Divine Café at the White
Horse Cherhill in Wiltshire:
Avebury Stones & Silbury Hill:
These
spectacular monuments are found 5 miles from
Divine Café
(6
miles west of Marlborough in Wiltshire
SN8 1RF)
Ninety miles
west of London and twenty miles north of Stonehenge stands Avebury, the largest
known stone ring in the world. Older than the more famous Stonehenge, and for
many visitors far more spectacular, the multiple rings of Avebury are cloaked
with mysteries which archaeologists have only begun to unravel.
Similar to
Stonehenge and many other megalithic monuments in the British Isles, Avebury is
a composite construction that was added to and altered during several periods.
As the site currently exists, the great circle consists of a grass-covered,
chalk-stone bank that is 1,396 feet in diameter (427 meters) and 20 feet high (6
meters) with a deep inner ditch having four entrances at the cardinal compass
points. Just inside the ditch, which was clearly not used for defensive
purposes, lies a grand circle of massive and irregular sarsen stones enclosing
approximately 28 acres of land. This circle originally composed of at least 98
stones but now having only 27, it encloses two smaller stone circles. The two
inner circles were probably constructed first, around 2600 BC, while the large
outer ring and earthwork dates from 2500 BC. The northern circle is 320 feet in
diameter and originally had twenty-seven stones of which only four remain
standing today; the southern circle is 340 feet across and once contained
twenty-nine stones, of which only five remain standing.
1500 meters
south of the main Avebury rings stands Silbury Hill, the largest, and perhaps
the most enigmatic, of all megalithic constructions in Europe.
Article courtesy of Sacred Sites.
www.sacredsites.com
