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Alexander Keiller's Avebury
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bladup
bladup
1986 posts

Edited Jan 21, 2013, 14:33
Re: The Stukeley Line
Jan 21, 2013, 12:36
Sanctuary wrote:
nigelswift wrote:
bladup wrote:
the reason why the prehistoric archaeology has been destroyed [which lets us put them back up] will one day themselves be seen as an important part of the Avebury story and the holes seen as archaeology themselves


That has already happened. The burning pits at Beckhampton were subject to detailed archaeological investigation. Everything that has happened is seen as part of the story, including erosion, vandalism and all of Keiller's work, mistakes and all. So restoring one part and not the rest is hard to justify.

It also has to be asked, if changes are deliberately made, for how long will they stay? It's a certainty that the future will see what is done as partly mistaken, and call for corrections - at which point Trigger will have yet another new broom with even less valid connection to the original.)

Add to all that the "knowledge loss" thing and the fact that there's no "rescue archaeology" element and people have a perfectly respectable set of reasons for opposing re-erection, ones that are acknowledged by EH, UNESCO and all the international conventions. So they're certainly not to be dismissed as narrow-minded - they're exactly the reverse actually.


If Avebury was a 'living' monument and still in day to day use, then it would have been repaired/upkept as and when just like you would have your own property repaired and maintained. If your garden wall collapsed then you would have it rebuilt as a matter of course.
I see no reason why Avebury should not be rebuilt using the original stones where detected at all. We believe we 'know' what it probably originally looked like, both by the works of Stukeley and the fact that modern-day technology is allowing us to trace its outline. We know that it had two Avenues and Keiller has already reinstated one in parts. We now know that Stukeley wasn't imagining things when he described the Beckhampton Avenue and its initial route and stones have now been plotted and many stones identified. We of course know of the Great Circle and the ditch and bank and where many of the stones are that are now missing from the setting and we can all appreciate that it would have looked simply spectacular on first build. Couple it all in with other monuments in the area such as Silbury Hill and we have a landscape which is not matched by anything else in the UK.
We have gone to great lengths and expense over the years excavating all of the main components of this complex and are now ideally placed to re-erect the stones where discovered and to keep on looking for those that haven't, such as the Sanctuary end of the WKA. To not do so to my mind is to see all that time and expense wasted and a near pointess exercise.
We all have our views and I respect all of them and don't need people to explain themselves to me if they differ to mine. I just happen to think that every single stone rediscovered and proven to have a space allocated to it should be re-erected seeing we have already gone to the trouble of finding them. The monument(s) look spectacular now, just imagine it in its near entirety.
It would be interesting to hear a wider range of views from others on this forum.


It is funny how they dig a hole, have a look at the stone and then cover it up again, surely the point to finding them is to put them back up, I can't think of a better way to start the new age than Avebury [restored], i'm there with my time and effort if you need me Roy, I think everything you've said on the matter is amazing and really possible, it only needs people to dream, Avebury was only built in the first place by sorting the day to day things and having the imagination, time and effort to build it, the modern equivalent would be making the restoration nothing to do with money [as it shouldn't], I also think people would donate their time for nothing [for Avebury], you're a star [things have to be dreamt about before they can be made into a physical reality].
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