Avebury and Structures Built Around the Same Time as Stonehenge | Early European History And Religion

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AVEBURY

Avebury stones

Avebury (20 miles north of Stonehenge) is a another megalith site that is not as impressive as Stonehenge, but it is older and not roped off. Located among rolling green hills and often compared with Carnac stones in Brittany, it is a deep circular ditch with ring of stones dating to around 2500 B.C. It is the largest of its kind in Europe and draws 350,000 visitors every year.

Of the more than 400 stones that made up the circle 68 remain. The largest one weighs 50 tons and is about the size of a bus buried nose first in the ground. Within the main circle are the remains of two smaller circles and an avenue of stones. The stones were taken from nearby hills. In 1930s, five men using a steel rope, leaves and wooden scaffolding, took five days to raise an eight-ton stone.

The village of Avebury actually encroaches into the ring. The village is there because in the old days when no one cared much about archeology a coach road to Bath passed right through the stone circle

According to UNESCO: “At Avebury, the massive Henge, containing the largest prehistoric stone circle in the world, and Silbury Hill, the largest prehistoric mound in Europe, demonstrate the outstanding engineering skills which were used to create masterpieces of earthen and megalithic architecture. [Source: UNESCO World Heritage sites website =] “Avebury prehistoric stone circle is the largest in the world. The encircling henge consists of a huge bank and ditch 1.3 kilometers in circumference, within which 180 local, unshaped standing stones formed the large outer and two smaller inner circles. Leading from two of its four entrances, the West Kennet and Beckhampton Avenues of parallel standing stones still connect it with other monuments in the landscape. Another outstanding monument, Silbury Hill, is the largest prehistoric mound in Europe. Built around 2400 BC, it stands 39.5 meters high and comprises half a million tonnes of chalk. The purpose of this imposing, skilfully engineered monument remains obscure. =

Avebury’s Inner Circles

A digital rendering of one of the inner Neolithic stone circles at Avebury, based on a new radar examination of the site, shows a square formation at the center believed to be the outline of a Neolithic building. According to Archaeology magazine: “Aveburymay may be best known for its outer stone circle, the largest of its kind in Europe, which encompasses the entire site. Archaeologists have now discovered that within one of its inner circles, there was an earlier, square formation. Using radar technology, they have identified evidence of an arrangement of stones that they believe commemorated the footprint of a Neolithic house, a structure built as early as 3500 B.C. [Source: Marley Brown, Archaeology magazine, January-February 2018]

While past theories have postulated that Avebury was constructed from the outside in, these findings suggest the site instead sprang from a single building. “One interpretation is to see it like ripples on a pond,” says Mark Gillings of the University of Leicester. “The house decays, its position is marked with a huge standing stone, and its orientation and shape are marked by the square. It may have been 300 years after the house was built that they decided to memorialize it,” he explains. “By that stage it might have even been an ancestral place that had slipped into myth and legend.”

Geophysical survey within one of Avebury’s stone circles detected previously unknown evidence of an older standing stone monument, but one whose megaliths were arranged instead in a square. Erected in the 4th millennium B.C., the 10,000-square-foot complex is the first of its kind identified, and may be 1,000 years older than Avebury’s and even neighboring Stonehenge’s stone circles. Researchers believe that the stones may have commemorated a wooden building that was perhaps associated with the original Neolithic settlement. [Source: Jason Urbanus, Archaeology magazine, September-October 2017]

Other Archaeological Sites Near Stonehenge

Other Megalithic sites in the area include Silbury Hill (near Avebury), the largest Burial mound in Europe. It is a 120 foot-high burial mound with a half mile circumference, The Ridgeway is an ancient primeval path that runs from northeast to southwest past a number of small archeological sites. There are a total of 450 archeological sites in the Stonehenge and Ayenbury area. Many of them are burial mounds and longbarrows — long ridges associated with burial rites.

