Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret Knowledge, and Ancient Mysteries (7 page)

Although most archaeologists are
at a loss to explain the function of
Silbury Hill, there has been no shortage of theories put forward in the 300
years of investigations at the site. The
belief of the 18th and 19th century investigators was that the earthwork
represented the burial mound of an
ancient British king. In fact, local folklore suggests that the hill is the resting place of an unknown King Sil (or
Zel), or that it contains a life-size
statue of Sil sitting on top of a golden
horse. Another legend tells that the
Devil was about to empty a huge apron
full of soil on the nearby town of
Marlborough, but was forced to drop
it at Silbury by the magic of the priests
of nearby Avebury. Though folklore
often contains a grain of truth, no human remains have ever been discovered in excavations at the hill,
although it has to be admitted that not
all of the structure has been investigated. Other theories about the
earthwork include that the flattened
top of Silbury functioned as a platform

for druid sacrifices, or that the structure was a Temple to Mercury, a giant
sundial, an astronomical observatory,
a symbolic representation of the
Mother Goddess, a power source for
passing alien spaceships, or a center
for meetings and legal proceedings. In
fact, fairs did once take place on the
summit of the Silbury Hill, but that
was in the 18th century.

One feature of the massive
earthwork which seems to point to a
ritual function is a possible spiral path
climbing up the structure. A new
theory (evidence for which was revealed by a 3-dimensional seismic survey undertaken in 2001) goes against
Richard Atkinson's hypothesis of construction in flat layers for the mound,
suggesting rather that Atkinson's
steps may actually be a spiralling
ledge. This spiral may have served the
dual purpose of an access route to the
summit during construction and a
pathway to the top for ritual processions. This idea would also link with
the profusion of the spiral motif
in Neolithic art, as seen for example
at the temple/tomb at Newgrange in
Ireland. That the mound had some kind of religious significance is given
credence by its setting within the complex of ritual, funerary, and ceremonial monuments in the area around
Avebury; which itself lies only 20 miles
north of the roughly contemporary
monument at Stonehenge.

The huge ditch surrounding Silbury,
probably once intentionally filled with
water, may be further evidence of a
ritual function. In the early summer of
2001, a huge straight-edged 33 foot
wide mark in the vegetation was identified, extending towards the ditch of
the Silbury mound. The vegetation or
crop mark indicates a deep man-made
ditch under the soil, possibly-as some
archaeologists believe-built to channel water from local springs into the
moat at Silbury Hill. Ditches around
prehistoric sites, such as henges and
hillforts, may not have always been dug
for practical purposes, but could also
have had a less tangible function, such
as a barrier to separate the religious
from the mundane, or to protect the
site from malign influences. The site
of the Silbury monument is also interesting. When originally built, Silbury
Hill would probably have been a brilliant white structure surrounded by a
shimmering moat. However, rather
than placing such an awe-inspiring
structure on a hill where it could be
seen for miles around, its builders
placed Silbury in a valley, so it barely
protrudes above the horizon, and is
hardly visible from most of the surrounding monuments. Perhaps this
indicates that the ground on which the
structure was erected was as important as the building itself, though its
lowland setting does emphasise its
huge size.

Intriguingly, Silbury Hill seems to
have retained its importance as a sacred site long after it was built. Excavations at the hill have revealed a
large amount of Roman finds, including a ritual platform cutting into the
mound, more than 100 Roman coins
in the surrounding ditch, and many
Roman shafts and wells. On the adjacent Waden Hill, a Romano-British
settlement has been discovered, which
suggests (along with the finds on
Silbury Hill itself) that Silbury was
still a sacred site in the Roman period.
There are fascinating parallels here
with Newgrange, which also retained
ritual significance into the Roman period. The religious attraction of Silbury
seems to have continued into the medieval period, as is suggested by finds
of pottery, iron nails, an iron spearhead, and a coin of King Ethelred II
(dating to A.D. 1010) at the site. The iron
nails were found inside small holes
that had been dug for wooden posts,
at first thought to indicate a defensive
structure-perhaps a fort on the hill.
However, these post holes were located on the inside of the terraces,
which would mean that they served as
revetment rather than defense. Further work on the hill will surely reveal more evidence of medieval
interest in Silbury.

