The West Kennet Long Barrow Explored
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- Опубліковано 30 вер 2024
- Marq English and I are in Wiltshire on our way to Avebury exploring some of the prehistoric sites. Today we are visiting the West Kennet Long Barrow. It is a Neolithic tomb or barrow, situated on a prominent chalk ridge, near Silbury Hill, one-and-a-half miles south of Avebury. The site was recorded by John Aubrey in the 17th century and by William Stukeley in the 18th century.
The construction of the West Kennet Long Barrow commenced about 3600 BC, which is some 400 years before the first stage of Stonehenge, and it was in use until around 2500 BC.
For a more detailed look at the West Kennet Long Barrow, check my earlier video: History You Can Touch - • Exploring the prehisto...
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Amazing place! Still astounds me not just the rich layers of history you have, but how ancient.
It amazing!
Love this video, I regularly travel to ancient monuments on my motorbike around Britain I find them fascinating mysteries, what I’m worried about and please take this the right way but I’m concerned we don’t make classic English eccentrics like you two blokes anymore = absolute treasures!
Don’t come in here,the barrow wights said.This place is reserved for the dead. But Mark and Richard,would not listen. Now there’s new bones in there that whiten and glisten!?!
Very profound!
Been there so many times, a place I LOVE.
Very magical and awe inspiring.
Did a group meditation there once and it was something else !! Like going to another world
How interesting - thanks for watching.
When I heard that the barrow is much bigger but you only can go til the big chamber, I thought, there must be a gate. If you would have the right frequency, the gate will be open.
I think, soon we are ready for having higher frequencies.
And I like your experiences
Hangon they would just sweep the bones in from out the front after they were left for small animals to eat the meat but we hope they leave the bones local so can be kept for safe keeping in the barrow.
This theory is by a man who never moved a massive item in his life
I was interested by you comment that it wasn't spooky......I visited the barrow in my early 20s in about 1973. Unlike the weather for your video, it was a grey, drizzly, overcast day with a cloud base which seemed to loom just above me. I am not the sort of person who is prone to being spooked by things but, on my own in the depths of the long barrow with very little daylight penetrating it, I felt disturbed and had to leave - it was if I was intruding. I've never forgotten it.
I slept in there in 1997, with a mate. Parked the car in the layby on the A4 opposite Silbury Hill. We had a bottle of scotch to aid sleep, but also a loaded air rifle each. I fear not the dead, but the living are another matter. Anyway, we had sleepmats and sleeping bags, second chamber on the right as you go in, the one with the small standing stone in the entrance you have to step over.. we both had some weird lucid dreams about swords and melee battles, independently but similar on discussion driving home. Revisited it recently, feels much smaller than i remember. Beautiful experience though. We were very respectful of the people who built it, and tried to connect.
Very informative and enticing. Gosh you were lucky with the weather and you and Marq work so well together. More please!
We shall have to plan another trip somewhere.
The top of the Barrow looks a bit like a railway Embankment
It does a bit!
Ancient Britain
Beautiful
The long barrow is the size and shape it is because when you see a reconstruction of a Neolithic Long House you will see pretty much the same building. Life lived in Wooden Thatched long houses. Death spent in part after being exposed to the elements before a permanent internment in a stone copy of the house you lived. Places with no tradition of Long Barrows like Scotland and and Ireland have exactly the same typography but with Cairns. More and more people are seeing the Silbury Hill and sister mound in the school grounds in Marlborough as homages to counter culture.. But basically you answered your own question early in the vid with Long Barrpows representing the houses they lived in.
There you go.
Very interesting, especially the pants you both are wearing. You don’t typically see men in the US wearing pants just below the knees, that’s more of a woman’s thing over here! But I like it Richard 😊
We call them shorts in England :)
What fantastic weather! Must have been pretty early in the morning...
Did you consult each other in the morning about what to wear? 😀
Why was there the non-Neolithic heras fencing on top?
I think there had been some vandalism and the fencing was to stop people falling in.
Hi Richard, I've been here a few times and the last was just a few days ago (Christmas eve 2019) I can't help but think there must be some more burials and chambers left to be discovered if they were to investigate the rest of the mound. It makes no sense to me why they made them so long.
There is also another burial mound not far away at East Kennet which is still sealed up.
It is a wonderful place - I watched your video of the recent trip!
It's a chemical processing chamber for fertiliser green vitrol was produced here
A burial chamber our children will laugh at us wake up
Corrosion? I would have thought...erosion? As in not being allowed to walk up the hill.
Er .. yes, probably!
I've been up Silbury hill but that was over forty years ago with my son who was about seven years old. I know they have dug into the side down from the top but still don't know anyone went to the trouble.
Is it one a Ley line?
Silbury Hill remains a mysterious to me, but a fascinating place to visit and let the imagination run wild.
Nice presentation.
It was very intuitive to ask the question, why make the barrow so long.
Although I believe your theory about making the barrow so visible on the top of a hill, I do not think that is the whole story.
There are many similar long barrows around the country, designed in the same way, that do not lie in a prominent position. Indeed many of them are in ancient woodland, as the country would generally be heavily forested 5000 years ago.
So although the idea is legitimate in this case, there must be another reason why so much of the barrow was unused. There is a lot of evidence that supports the orientation of the barrow having significance. Which in fact is the main distinguishing differential between a long barrow and round barrow, the latter obviously being not subject to the same external orientation. It should also be noted though, that not all long barrows conform with the east / west rule. There are notable exceptions.
The overall point being, that if West Kennet was not extended beyond the burial chamber, then it would have been a round barrow, which cannot have orientation.
I have been working on a theory that the orientation of the barrow is in fact a dating mechanism. The tradition of dating someones burial is still continued to this day. This dating mechanism follows along similar lines to "The Dog Days of Summer", if you are interested. The same mechanisms are (I believe) employed in megalithic circles. If you can pinpoint the exact location of the rise of Sirius on the solstice, you can exactly date the event, because of the precession of the equinox.
This is astounding, and something potentially profoundly beautiful. If I am right, then sites like West Kennet were built with us, me and you, in mind.
The actual design is a message to future generations. This is who, when, and what we were.
Remember us !
A tradition that remains to this day.
I have read more about the Neolithic peoples since making this video and now I understand, that much of the forest area you speak of would actually have been cleared by these early people. So I am not convinced the burial mounds discovered in wooded areas were sited as such, but that the trees grew back long after.
@@RichardVobes I think you are probably right. You cannot easily build a long barrow in the middle of a copse. However, even looking around the Stonehenge / Avebury complex, most of the long barrows are not situated on high ridges. In this case, I think you are probably correct, but overall, the prominence does not appear to be a necessary feature, however, the overall long barrow design maintains a regular pattern throughout.
Looks fantastic. Very similar to Waylands Smithy which is not far from there. Great that you can actually go inside
I do need to go to Waylands Smithy - I know Julia wants to investigate.
@@RichardVobes It's a very tranquil spot, you'll both love it
I like this style video 👍
Thanks Simon.
A great video to watch
Cheers, Ann
KYMRY MARANATHA
Come the lord?
SOULJAH
Great video but would have liked an explanation of the fencing on the top, what were they protecting?
There was vandlism of the skylights.
Thanks Richard!
Nice one !!!!!
Thanks very much