Thornborough Henge

At another site in the area is a group of giant horse figures that have been carved into white chalk cliffs. Near Uffington England Celtic tribes constructed a 360-foot-long horse figure in the first century B.C. that resembles the famous Nazca line drawings in Peru. Chiseled out of chalk hill, the figure is best appreciated from an airplane, where but can be seen for 20 miles away. Some say it looks more like a cat.

According to UNESCO: “There is an exceptional survival of prehistoric monuments and sites within the World Heritage property including settlements, burial grounds, and large constructions of earth and stone. Today, together with their settings, they form landscapes without parallel. These complexes would have been of major significance to those who created them, as is apparent by the huge investment of time and effort they represent. They provide an insight into the mortuary and ceremonial practices of the period, and are evidence of prehistoric technology, architecture and astronomy. The careful siting of monuments in relation to the landscape helps us to further understand the Neolithic and Bronze Age. [Source: UNESCO World Heritage sites website =]

Raphael G. Satter of Associated Press wrote: “The whole area around Stonehenge is dotted with prehistoric cemeteries — some of which predate the monument itself — and new discoveries are made occasionally.” In 2009, “researchers said they had found a small circle of stones on the banks of the nearby River Avon. Experts speculated the stone circle — dubbed "Bluehenge" because it was built with bluestones — may have served as the starting point of a processional walk that began at the river and ended at Stonehenge. A stone's throw from the newly found henge is a formation known as the Cursus, a 3-kilometer-long (1.8-mile-long) earthwork whose purpose remains unknown. Also nearby is a puzzling chunk of land known as the Northern Kite Enclosure; Bronze Age farmers seem to have avoided cultivating crops there, although no one is sure quite why.” [Source: Raphael G. Satter, Associated Press, July 24, 2010]

A new structure was found in 2010 “when scans identified a cluster of deep pits surrounded by a ring of smaller holes about 900 meters (a little over half a mile) from Stonehenge and within sight of its famous standing stones. University of Birmingham archaeologist Henry Chapman said he was convinced the small holes were used to secure a circle of wooden poles which stood "possibly three or more meters (10 or more feet) high." The timber henge — a name given to prehistoric monuments surrounded by a circular ditch — would have been constructed and modified at the same time as its more famous relative, and probably had some allied ceremonial or religious function, Chapman said in a telephone interview from Stonehenge. Exactly what kind of ceremonies those were is unclear. The new henge joins a growing complex of tombs and mysterious Neolithic structures found across the area. The closest equivalent is probably the nearby Woodhenge, a monument once composed of six rings of wooden posts enclosed by an earth embankment. Excavations there in the 1970s revealed the body of child whose skull had been split buried at the center of the henge — hinting at the possibility of human sacrifice.”

UNESCO on Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites

According to UNESCO: “Stonehenge and Avebury, in Wiltshire, are among the most famous groups of megaliths in the world and internationally important complexes of outstanding prehistoric monuments.. The two sanctuaries consist of circles of menhirs arranged in a pattern whose astronomical significance is still being explored. These holy places and the nearby Neolithic sites are an incomparable testimony to prehistoric times. = [Source: UNESCO World Heritage sites website =]

Stonehenge is the most architecturally sophisticated prehistoric stone circle in the world, while Avebury is the largest. Together with inter-related monuments, and their associated landscapes, they demonstrate Neolithic and Bronze Age ceremonial and mortuary practices resulting from around 2000 years of continuous use and monument building between circa 3700 and 1600 BC. As such they represent a unique embodiment of our collective heritage.” =

The Stonehenge and Avebury sites comprises two areas of Chalkland in southern Britain within which complexes of Neolithic and Bronze Age ceremonial and funerary monuments and associated sites were built. Each area contains a focal stone circle and henge and many other major monuments. At Stonehenge these include the Avenue, the Cursuses, Durrington Walls, Woodhenge, and the densest concentration of burial mounds in Britain. At Avebury they include Windmill Hill, the West Kennet Long Barrow, the Sanctuary, Silbury Hill, the West Kennet and Beckhampton Avenues, the West Kennet Palisaded Enclosures, and important barrows. =

