Avebury -
Wiltshire
I cannot possibly cover
the whole of the Avebury site with my limited experience and space!
However, I can show some photographs of the Stones Mailing List trip to Avebury
(very well organised by Andy
Burnham) on 7th August 1999. If you have RealPlayer, you can hear the first
part of Terry's commentary (prepared by Andy) here.
Terry Meaden's Head Stones
For me, this really was the most interesting revelation
about the Avebury stones. I cannot say for sure that these human features have
not been enhanced since Neolithic times (the "monacle" on the second
stone does seem a little strange) but the number and variety of features do
convince me that these were a deliberate action on the part of the builders
and/or users. As Terry pointed out, it takes a great deal of effort to make
any impression on these sarsen stones, so this isn't a matter of some Iron-Age
kids' vandalism of stone age monuments (these stones are BIG).
So what about erosion, then? Well, water erosion tends to make vertical marks
in soft stone. This is very tough stone, and no clear pattern of erosion from
4000 years of vertical standing was visible. Some would disagree with me on
that point, but I would respond by saying that erosion of exposed portions of
the rock since the time of the ice age could be a better explanation for some
of the erosion features.
As Terry pointed out, the human features all show signs of mechanical working,
either with hammer dents or with horizontal marks that cannot be anything else.
Altogether, Terry has found 50 heads facing left and 9 facing right inside Avebury
henge. Several other stones display certain signs of true carving. Furthermore,
there are good heads inside West Kennet Long Barrow, for which there is no question
of any weathering having affected the stones. They must have been carved.
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This is the first
of the stones that the group visited, the Great Cove Stone. A head is
caught in relief (facing left, below Terry's hand) by the Sun at about
11am, but faces the midwinter sunset. Terry says there are other heads
on this stone which face midsummer sunrise, midsummer sunset and midwinter
sunrise, and all four heads can only be seen facing left, which fits Terry's
theory that this stone is feminine.
This photo has been
enhanced by digitally smudging out the railings in the sky portion - the
rest of the photo is not retouched.
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This is the second
Head, on Stone 206, which is part of the stone circle that surrounds the
Cove. It faces right, and righthandedness implies masculinity on the basis
of Terry's theory. The "mouth" in particular has to have been
mechanically worked, as it is in a different direction to faults in the
rock. This head does appear to be wearing a "monacle", but this
is a modern interpretation of a feature which could have been something
else. These stones were likely to have been decorated during use, making
the desired features more apparent.
This photo has been
enhanced by digitally equalising the brightness histogram and increasing
the contrast across the whole picture.
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Terry adds (22/08/99):"Today
I was at Avebury with another group. Amazingly when we got to Stone 206
the sun was lighting up the stone so well that one observer noticed that
this right-facing head has a horn above the head's forehead! This strengthens
further the link between right-facing heads and masculinity".
This second picture
of Stone 206 does show this feature, which reinforces the notion that
all you have to do is look. The (phallic) "horn" is clearly
visible, starting from the highest point at the front of the head. It
is at this point that the sculpting of the rock for this feature is also
most obvious. The horn continues down the face as a streak, which may
be a result of weathering of the hammer-sculpting.
On further inspection
of the photograph, I have come to the conclusion that this face also has
a goatee-like beard. When so much of the head has been sculpted, I can
only assume that the protrusion under the chin is deliberate. The horn
may also form part of a more elaborate head-piece, but I think that closer
inspection should be the judge of that.
This photo has not
been retouched - for scale, Gail Higginbottom was standing about 2.5m
in front of the stone.
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| These crop circles
were visible when we visited Avebury. |
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| I have included them
to make the point that these are not messages from aliens, they are the
work of students and other "intelligent beings" with nothing better
to do at 3am in the morning. The "daisy" (right) is the one that
Gerald Ponting mentioned the disappearance of during the day in Avebury. |
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Finally, this is what I
was doing so far south from my usual haunt - this photo from Brixham Marina,
Devon, really seems to capture the surreal spookiness of Britain's overcast
total eclipse.
The photo was taken with Kodak Royal Gold ISO 200 film, a 70mm telephoto lens
at f8 and 1/1000s. Filters used were a daylight UV and crossed linear polarisers
giving the blue tint. The picture borders have been cropped slightly, but it
is not retouched.
Please feel free to use
it as your own personal Windows wallpaper, but ask if you want to publish it!