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A powerful group of senior archaeologists are sharpening their trowels to fight "ethically unacceptable" plans they say will destroy one of the nation's greatest Iron Age treasures. Old Oswestry Hill Fort, an imposing ancient feature that dominates the skyline on the fringe of the Shropshire market town, is on the frontline of an increasingly bitter struggle pitting historians and residents against the local authority and central government. At stake is the ancient rural surroundings of the hill fort, an elaborate, 3,000-year-old earthwork dubbed "the Stonehenge of the Iron Age". It is said to have been the birthplace of Queen Ganhumara...

A peer has compared an ancient monument to the pyramids in a row over the government's right to roam laws. Lord Avebury says he is "stunned" the Countryside Agency's wants to label Silbury Hill in Wiltshire as "unimproved chalk grassland". The move could lead to ramblers having free access to the hill, which opponents fear may cause damage. However, the agency says it took the decision because the 4,700-year-old hill is a "man-made structure". Silbury Hill is comparable with the ancient Pyramids of Egypt or the Great Pyramids of Mexico" -- Lord Avebury Lord Avebury spoke at the public inquiry...

It's considered to be one of the more recent innovations to help the hapless traveller. But the satnav system may not be as modern as we think. According to a new theory, prehistoric man navigated his way across England using a similar system based on stone circles and other markers. The complex network of stones, hill forts and earthworks allowed travellers to trek hundreds of miles with 'pinpoint accuracy' more than 5,000 years ago, amateur historian Tom Brooks says. The grid covered much of southern England and Wales and included landmarks such as Stonehenge and Silbury Hill, claims Mr Brooks,...

A 350ft crop circle of an ancient Mayan symbol, said to be a sign of an impending apocalypse, has appeared next to Silbury Hill in Wiltshire. The giant pattern - thought to represent a traditional Mayan head-dress - appeared next to the tallest prehistoric man-made mound in Europe last week. Members of the crop circle community believe the mystic symbol is a signal of the end of the 5,126-year Mayan 'Long Count' calendar on December 21, 2012 Karen Alexander, a crop circle enthusiast, said: "This is one of the most interesting crop circles I have ever seen. It is definitely...

A 350ft crop circle of an ancient Mayan symbol, said to be a sign of an impending apocalypse, has appeared next to Silbury Hill in Wiltshire. The giant pattern - thought to represent a traditional Mayan head-dress - appeared next to the tallest prehistoric man-made mound in Europe last week. Members of the crop circle community believe the mystic symbol is a signal of the end of the 5,126-year Mayan 'Long Count' calendar on December 21, 2012. Karen Alexander, a crop circle enthusiast, said: "This is one of the most interesting crop circles I have ever seen. It is definitely...

He was a giant of a man, a chieftain who ruled with a royal sceptre and a warrior's axe. When they laid him to rest they dressed him in his finest regalia and placed his weapons at his side. Then they turned his face towards the setting sun and sealed him in a burial mound that would keep him safe for the next 4,000 years. In his grave were some of the most exquisitely fashioned artefacts of the Bronze Age, intricately crafted to honour the status of a figure who bore them in life in death. For this may have...

The pinhead-sized studs form an intricate pattern on the handle of a dagger, but archeologists failed to realise their significance when they excavated the burial mound in Wiltshire - known as Bush Barrow - in 1808. Now they are to be re-united with other priceless artefacts unearthed at the site and put on show at the Wiltshire Heritage Museum in Devizes after Niall Sharples, a senior lecturer at Cardiff University turned out his predecessors' desk and discovered them in a film canister labelled Bush Barrow. In the 1960s, the gold was taken away for examination by Professor Richard Atkinson, a...

A Wiltshire mound where the legendary wizard Merlin was purported to be buried has been found to date back to 2400 BC.Radiocarbon dating tests were carried out on charcoal samples taken from Marlborough Mound, which lies in Marlborough College's grounds. The 19m (62ft) high mound had previously mystified historians. Some believed it dated back to about 600 AD. English Heritage said: "This is a very exciting time for British prehistory." Dig leader Jim Leary said: "This is an astonishing discovery. "The Marlborough Mound has been one of the biggest mysteries in the Wessex landscape. "For centuries people have wondered whether...