aerial view of Avebury site and village

UNESCO on Why Stonehenge and Avebury Are Important

According to UNESCO, Stonehenge, Avebury and associated sites are important because: 1) They “demonstrate outstanding creative and technological achievements in prehistoric times; 2) They provides an outstanding illustration of the evolution of monument construction and of the continual use and shaping of the landscape over more than 2000 years, from the early Neolithic to the Bronze Age. The monuments and landscape have had an unwavering influence on architects, artists, historians and archaeologists, and still retain a huge potential for future research. The megalithic and earthen monuments of the World Heritage property demonstrate the shaping of the landscape through monument building for around 2000 years from circa 3700 BC, reflecting the importance and wide influence of both areas. =

“3) The complexes of monuments at Stonehenge and Avebury provide an exceptional insight into the funerary and ceremonial practices in Britain in the Neolithic and Bronze Age. Together with their settings and associated sites, they form landscapes without parallel. The design, position and interrelationship of the monuments and sites are evidence of a wealthy and highly organised prehistoric society able to impose its concepts on the environment. An outstanding example is the alignment of the Stonehenge Avenue (probably a processional route) and Stonehenge stone circle on the axis of the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset, indicating their ceremonial and astronomical character. At Avebury the length and size of some of the features such as the West Kennet Avenue, which connects the Henge to the Sanctuary over 2 kilometers away, are further evidence of this. =

“A profound insight into the changing mortuary culture of the periods is provided by the use of Stonehenge as a cremation cemetery, by the West Kennet Long Barrow, the largest known Neolithic stone-chambered collective tomb in southern England, and by the hundreds of other burial sites illustrating evolving funerary rites.” =

Mysterious 8,000-Year-Old Pits Filled Animal Bones

In 2023 Archaeologists announced that thate they had found 25 pits organized in straight lines of that dated to around 8,000 years ago in Bedfordshire, England The animal bones contained marks that suggested people ate them. "While we know of other large and enigmatic pits dug by hunter-gatherers from elsewhere in Britain, including at Stonehenge, the Linmere pits are striking because of their number and the wide area they cover," Joshua Pollard, an archaeology professor at Southampton University, said. [Source: Jenny McGrath, Business Insider, July 6, 2023]

Business Insider reported: The arrangement of the pits appears intentional, dug in several straight lines covering an area of up to about 1,600 feet. The pits measure between up to 16 feet wide and up to 6 feet deep. Some had rounded bottoms, while others were flat. Digging the holes would've required significant effort, the release said.

Six of the pits contained about 400 fragments of animal bone, most of which belonged to a species of wild cattle known as aurochs, Albion Archaeology said in a press release. Aurochs went extinct in the 1600s. The majority of the bones were distributed across two pits. Flint was found in two pits, as well. Red deer, roe deer, and pig bones were also found in the pits.

8,000-year-old animal bones found in Bedfordshire

While Mesolithic pits in France and other European countries are believed to have been dug as traps for animals, Pollard told Albion Archaeology that it's unlikely the ones in Bedfordshire served a similar purpose. Instead, the hunter-gatherer societies may have had a symbolic reason for constructing them, which may have been related to a nearby body of water, the Ouzel Brook.

In 2020, archaeologists found a series of similarly sized pits near Stonehenge, The Guardian reported. Though some experts said the holes were natural features, it was soon determined that they were human-made and dug around the time the monument was built. Two years later, an electromagnetic induction survey of the area around Stonehenge revealed thousands of pits, some of which were dated to 10,000 years ago, the BBC reported. The presence of the pits could indicate that Stonehenge held significance for millennia before its construction, Nick Snashall, an archaeologist with the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site, told the BBC.

