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Avebury. Summary of Excavations, 1937 and 1938

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Alexander Keiller
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The reasons for selecting the northwest sector for the beginning of the excavations within the circles of Avebury, scheduled to last for at least a decade, by the Morven Institute of Archaeological Research (with the permission and cordial co-operation of H.M. Office of Works) was twofold. First, the conditions of indescribable squalor and neglect prevailing over most of the area of this section surpassed, if comparison is possible, those existing in any other part of the circle; indeed the tangle of rusty pig-wire, the accumulations, to a depth of nearly three feet, of old tins and broken bottles, around two of the standing stones, to say nothing of the refuse-heaps which filled part of the ditch almost flush with its edges, contributed ungenerously towards rendering the once majestic site of Avebury what it has been for centuries, the outstanding archaeological disgrace of Britain. Secondly, the presence of a veritable jungle of trees and undergrowth not only perpetually menaced the safety of this part of the monument, but had already done dama e to the preservation of the all-important features below ground-level.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 13 , Issue 50 , June 1939 , pp. 223 - 233
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1939

References

1 Smith, Revd.A.C, British and Roman Antiquities of the North Wiltshire Downs, 1885, p. 143.Google Scholar

2 ibid. p. 140, plate v.

3 SirHoare, Richard Colt, History of Ancient Wiltshire, 1821, vol. 2, plate XIII.Google Scholar

4 DrStukeley, William, Abury Described, 1743, Tab. 1, frontispiece.Google Scholar

5 Aubrey, John, Monumenta Britannica (Bodleian Library, Oxford); plan made 1663; facsimile of plan in Wilts. Arch. Mag., 1862, VII, 224.Google Scholar

* The system of numeration of stones and stone–holes (or sockets within which stones previously stood) adopted by the Morven Institute in the northwest sector was to allot numbers consecutively in an anti–clockwise direction, Stone no. 1 being the standing megalith immediately to the west of the Swindon–Avebury road.

6 ANTIQUITY, December 1936, pp. 417–27.

7 Cunnington, M.E., Wilts. Arch. Mag., 1931, 45, 313–14.Google Scholar

8 Cunnington, M.E., Wilts. Arch. Mag., 1913, 8, 3–6.Google Scholar

9 British and Roman Antiquities, 1885.

10 History of Ancient Wiltshire, 1821.

11 Abury, 1743.

12 Monumenta Britannica.

13 George Gray, H. St., The Avebury Excavations, 1908-22, Archaeologia, 84, 1934, pp. 121, 127, 131, plate XLVIII.Google Scholar

13 Cunnington, M.E., Woodhenge, 1929, pp. 110, III, plate 21.Google Scholar