Silbury Hill

While Stoneghenge and Avebury are the best known of the ancient monuments in Wiltshire, Silbury Hill is something of an enigma. On the surface this looks like a hill, but it is a man made mound of chalk and clay excavated from the nearby area and dating back almost 5,000 years.

The scale of Silbury Hill is hard to see from the photograph, but it is 40 metres tall which is the equivalent to the smaller Egyptian pyramids and as such it is the highest prehistoric man made mound in Europe. In terms of effort, it has been estimated that it took 500 people 15 years to make and so it must have been incredibly important to them.

There are a number of theories concerning its possible uses or reason for its constuction including being the burial of King Sil. There have been some small collapes on Silbury Hill and visitors are not allowed onto it for both archaelogical and safety reasons.

Silbury Hill