Large Bronze Age Burial Mounds Found Near Stonehenge

In June 2023, archaeologists announced the had discovered a vast cemetery of Bronze Age burial mounds, thought to be up to 4,400 years old, about 16 kilometers (10 miles) from Stonehenge. The cemetery includes more than 20 circular mounds, known as barrows, built between 2400 B.C. and 1500 B.C. on a chalk hillside near Harnham on the outskirts of Salisbury in southwest England. The barrows were built around the same time as some of the central stages of Stonehenge, but according to Cotswold Archaeology, a private firm conducting the excavations, other than that and site's proximity to Stonehenge, there's no evidence that the cemetery was connected with Stonehenge.[Source: Tom Metcalfe, Live Science, June 16, 2023]

According to Live Science; Many archaeologists now think Stonehenge, too, was mainly a burial ground, although it also may have functioned as a communal gathering place or even a calendar. The newfound barrows range in size, with the smallest measuring about 33 feet (10 meters) across and the largest spanning 165 feet (50 m). But most of the barrows are between 65 and 100 feet (20 and 30 m) across. The barrows at the cemetery are grouped in "pairs or small clusters of six or so,” Alistair Barclay, an archaeologist at Cotswold Archaeology and the site's post-excavation manager, told Live Science.

After arriving at the site in 2022, the archaeologists have now fully excavated five barrows in two areas. Four of the barrows had previously been identified, but the fifth was unknown, possibly because it had been covered by loose soil washed down from an uphill area. One of the barrows was originally enclosed by an oval-shaped ditch that was replaced in prehistory with a nearly circular ditch. That suggests this barrow might have been built before the others, during the Neolithic period, which ended around 2400 B.C.; a mass grave near its center held the skeletal remains of adults and children, the statement said. The oval ditch also cut through pits of red deer (Cervus elaphus) antlers, which were highly prized in the Neolithic for making tools, ritual artifacts, and small items like pins and combs. The antlers were be checked for signs of deliberate breakage or wear that could indicate they were once used to make tools, the statement said.

The archaeologists have excavated the remains of nine other burials and three artifacts from graves among the barrows. In some cases, the grave goods were pottery "beakers" — distinctive round drinking vessels — indicating that the people buried there were from the Bronze Age "Bell Beaker culture," which was widespread in Britain after about 2450 B.C. The Cotswold Archaeology team has also found evidence of later occupations at the site, including what may be traces of an Iron Age cultivation area. It consists of more than 240 pits and postholes. Some of the pits may have been used to store grain, but most were used for discarding rubbish — a boon to archaeologists studying how people lived and farmed the land at that time.

The team also found evidence of a Saxon building at the site, along with other artifacts from the Anglo-Saxon age (fifth to 11th centuries A.D.)

another aerial view of Avebury site and village

Other Henges and Monoliths in Britain

A henge — of which Stonehenge is the most famous — refers to a particular type of earthwork of the Neolithic period, typically consisting of a roughly circular or oval-shaped bank with an internal ditch surrounding a central flat area of more than 20 meters ft) in diameter. Henges of various types are found throughout Britain and include the Standing Stones o' Stenness on the northern island of Orkney and the Maumbury Rings in southern England county of Dorset. There are also a number of similar sites in Ireland and Britanny, France other parts of Europe. [Source: Wikipedia. Raphael G. Satter, Associated Press, July 24, 2010]

S.E. Batt wrote for Listverse: Rudston Monolith, the highest standing stone in all of Britain, can be found in the village of Rudston in a church’s graveyard. It is an impressive 7.6 meters (25 ft) tall and was probably raised around 1600 B.C. There are theories that the stone named the village rather than the other way around. Given its age and prominence in the village, it’s only natural that legends of its origin are known among the locals. One legend makes a claim that the monolith was a spear crafted by the Devil as he made an attack against the church. Unfortunately for him, his aim was off-kilter and the spear ended up in the graveyard instead. Another legend claims that it was an attack by more protective forces—a spear of stone thrown at someone trying to deface the graves. As for archaeological evidence of its origins, Sir William Strickland dug around the site to try to uncover some more evidence. He discovered that the monolith may have half of its total length buried underground, bringing its height to double what we see. He also found a huge number of skulls, potentially hinting at a sacrificial or religious use. Despite this, there’s no defining evidence to tell us what went on at Rudston. [Source: S.E. Batt, Listverse July 1, 2016]

“Located in Cornwall, the Pipers and the Merry Maidens are separate megalith monuments. The Pipers consist of two standing stones, while a small distance away, the Merry Maidens form a stone circle. The circle is perfect, bar a deliberate entrance made on the east side which may hint at an astronomical purpose. The immediate area around these stone formations is littered with burial sites, which may hint that the stones had some relation with spiritual or burial procedures. Whether it served an astrological or burial purpose (or potentially both) is unknown.

