大象传媒

Silbury Hill, constructed around 4500 years ago and is the largest man-made prehistoric mound in Europe, remains an enigma to this day.

But towards the end of the sixties, archaeologist Professor Richard Atkinson, from the University of Cardiff, attempted to discover just what lay inside the enormous mound of chalky earth.

Prof Richard Atkinson

He hoped to reveal the construction of Silbury and establish why it had been built in the first place.

Such was his enthusiasm he allowed 大象传媒 TV cameras to follow the dig, and while Channel Four鈥檚 Time Team might think they invented the idea of 3-day archaeology TV, the Beeb camped out for three seasons to cover the Prof鈥檚 every discovery.

A shaft was sunk from the top of the hill, while on its western flank, a tunnel was cut through to the centre.听

大象传媒 Outside Broadcast van

In fact, Atkinson and his team followed the line of an earlier tunnel, dug in 1849 by Dean John Merewether.

It must have seemed as if they were digging into the world鈥檚 biggest Christmas pudding, and indeed, what they discovered suggested a layer-cake construction.

The moment when Dr John Taylor, the mining engineer working with Atkinson, broke into the line of the Merewether tunnel and crawled down the unsupported 19th century tunnel to the centre, there was huge excitement as it was thought the team had unearthed a burial chamber.

Silbury archeaologist at work in 1969

But sadly, instead of 鈥淪ilbury-Khamun鈥�, all the archaeologists found were a few fossilised insect remains, seeds and pollen.
More recently, archaeologists from English Heritage used the 大象传媒鈥檚 film to help with their investigation into why Silbury Hill collapsed back in May and December 2000.

Experts from English Heritage watched the black and white archive of John Taylor crawling through the tunnel and agreed that the film was helpful in establishing what might have caused the collapse."

They also investigated boxes of Professor Atkinson鈥檚 papers held at Avebury.
Missing from the archive were detailed plans of what Atkinson and Taylor found when they reached the centre of the mound, although detailed drawing of the centre of the hill had been kept safe for over 30 years.
It seems that Merewether was not the first to penetrate to the heart of the prehistoric mound.

Lights, cameras, action!

In 1776 the Duke of Northumberland sank a shaft from the top of the mound down through its centre and when the hole opened up in May 2000 the suspicion was that the Northumberland shaft had collapsed.

However, despite all of this activity, we remain in the dark when it comes to fully understanding the purpose behind this enigmatic Wiltshire monument 鈥� may be future archaeologists will have better luck.

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