creating a small gravel mound with material perhaps  brought from the River Kennet near its base. Next a16 meter diameter ring  filled with dark soil was made .People continued to add soil and turf to the Chalk Mound till it was further enlarged to the height and width of the Silbury –Hill that we see today.

Antiquarians – Archaeologists and Silbury Hill Tunnels

The Silbury Hill has constantly aroused the curiosity of many since ages to ‘uncover the royal burial of exceptional richness- Tomb ’ or it was thought to conceal a Temple  . The Board  imparted additional  information that by the 18^th century at least 3 Tunnels were separately dug to the centre of the Hill by Archaeologists and Antiquarians . 

The first Tunnel was dug in 1776 by Edward Drax that failed to find a Central Burial at the end of the vertical shaft but  discovered fragments of Oak wood that indicated an Oakwood-tree or Totem- Pole for rituals .  Then Reverend Merewether and other members of the  Royal Archaeological Institute had a horizontal Tunnel dug up and yielded the same result as before in 1849.

The last Tunnel was a major exploration sponsored and televised by BBC with ‘full viewership’. It was led by Professor Atkinson between 1968-70 . The Tunnel was described by him as a ‘highly coloured layered cake’ but yielded disappointment too !

The Rationale 

Earlier i had read that the rationale of construction of the Silbury Hill is hazy. According to Folklore it is the resting place of King Sil and he is represented as a lifesize golden statue sitting on a  golden horse. In the year 1663 Antiquarian and writer John Aubrey was on the way to show  the Avebury Stone Circle to King Charles II when they spotted the Silbury Hill and they were told of the local legend. 

Miles of tranquility around the ancient mysterious mound leading to other monuments around it

The other legend narrates that the Devil was going to empty a big sack of earth on the nearby town of Marlborough and he was forced to drop it here by the magic of the Priests !

As per Antiquarian William Stukeley during excavation in 1723 , a skeleton and an ancient bridle had been unearthed from the top of the hill ! Could it be linked to King Sil , I wondered.

Further evidence from Atkinson’s excavations suggested that the construction of the  Silbury hill structure commenced in August which coincided with the ancient Celt Harvesting Festival . The Carbon Dating of vast deposits of plants and insects-remains pointed towards this too. In the New- Stone – Age  agriculture was widespread and at that time a monument  like Silbury Hill was created to be used for this August Harvesting Festival . 

Another explanation for establishing the Silbury Mound is that it might have served as an precise Solar Observatory by means of shadows cast by the Mound itself on the level ground below. I had earlier read that the  Meridian Line from Silbury-Hill runs through Avebury Stone Circles , Avebury Church  that in turn stands on a Ley line to the famous Stonehenge ! Ley lines are mystical alignments of man -made ancient sites or Holy places in a straight line ranging from 1 , 2 to several miles in a landscape.

Keeping in view the many British legends of Dragon slaying centres, Silbury was one of them and the ancient Celtic Druids ascertained this with a Geomancer’s Compass ! 

Michael Dames Theory

Later we spotted unusual sculptures and the 1996  Michael Dames book at a Village shop that illuminated another perspective of the Silbury hill . The author of bestseller ‘Avebury Cycle’ has suggested that the Silbury Hill is a symbolic effigy of ancient Mother Goddess and is related to fertility rituals. Also , the name of the River Kennet that flows near the hill is said to be derived from River Cunnit  taken from the word  Cunt !  

Anon we also saw few sculptures of Silbury  Goddess Avebury at  the Village shop . An outline drawing was attached to one of them that said it to be the Neolithic figure of sitting Goddess with the Silbury Mound as its womb , giving birth to all. This was associated with Michael Dames book. Additionally interesting was the next sculpture  whose caption read that the name of River Kennet is allied with the Indian word- Cunti or Kunda  which means the Yoni of the Goddess that gives birth to all !

Contradictory to this the famous Druid Ross Nichols believes that  the ancient monument of West Kennet Long Barrow symbolizes Mother Goddess and the Silbury Hill on the other side symbolizes the masculinity !!

Author – Seema Anand Chopra at Silbury Hill

Recent Past

We read that finally the Tunnels were backfilled with Chalk and the Hill has been conserved by the English heritage since 2007-8. Visitors are restricted to viewing it from a distance and to safeguard the Chalk hill ,climbing is not permitted .

After a while we drove from the mysterious Silbury Hill,  towards the nearby Avebury Stone circle – to try to unearth the secrets of this Neolithic age  structure , all a part of large prehistoric landscape.