So why are two stone formations mentioned in one entry? When it comes to mentioning either, it’s hard not to mention the other due to the local legend that ties the two together. It states that two pipers were playing music for a dancing circle of maidens on a Sunday, an act that broke the Sabbath. Realizing what they did, the Pipers tried to run before anything bad could happen, but it was too late. They and the merry maidens were turned to stone for their transgressions.

“Grey Wethers in Dartmoor, England, is a rare case in megalith structure as it’s not one but two stone rings right next to each other. Both of the circles feature 30 stones, and both of them come close to 33 meters (108 ft) in diameter. Not only that but the circles stand nearly exactly north and south of one another—with only two degrees of difference from the exact orientation. Excavation of the circles revealed a thin layer of charcoal, which implies that the site saw a lot of fire. It’s clear that something was happening within these two circles. The real question is: What exactly was being performed in this strange setup of circles? It’s hard to tell, but several theories have emerged. One states that the circles were used to represent a spiritual gap, with one circle representing those still alive and the other representing those who have passed. Therefore, rituals performed in the “living circle” would symbolize the permeation of the spiritual wall between the living and the recently deceased. This would allow the living to send off, pay respects to, or perhaps try to communicate with those on the spirit side. Others put less emphasis on the spiritual, stating that the two circles represent a ritual that involves a gender divide, with one circle for men and the other for women. Still others believe that the circles could have been used as a meeting place for two neighboring tribes to discuss, trade, and feast.

“Like many mysterious constructions, Grey Wethers has its fair share of myths. “Wethers” is the old English name for “sheep,” and one such myth tells of a farmer who moved into Dartmoor, only to criticize the selection of sheep at the local market shortly after his arrival. After having several drinks at a local inn, the locals persuaded him that they had a fine selection of sheep for sale that would appeal to his obviously refined taste. They led him to the foggy field where the sheep were supposedly kept, and the farmer saw the silhouettes of the flock. He purchased the sheep then and there, only to awaken the next morning to discover that he had actually purchased the stones of Grey Wethers.”

Dartmoor: Toppled Megaliths and Death Rites

Nine megaliths in a remote part of Dartmoor, England, carbon-dated to around 3500 B.C., share features in common with Stonehenge and could be older than it. Both sites feature large standing stones that are aligned to mark the rising of the midsummer sun and the setting of the midwinter sun. [Source: Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News, April 9 2010 -]

The Dartmoor megaliths, described in as study in in the April 2010 issue of the journal Antiquity, Jennifer Viegas wrote in Discovery News, “are now lying flat, since the stones in a row fell, or were individually pushed, over. The toppling was fortuitous for historians, however, since peat above and the below the stones permitted the carbon dating, which is extremely rare for such monuments. -

“Tom Greeves, who discovered the Dartmoor stones at a site called Cut Hill and is co-author of the Antiquity paper, said it is “remarkable that a previously unrecorded stone row with very large stones has been noted for the first time on one of Dartmoor’s highest and remotest hills.” He added that to reach their location “requires a walk of about two hours from whatever direction.” A ditched barrow (a mound of earth or stones) exists very close to the Cut Hill stones, providing further evidence that burials and possible death-related rituals might have taken place there. -

“At least 81 stone monuments have now been discovered nearby, with Cut Hill’s being among the largest at over 705 feet in length. Both Greeves and Pitts said it’s possible some of the monuments served different functions, such as marking land use zones. The barrows, shared alignment, and other finds, however, indicate several standing stone monuments held ritualistic meaning. Pitts likened their construction to the building of cathedrals and pyramids, and to the carving of the giant heads on Easter Island. All, he said, are involved in the “defining of ritual spaces, giving ceremony and power distinctive physical presences, engaging large numbers by employing them in the construction processes, ceremonializing places beyond the mere moment of the rituals.” -