Letters that lay undiscovered in national archives for more than 230 years suggest that Silbury Hill, the enigmatic man-made mound that stands between Marlborough and Beckhampton, may have originally be constructed around some sort of totem pole... A separate excavation found fragments of oak timber within the cavity leading historians to believe that the mound was built around the pole dating from around 2,400 BC... The 18th century letters, written from Edward Drax to Lord Rivers... Drax, a wealthy landowner who lived in Bath, had hired a team of miners to dig a shaft from the top of Silbury Hill,...

Archaeologists date tool discarded 4,500 years ago Maev Kennedy, arts and heritage correspondent Thursday November 22, 2001 The Guardian A scrap of antler has proved that Silbury Hill, the largest man-made mound in Europe, was completed around 4,500 years ago. The first scientific evidence for the date of one of the most puzzling of our ancient monuments is one of two antlers found at the summit of the 128ft hill. It was discovered as archaeologists agonised over how to fill a gaping hole which had threatened the collapse of the Wiltshire monument. The fragments are the broken tips of the ...

Ancient hill's holes to be filled Silbury Hill dates back to the Neolithic period Plans to stabilise the ancient Silbury Hill mound in Wiltshire have been unveiled by English Heritage. The man-made monument, believed to date to the Neolithic period, developed a hole at the top five years ago after the collapse of infilling in a shaft. There are proposals to remove an inadequate backfill from this and other cavities and replace it with chalk. English Heritage said it would preserve the long-term stability of the hill while minimising further damage. Surveys have confirmed that the overall structure is stable,...

Work begins to uncover secrets of Silbury Hill By Richard Savill Last Updated: 2:26am BST 12/05/2007 Work began yesterday to save an ancient landmark in Wiltshire from collapsing. Silbury Hill, which at 130 feet high is the largest prehistoric man-made construction in Europe, continues to mystify archaeologists. English Heritage is to spend £600,000 this summer trying to preserve the mound. Specialist engineers will enter the mound through a tunnel which was dug in 1968 by a team led by the archaeologist, Prof Richard Atkinson. That tunnel was the last of three made over two centuries by archaeologists. The original purpose...

One theory is that the top of the hill was lopped off around the time of the Battle of Hastings or even earlier.

Jim Leary, the archaeological director for English Heritage throughout the work, thinks he has solved a riddle which archaeologists have fretted over for centuries: why thousands of people piled up 35 million baskets of chalk into the largest artificial hill in Europe, now part of the Stonehenge World Heritage site. It wasn't the final structure, but the staggering contribution of work which was important, he now believes, marking a site of immense but only guessable significance to the hunters and farmers of Bronze Age Wiltshire... the archaeologists and engineers are convinced there is no secret chamber, prehistoric passage or treasure...

Silbury Hill remains an enigma despite extensive excavations Inside Silbury Hill You're in your jouncing people-carrier, taking in the agreeable but unremarkable view, and then suddenly it's upon you; a pointy attention-grabber at the side of the road, towering street furniture in the shape of a hazard-warning equilateral. This is crushing historical time expressed in trigonometry.Old Egypt hands could be forgiven for thinking that the terrible shark's fin that I'm talking about is the sort of thing that looms in your windshield as you're driving through the suburbs of Cairo. But they'd be wrong. Or they'd be half-right. Silbury...

English Heritage is conducting stabilisation work at the site Archaeologists have found traces of a Roman settlement at a 5,000-year-old landmark man-made hill in Wiltshire.English Heritage believes there was a Roman community at Silbury Hill about 2,000 years ago. The 130ft Neolithic mound near Avebury - one of Europe's largest prehistoric monuments - is thought to have been created some 3,000 years earlier. Experts carrying out a project to stabilise the hill say the site may have been a sacred place of pilgrimage. Human activity English Heritage geophysicist Dr Neil Linford said: "We are really excited by this discovery...