Julian Cope presents Head Heritage | The Modern Antiquarian Forum

Littlestone

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Edited Nov 19, 2007, 20:31

Re: To the Heart of the Matter

Nov 19, 2007, 13:38

Hello Etton.

Thanks for your input to this thread.

The concern of some of us here is that English Heritage are not being completely transparent about what is going on at Silbury - not only from a structural point of view but also from the point of view of their long-term plans (and projects) for the structure.

For example, you say that, "Might 'less variable' mean that because no archaeology is now going on, there is only one process left on site and that is backfilling. One might not expect an awful lot to be happening as they are no longer removing old material and sampling or recording, or having to deal with collapses and deformed arches to battle to the central voids." when in fact the cutting of a new trench and the removal of large amounts of original Neolithic building material to do so indicate that quite a lot is still going on, and this is of great concern to some of us.

Personally I would like to know why it was necessary to cut a new trench at all - could the geo-electrical cable not have been laid along the existing floor of the Atkinson/BBC tunnel? Perhaps for technical reasons the answer to that is no, and a new trench was necessary; if that is the case surely English Heritage have a duty to say so. Furthermore, why is such a large trench necessary? My knowledge of geo-electrical cables is that they are little larger (and sometimes even smaller) than an ordinary telephone cable. Are there plans to lay more than one cable? What exactly is their purpose? Can those cables be safely removed at a later date? Are English Heritage now planning to build into the trench the capacity to send in, at some future date, scientific/archaeological probes (such as the Rovver probe shown on page 4 of Update 6) once the structure is 'sealed'? (I seem to remember that sealing the structure was one of English Heritage's stated objectives).

These are just some of the questions that the public do have a right to have answered, and if you are able to shed any light on them that would be most appreciated.

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Re: To the Heart of the Matter (Etton)

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