A Dartmoor stone monument, called Drizzlecombe could have been the site of death rituals. Archaeologist Mike Pitts, editor of the journal British Archaeology, told Discovery News that “huge quantities of barbecued juvenile pig bones” were found near Stonehenge, indicating that the animals were born in the spring and killed not far from the site “for pork feasting” in midwinter. [Source: Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News, April 9 2010

“The general feeling is that the sun was symbolizing or marking the occasion, rather than being the ritual focus itself, so it probably was not sun worship,” added Pitts, who is author of the book “Hengeworld” and is one of the leading experts on British megaliths. This feasting was not just a meaningless pork party, and might have been more akin to a post-funeral wake today. Pitts believes the “solstice alignment phenomenon perhaps has something to do with death.” As he explains the setting sun and shorter days of winter would have represented the passage into the darkness of the underworld, and the reverse as the days start to lengthen again. “At Stonehenge,” he continued, “the dark navy-colored bluestones may themselves represent ancestors or spirits from the underworld, while the big orangey-pink (before weathering) sarsens could reflect summer and light.”

aerial view of the White Horse of Uffington

White Horse of Uffington

At another site in the Avebury and Stonhenge area is a group of giant horse figures that have been carved into white chalk cliffs. Near Uffington Celtic tribes constructed a 110-meter-long horse figure in the first century B.C. that resembles the famous Nazca line drawings in Peru. Chiseled out of chalk hill, the figure is best appreciated from an airplane, where but can be seen for 20 miles away. Some say it looks more like a cat.

Eric A. Powell wrote in Archaeology magazine: “Carved into the chalk of a hillside in southern England, the Uffington White Horse is utterly unique. Stretching 360 feet from head to tail, it is the only prehistoric geoglyph — a large-scale design created using elements of the natural landscape — known in Europe. “There’s just nothing like it,” says University of Southampton archaeologist Joshua Pollard. Pollard says that because the site is so anomalous, researchers have resisted grappling with its distinct nature. As a consequence, few new interpretations of the site have been advanced since the early twentieth century. “Archaeologists are tripped up by things that are unique,” says Pollard, “and the White Horse has thrown us.” But now, after making a close study of the site and its relationship to the landscape around it, Pollard has developed a theory that connects the Uffington Horse with an ancient mythological tradition. [Source: Eric A. Powell, Archaeology magazine, September-October 2017]

“Stories about the White Horse have been recorded since medieval times. One popular legend had it being carved in celebration of an Anglo-Saxon victory over a Viking army in A.D. 875. But excavations in the 1990s yielded dates that showed it was created much earlier, during the Late Bronze Age or the Iron Age, sometime between 1380 and 550 B.C. Most archaeologists have thought that the site was probably a symbol that signaled a prehistoric group’s ownership of the land — their attempt at creating a landmark that was meant to impress outsiders. But Pollard did not find that idea wholly persuasive. “It doesn’t really work that way,” he says. “For one, the way it’s positioned makes it difficult to see the whole geoglyph from the surrounding landscape.” Pollard found that there are other hillside locations in the immediate vicinity that are much more visible, and where creating a totemic image meant to symbolize a group’s identity would have made more sense.

“Pollard usually works on sites dating to the Neolithic, a period when people erected large monuments, such as Stonehenge, that were often aligned with astronomical events. That experience led him to wonder if the Uffington Horse could have been designed along similar lines, and he investigated how the geoglyph was positioned relative to celestial bodies. He found that when observed from a hill opposite, in midwinter, the sun rises behind the horse, and as the day progresses, seems to gain on the horse and finally pass it. From the same vantage point, at all times of the year, the horse appears to be galloping along the ridge in a westerly direction, toward the sunset.