Unfortunately, the recent history
of Silbury Hill has been rather worrying. In 2000, the collapse of the 1776
excavation shaft (due to heavy rainfall)
produced a substantial hole in the top
of the earthwork. The one positive aspect of this disaster was that it enabled the English Heritage Society
to undertake a seismic survey of the mound to probe the extent of the
damage caused by the collapse. Fortunately, the ensuing repair work led to
further archaeological investigations
of the earthwork, which revealed the
possible spiral staircase mentioned
previously, and the first secure radiocarbon date from the site. Since this
collapse, in order to preserve the longterm stability of the site, the Silbury
mound has been off limits to the public. But despite the signs prohibiting
the act, people continue to attempt
to break in to the site and climb to
the top. The worst offenders so far
have been the Dutch couple Janet
Ossebaard and Bert Janssen, professional crop circle enthusiasts and alien
hunters. Suspecting Silbury was some
kind of ancient power plant, the
couple, along with another crop circle
hunter, tunnelled under the temporary roof installed by English Heritage
and abseiled into the shaft, damaging
the mound in the process. There is
even a commercially available video of
the couple's investigation inside
Silbury, which shows "the descent into
the hole, the spontaneous burning of a
cell phone display, the appearance of
beautiful colored balls of light, and the
discovery of secret chambers inside
Silbury Hill." The couple later
receieved a £5,000 fine for their act of
vandalization and trespassing.

In November 2005, new plans to
stabilize Silbury Hill were revealed by
English Heritage. Their strategy

includes the infilling with chalk of
various shafts and cavities caused by
the often clumsily performed investigations of the site in the 18th and 19th
centuries. Over the coming years,
English Heritage will also investigate
the erosion on the monument resulting from the thousands of years of enthusiastic visitors climbing on the
mound. Unfortunately, while there
remains no supervised access to the
site, there will always be people willing to ignore the warning signs and
attempt a climb to the summit. Hopefully English Heritage will take this
into consideration when they implement their new strategy. All this brings
us no closer to finding an explanation
and a meaning behind the construction
of Silbury Hill. Most importantly, the
great earthwork needs to be considered in the context of the sacred area
of Neolithic monuments in which it
lies. The meaning of the mound may
be inextricably linked with the surrounding landscape, and the other
neighboring monuments, such as the
West Kennet Long Barrow (a rectangular earthen burial mound) and the
Avebury Henge and stone alignments.
The whole Avebury area functioned as
a monumental religious center for generations, and perhaps the method of
preserving the memory of ancestors in
a preliterate society was to give it
material form. Silbury Hill is perhaps
one such surviving memory of our
remote ancestors.

Photograph by Adam Carr. (GNU Free Documentation License).

Walls of the excavated city of Troy.

The legendary city of Troy, scene
of the 10-year-long Trojan War, is inextricably linked with some of the
most prominent characters in Greek
myth. From the goddesses Hera,
Athena, and Aphrodite (and the
matchless beauty of Helen) to the action heroes Achilles, Paris, and
Odysseus. Most people are familiar
with the story of the fall of Troy. But
is there any truth to the tale of this
mighty conflict caused by the love of
Paris for Helen, which only ended
when the Greeks introduced the
Trojan Horse? Did the war really take
place? Was there a city called Troy?

