Julian Cope presents Head Heritage | The Modern Antiquarian Forum

nigelswift

8112 posts

Edited Jan 04, 2008, 09:27

Re: What knackers ...

Jan 04, 2008, 07:19

either way they're still (possibly) very, very important items that once formed part of the intrinsic fabric of the Silbury structure.

Well if they came out of the interior of the hill there ain't no perhaps about it. The only question that remains unanswered is how important a part? If we take Merewether's words, together with EH's "souls" hypothesis as our guide - and we have no other do we? - we would have to suspect they are the most important part of the hill, the very essence of its symbolic meaning.

That being so, the initial thought is that they ought to go back in and I'm quite sure EH will be considering that as one of the options. But here's a sad question - put back where? I very much doubt they have been removed from their original context, the sort of careful placement that Merewether observed (else why would they have been disturbed?). It seems much more likely they are from an unstratified soup of collapsed material and there is zero hope of knowing where they came from. That being so, if they do go back in the best that can be done is to put them back approximately where they were found but surrounded by a meaningless jumble of de-contextualised detritus, fresh chalk and plastic bags.

Putting them back might well be called for as the right thing to do in broad symbolic terms since at least the "souls" would be inside the hill but that shouldn't be confused with the actual reality which putting them back would entail, which would be far removed from any notion of restoration or conservation. It would be a case of bunging them in with the rest of the tat, not "restoring the hill". The issue couldn't be sadder and serves to show the sheer scale of what we have lost.

In reply to:
Re: What knackers ... (Littlestone)

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Re: What knackers ... (StoneGloves)

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