Both the form and the setting of the site led Pollard to conclude that the White Horse was originally created as a depiction of a “solar horse,” a creature found in the mythology of many ancient Indo-European cultures. These people believed that the sun either rode a horse or was drawn by one in a chariot across the sky. Depictions of horses drawing this so-called solar chariot have been unearthed in Scandinavia, and Celtic coins often show horses associated with the sun. “The White Horse is depicted as a horse in motion, and the people who created it must have thought that it was responsible for the sun’s movement across the sky,” says Pollard. He posits that the geoglyph was not a static symbol, but an animated creature on the landscape, one that connected ancient Britons with the sun. “I’ve always wondered why it seems the White Horse was meant to be seen from the sky,” says Alistair Barclay of Wessex Archaeology, who was a member of the team that worked at the site in the 1990s. “I think this explanation — that it is tied to the sun — makes sense.”

“Over time, though its original purpose was lost, local people maintained a connection with the White Horse that ensured its continued existence. “If it weren’t maintained, the White Horse would be overgrown and disappear in 20 years,” says Andrew Foley, a ranger with the National Trust, which oversees the site. Historical records indicate the local community has long held regular festivals devoted to maintaining the site. In 1854, some 30,000 people attended. Now, each summer, a few hundred local volunteers weed the White Horse and then crush fresh chalk on top of it so that it keeps the same brilliant white appearance it has had for 3,000 years. The site, as it must have throughout millennia, continues to be meaningful to the people around it.

Geoglyphs

The Uffington White Horse is an example of a geoglyph.Rebecca Mead wrote in The New Yorker: “Hill figures, or geoglyphs, are scattered across southern England, where chalk downs offer ready-made canvases to landscape artists. Some geoglyphs are relatively recent, such as the Osmington White Horse, a representation of King George III on horseback, which was etched into a coastal hillside about ten miles south of the Cerne Giant in 1808, to celebrate the monarch’s patronage of the seaside town of Weymouth. (Local lore has it that the image — which shows the king riding out of town, rather than into it — so offended him that he never returned.) [Source: Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker, May 12, 2021]

Other hill figures are much older.The Uffington White Horse, an abstracted, elongated figure in Oxfordshire, looks as if it might have been drawn by Matisse but dates from the late Bronze Age or early Iron Age. Geoglyphs can have a clear significance, such as the Fovant Badges, a sequence of regimental insignia cut into a Wiltshire hillside during the First World War by soldiers training for the trenches. The meaning of other hill figures, such as the Long Man of Wilmington, in East Sussex, is more obscure.

At two hundred and thirty-five feet, the Long Man (72 meters) holds two staffs in his hands, like walking poles. The figure was long presumed to be ancient, but until recent decades no technologies existed for dating such an earthwork. Now they do, and analysis of the chalk on the hillside has revealed that the image was created in the mid-sixteenth century, making it a perplexing early-modern gesture rather than, say, a Romano-British cult figure or an Anglo-Saxon warrior.

Cerne Abbas Gianta and His 8.5 Meter Penis

A long time ago on a picturesque valley in Dorset, England, about three hours southwest of London, people inscribed a naked man with a twenty-six-foot-long erect penis, holding a club, in the chalk.Rebecca Mead wrote in The New Yorker: “The Cerne Giant is so imposing that he is best viewed from the opposite crest of the valley, or from the air. He is a hundred and eighty feet tall (55 meters) , about as high as a twenty-story apartment building. Held aloft in his right hand is a large, knobby club; his left arm stretches across the slope. Drawn in an outline formed by trenches packed with chalk, he has primitive but expressive facial features, with a line for a mouth and circles for eyes. His raised eyebrows were perhaps intended to indicate ferocity, but they might equally be taken for a look of confusion. His torso is well defined, with lines for ribs and circles for nipples; a line across his waist has been understood to represent a belt. Most well defined of all is his penis, which is erect, and measures twenty-six feet (8.5 meters) in length. [Source: Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker, May 12, 2021]

For as long as records have existed on the giant, he has been kept intact by the regular clearing away of weeds from the chalk trenches. Over the past century, at least, the figure has been even more clearly delineated by the introduction, every few decades, of fresh chalk carted in from elsewhere. Papworth’s goal was to dig through the layers of chalk and silt until he reached the level at which the soil had never been disturbed. He hoped that an analysis of soil samples recovered from those depths would date the giant’s creation, helping to solve the puzzle that the figure, with his raised brows and penis, has long presented: who inscribed such a ribald image on a hillside, and why did they do it?

