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Alexander Keiller's Avebury
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Sanctuary
Sanctuary
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Re: Alexander Keiller's Avebury/Unrecorded Barrow?
Jan 29, 2013, 16:49
VBB wrote:
Sanctuary wrote:
VBB wrote:
Sanctuary wrote:
A hero to me as well and a well meaning one. Spent his own dosh to maybe satisfy his own ego along with his enthusiasm but to also give us back what was rapidly being lost and what he loved. Three cheers for Keiller..hip, hip....and boo to all the downers of him for the 'mistakes' he made in unlightened times.


A measure of reality in the hero worship on tma is long overdue. If such admiration were piled up for Sir John Lubbock I would understand it, but things made out about Keiller and Stukeley and Maud Cunnington for that matter fail to be objective.
Lubbock saved what was about to be lost to developers, Keiller didn't. Paul Nash even pointed out how Keiller stripped Avebury of its wilderness qualities in addition to Piggott's comment about 'megalithic gardening'. There is also a lot of personal stuff to be considered before brimming over with enthusiasm.


Yes Lubbock did a great deal to preserve archaeology but was most of it without a trowel in his hand VBB? I don't know just asking. He was certainly a great man in most of what he did that's for sure.


Trowel - the excavation to prove the course of the Roman road past Silbury? He was the author of Prehistoric Times (still the best selling archaeology book ever), and introducer of Bank Holidays as well as the Ancient Monuments Protection Act, and purchaser of Silbury Hill and much of Avebury to save it. It is the centenary of Sir John’s death this year and there are lots of events planned I am told and two biographies are due to be published. A television programme about the battle for England's Heritage is due for transmission around April.


I liked Prehistoric Times and his near savages. As you say a best seller and still always up for grabs on Fleabay.
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Re: Alexander Keiller's Avebury/Unrecorded Barrow? (VBB)
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