The Inigma At Silbury Hill

By James Donahue

Salbury Hill is a 130-foot high artificial earthen mound with a flat top, its base circumference measuring 1,640 feet, located south of Avebury, England.

This mound is so massive it is composed of over 12 million cubic feet of chalk and earth that covers over five acres. Its origins are unknown, although excavations have shown that it was built in three stages, beginning an estimated 4,000 years ago, if not earlier.

As it is with mysterious fortifications of that kind, there exist local legends. The stories are that the mound is the burial place of a forgotten king named Sil or Zel, of a knight in golden armor, and also of a solid gold horse and rider. It also is said that the devil created it after he was thwarted in an attempt to bury the town of Avebury.

Various digs have been made. The top of the hill was opened in 1723 and it is said some bones were found there with an ancient horse bridle. Digs in 1776, 1849, and again in 1967 filed to provide any clues as to the significance of the mound. Unfortunately, none of the excavations appear to have been made in a scientific manner, by archaeologists. Two deep tunnels were cut into the very heart of the mount, an obvious effort to find any treasure believed to be buried there. All that was found were arrowheads and some antlers believed to have once been used as tools.

The clumsy digging, unfortunately, disturbed the mound of chalk, causing a hole to open at the apex of the hill. The tunnelers disturbed the chalk and caused voids and air holes, which now threaten the mound. Thus local authorities ordered the tunnels closed and sealed to preserve this endangered prehistoric monument.

Historian Michael Dames suggests that the hill was an effigy of the ancient Mother Goddess and can be associated with ancient fertility rituals. He notes that a spring where water bubbles from the ground five hundred yards south of the hill is the source of the Kennet River. That river was once known as the Cunnit, a name connected with fertility.

That the shadow of the hill falls on a leveled plain to the north, toward Avebury, suggests that the hill may have served as a solar observatory. The meridian line from the hill runs through Avebury church, which itself rests on a ley line that runs to Stonehenge and two other area churches.

Salbury Hill also is found to be the center for alignments of straight prehistoric tracks, once resurfaced by the Romans, and of standing stones. The ancient Roman road between Marlborough and Bath runs directly toward Salbury Hill before turning to avoid it. So was the hill constructed by the mysterious Druids on a lay line for some forgotten spiritual reason?

When we look at images of this mound, we are struck by the similarities with mounds found throughout North America when white settlers moved across the land in the 17^th and 18^th Centuries. Some of these mounds, like the Great Serpent Mount in Ohio, and the great mounds at the ancient City of Cahokia, Illinois, are nearly as large. Yet the Midwestern United States, from Michigan south all along the Mississippi River, was found peppered with not only earthen mounds of smaller size, but also other earthen works, including garden beds and curved formations that suggested they were forts.

As in the UK, the builders of the mounds found in North America remain a mystery. Few mounds were found with bones, that suggested they were built as burial sites. All of them may once have had the same pyramid shape as the great stone fortifications found in other parts of the world, including Egypt, South America, China, and even Europe and Florida. Some believe a pyramid may exist on Mars.

All of these structures required a lot of human effort to build. That means they were considered very important to the existing cultures that once occupied this planet. But what would this reason be? Was it religious? Were they a link to the stars? Did they connect us to an alien race that came from time to time to visit?  The answer to this great puzzle continue too baffle us. Perhaps we will never find the answer.