Reviews. Diary of a Dean: John Merewether

Wiltshire Heritage Museum’s Book of the Month is -

Diary of a Dean

Being an account of the
EXAMINATION OF SILBURY HILL
and of
VARIOUS BARROWS AND OTHER EARTHWORKS ON THE DOWNS OF NORTH WILTS

Opened and Investigated in the Months of July & August 1849

By Dean John Merewether

With illustrations

An online edition of the book is here

Reviews. Prehistoric Geometry in Britain by Tom Brooks

A DVD (and CD) in which Tom Brooks suggests, in his Prehistoric Geometry in Britain, that, "...prehistoric man navigated his way across England using a crude version of 'sat nav' based on stone circle markers; they (prehistoric man) were able to travel between settlements with pinpoint accuracy thanks to a complex network of hilltop monuments. New research suggests that they were built on a connecting grid of isosceles triangles that 'point' to the next site. Many are 100 miles or more away, but GPS co-ordinates show all are accurate to within 100 metres. This provided a simple way for ancient Britons to navigate successfully from A to B without the need for maps."*
Brooks' research, "...based upon the true position of each unit relative to all others according to the Ordnance Survey National Grid, reveals that all are related geometrically by isosceles triangles (having two sides equal) and projected alignments of remarkable accuracy over great distances. Further, such isosceles triangulation was directed from and focused upon a single, central feature more than 5,000 years old - Silbury Hill on the Marlborough Downs in Wiltshire."**

Silbury Air

Silbury Air by Harrison Paul Birtwistle (1934-) is a composition for chamber ensemble. The piece was written in 1977 and revised in 2003. The premiere was given at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on 9th March 1977 and the piece performed again at this year's Proms at the Royal Albert Hall.

Part 1 here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pnllf6XVhJI
Part 2 here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2XRMuvisCo&feature=related

Silbury at Lammas Time. Image credit Moss


These walls of earth

"Clumsy treasure hunting," Sir Richmond said. "They bore into Silbury Hill and expect to find a mummified chief or something sensational of that sort, and they don't, and they report nothing. They haven't sifted finely enough; they haven't thought subtly enough. These walls of earth ought to tell what these people ate, what clothes they wore, what woods they used. Was this a sheep land then as it is now, or a cattle land? Were these hills covered by forests? I don't know. These archaeologists don't know. Or if they do they haven't told me, which is just as bad. I don't believe they know."

From The Secret Places of the Heart by H G Wells

English Heritage's 2008 'conservation' project at Silbury

This hoard of undefended joy

The Ravager of the night,
the burner who has sought out barrows from old,
then found this hoard of undefended joy.
The smooth evil dragon swims through the gloom
enfolded in flame; the folk of that country
hold him in dread.*

*From Beowulf. Translated from the Old English by Michael Alexander. Penguin Classics. ISBN 0-14-044268-5. pp122. (No connection being made, of course, to the Silbury barrow-burrowers of recent times).
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