It was only when his ring-shaped belly button. was — perhaps accidentally — merged with the erect penis directly below it, in the early twentieth century, that the giant acquired the prominent apparatus for which he is known today. “We need to make due allowance for scale,” Rodney Castleden, one scholar of the giant, has written, calculating that the penis as it currently stands is equivalent to nine inches for an adult male of average height — “a prodigious though not unknown length.” The giant’s unmodified member would, at human scale, measure “a perfectly normal” six inches.

“Local folklore has long held that infertility might be cured by sitting on — or, for good measure, copulating upon — the giant’s penis. In the nineteen-eighties, the sixth Marquess of Bath, the late Henry Frederick Thynne, told a reporter that when he and his second wife, the former Virginia Tennant, were having trouble conceiving a child, they paid the giant a visit. “We were very much in the dark about what he could do,” Lord Bath recalled. “I explained the problem and sat on him.” A daughter was born about ten months later. She was christened Silvy Cerne Thynne, and the name of G. Cerne was given as godfather.

When Was the Cerne Abbas Giant Made?

Rebecca Mead wrote in The New Yorker: ““The Cerne Giant has also been subjected to broad speculation about his age. “It is supposed to be above a thousand years standing,” an anonymous correspondent to the Gentleman’s Magazine wrote in 1764. The text was accompanied by an illustration — the earliest published drawing of the giant, including measurements — which indicates that in the mid-eighteenth century the giant had the additional physical feature of a ring-shaped belly button. [Source: Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker, May 12, 2021]

“Among the first to propose that the giant had ancient origins was an antiquarian named William Stukeley, who, in 1764, noted that the inhabitants of Cerne Abbas “pretended to know nothing more of it than a traditionary account among them of its being a deity of the ancient Britons.” He said that locals then called the giant Helis. As Stukeley saw it, the figure’s raised club suggested that it was a representation of Hercules, and therefore dated from the era of Roman occupation of Britain, which began in 43 A.D. Other antiquarians were more skeptical of the giant’s religious or mythic significance. In 1797, a scholar named Dr. Maton granted that the figure was ancient but dismissed it as schoolboy humor predating the schoolroom — “the amusement of idle people, and cut with little meaning.”

“By the twentieth century, scholars were venturing more grounded theories to account for the giant’s existence. In the nineteen-twenties, Sir Flinders Petrie, an archeologist, argued that the figure’s proximity to nearby earthworks suggested that it was from the Bronze Age, which extended approximately from 2300 to 800 B.C. Stuart Piggott, another archeologist, linked the name Helis with that of an obscure pagan figure, Helith, who, according to a thirteenth-century chronicler, Walter of Coventry, was once worshipped in the Cerne area. (Few contemporary writers have championed this notion.) In the nineteen-seventies, a geophysical survey of the hillside led to speculation that a lion skin had once dangled from the giant’s left arm, which would explain the figure’s somewhat ungainly pose, and might buttress the Herculean identification. Two decades later, Castleden, the historian, carried out further geophysical investigations, which convinced him that it was a cloak, rather than a lion skin, that once swung beneath the left arm, “as if the Giant is running or because he is waving his arm like a matador.”

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons except map from stonecircles.org and aerial views of Avebury from English Heritage, Cerne Abbas Giant from the National Trust and the animals bones from Albion Archaeology

Text Sources: National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Nature, Scientific American. Live Science, Discover magazine, Discovery News, Ancient Foods ancientfoods.wordpress.com ; Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, BBC, The Guardian, Reuters, AP, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated May 2024