The myth of Troy begins with the
marriage celebration of King Peleus,
one of the Argonauts who accompanied
Jason on his quest for the Golden
Fleece, and his wife Thetis, a seagoddess. The couple neglected to invite Eris, goddess of discord, to the
wedding, but she arrived at the banquet anyway, and in her anger threw
a golden apple onto the table inscribed
"For the most beautiful." Hera, Athena,
and Aphrodite all reached for the apple
at the same time. To resolve the conflict, Zeus assigned the crucial decision
to the most handsome man aliveParis, the son of Priam, king of Troy. Hera promised Paris great power if she
were his choice, Athena offered him
military glory, and Aphrodite promised the love of the most beautiful
woman in the world. Paris decided to
present the golden apple to Aphrodite,
who gave him Helen, the wife of
Menelaus, and Paris set off for the
Greek city of Sparta to find her. The
Trojan prince was welcomed as an honored guest at Menelaus's palace in
Sparta. But when Menelaus was absent at a funeral, Paris and Helen escaped to Troy, taking with them a large
amount of the king's wealth. On his
return, Menelaus was understandably
outraged to find his wife had been abducted and his treasures stolen. He
immediately gathered Helen's old suitors, who had long before sworn an oath
to protect the marriage of Helen and
Menelaus, and they decided to raise
an army and sail for Troy. And so the
seed for the legendary Trojan War was
sown.

After more than two years of preparation, the Greek fleet (consisting of
more than 1,000 ships under the command of Agamemnon, King of
Mycenae) assembled at the port of
Aulis in east central Greece, ready for
the voyage to Troy. However, there was
no wind to carry the ships, so the seer
Calchis told Agamemnon that in order
for the ships to sail he must sacrifice
his daughter Iphigenia to the goddess
Artemis. With this barbarous-but
apparently necessary-act accomplished, the Greeks were able to leave
for Troy. For nine years the battle
raged, during which time many great
heroes from both sides were slain, including Achilles, who was killed by
Paris. But still the Greeks could not
breach the great walls of Troy and gain

entrance to the city. In the 10th year
of the war, the cunning Odysseus organized the building of a giant wooden
horse, the inside hollowed out in order to conceal Greek warriors, including Odysseus, within. The horse was
placed outside the gates of Troy, and
the Greek fleet in the harbor sailed
away, as if in defeat. When the Trojans saw the ships leaving and the huge
wooden horse outside the city, they
believed victory was theirs and
dragged the horse inside the walls of
Troy. That night, the Greeks climbed
down from the horse and opened the
gates of the city, letting in the whole
Greek army. The Trojans, caught completely by surprise, were slaughtered.
Polyxena, daughter of Priam, was sacrificed at the tomb of Achilles, and
Astyanax, son of Hector, was also sacrificed. Although Menelaus had been
intent on killing the disloyal Helen,
her beauty overcame him and she was
spared.

The story of Troy was first told in
Homer's Iliad, written around 750 B.C.
Details were added by later writers,
such as the Roman poet Virgil in his
Aeneid, and Ovid in his Metamorphoses. Most ancient Greek historians,
such as Herodotus and Thucydides,
were convinced of the historicity of
the Trojan War. These writers took
Homer at his word and placed Troy
on a hill overlooking the Hellespont
(modern Dardanelles)-the narrow
straits between the Aegean and Black
Seas. This was a position of great
strategic importance in terms of trade.
For hundreds of years, explorers and
antiquarians fascinated by the legend
of Troy searched the area, known in
antiquity as the Troad, now part of
northwest Turkey. The most famous and successful searcher for the great
city of Troy was German businessman
Heinrich Schliemann. Guided by the
Iliad of Homer, he decided that Troy
was located on a mound at Hisarlik a
few miles from the Dardanelles, and
began excavations there in 1870, continuing until 1890. Schliemann discovered the remains of a series of ancient
cities beginning in the early Bronze
Age (third millennium B.C.) and ending in the Roman period. Believing
Troy must be located in the lower levels, Schliemann quickly and carelessly
hacked through the upper levels, irrevocably destroying much vital evidence in the process. In 1873 he
unearthed a variety of gold artifacts,
which he dubbed Priam's Treasure. He
announced to the world that he had
found Homer's Troy.