Rock Huggers

Our mystery history tour continues.. having collected some medieval religious and an example of Roman Britain,  it was time for an iron age henge.

Welcome to Avebury

Ah ha you thought we were going to Stonehenge no? Been there. Done that (several times in fact) and these days you can't get anywhere near it.

Avebury on the other hand is completely accessible...walk around it, breathe it, embrace it...in fact we witnessed several people doing just that...hands on the rocks, fingers spread, an ear pressed to the cold stone,  some kind of trance-like look trying to settle their features. Some even dressed for the occasion in flowing gowns of hand woven cloth.

Call me a philistine (Mr T would have) but if there is energy to be extracted from the arrangement then surely it is also in the concrete markers that represent the missing (fallen, buried, and repurposed) sarsens. The blissful rock huggers have talked themselves into something. These are rocks. These ones are not even limestone which might be said to have once had a life (or billions of lives). 

I make fun of modern rock huggers, but not in the least should a gram of admiration be taken from the original builders of such a place. They planned grand. They dug.  They dragged chalk and soil from a massive ditch to build an equally massive encircling mound. They erected dozens of great big rocks in a circle that they probably couldn't even appreciate the purity of because they couldn't take to the sky to see it. They almost certainly invested sweat and probably tears, years of the lives of many people, and no doubt blood too, and what they left us has outlived several overlays of cultural invasion, developments in language, beliefs, religion. We can now only guess at why, at how or when they used it,  or for what purpose ... Educated guessing but still guessing.  Archeaology tells us it wasn't a settlement; it wasn't defensive because the ditch is on the inside of the earth wall. They assume it was ceremonial, a possibly seasonal meeting place. There are two avenues from (or to) it that stretch far across the countryside.

One of the two avenues 

Sunshine, a gentle equinoxial breeze ruffling the grass, sheep grazing unconcerned by the humans. It is not about the energy of individual sarsens (the biggest remaining ones seemed to attract the most intimate attention) but the place, the whole place.  Avebury Henge is beautiful, and apart from cars tearing along the road right through the middle, remarkably peaceful. 

Close up, just in case you need to hug a rock.  Here is some life force, lichens forming their own (ceremonial?) circles.

A decent fist, and a convenient scratching place for sheep.

PS you can experience Avebury Stone Circle for the price of a carpark ticket or the bus fare to get there - or free if you came by bike or Shank's Pony. Yes free access to take a walk, hug a rock, contemplate what motivated those who came before, have a picnic on top of the mound, breathe fresh air, tie ribbons to old beech trees and make wishes, admire the views...all free.

And as to why there? Well I reckon those ancients knew a thing or two about exploiting a nice piece of countryside when they found everything came together. Who knows, maybe those avenues where lined with souvenir vendors, sellers of charms, hawking beaded jewellery, incense, and some trendy handwoven scarves (oh no, sorry,  that's just the kind of shop you find attached to every tourist attraction these days).