The Sanctuary is a prehistoric site on Overton Hill located around 5 miles west of
MarlboroughMarlborough is a market town in the English county of Wiltshire on the Old Bath Road, the old main road from London to Bath. It is reputed to have one of the widest high-streets in Britain, second only to Stockton-on-Tees.-History:...
in the
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
county of
WiltshireWiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
.
It is part of a wider
NeolithicThe Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BCE in the Middle East that is traditionally considered the last part of the Stone Age...
landscape which includes the nearby sites of
Silbury HillSilbury Hill is an artificial chalk mound near Avebury in the English county of Wiltshire. It is part of the Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites UNESCO World Heritage Site, and lies at ....
,
West Kennet Long BarrowThe West Kennet Long Barrow is a Neolithic tomb or barrow, situated on a prominent chalk ridge, near Silbury Hill, one-and-a-half miles south of Avebury in Wiltshire. The site was recorded by John Aubrey in the 17th century and by William Stukeley in the 18th century.Archaeologists classify it as a...
and
AveburyAvebury is the site of an ancient monument consisting of a large henge, several stone circles, stone avenues and barrows, surrounding the village of Avebury in the English county of Wiltshire. It is one of the finest and largest Neolithic monuments in Europe, about 5,000 years old...
, to which The Sanctuary was linked by the 25m wide and 2.5km long
Kennet AvenueKennet Avenue or West Kennet Avenue is a prehistoric site in the English county of Wiltshire.It was an avenue of two parallel lines of stones 25m wide and 2.5km in length which ran between the Neolithic sites of Avebury and The Sanctuary...
. It also lies close to the route of the prehistoric
Ridgewaythumb|right|thumb|The ancient tree-lined path winds over the downs countrysideThe Ridgeway is an ancient trackway described as Britain's oldest road. At , the route follows the chalk hills between Overton Hill, near Avebury, and Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire and represents part of a route in...
and near several
Bronze AgeThe Bronze Age of a culture is the period when the most advanced metalworking in that culture used bronze. This could either have been based on the local smelting of copper and tin from ores, or trading for bronze from production areas elsewhere...
barrowA tumulus is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, Hügelgrab or kurgans, and can be found throughout much of the world. A tumulus composed largely or entirely of stones is usually referred to as a cairn...
s.
The first stage of activity at the site consisted of six concentric rings of timbers erected around 3,000 BC. When the site was first excavated by
MaudMaud Edith Cunnington , was a Welsh-born archaeologist, most famous for her pioneering work on the prehistoric sites of Salisbury Plain....
and
Ben CunningtonEdward Benjamin Howard Cunnington , was a British archaeologist most famous for his work on prehistoric Wiltshire. He was the great grandson of the famous antiquarian William Cunnington and the fourth generation of his family to work recording and preserving Wiltshire's past.The son of Henry...
in 1930, they were interpreted as a timber equivalent to
StonehengeStonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about west of Amesbury and north of Salisbury. One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of earthworks surrounding a circular setting of large standing stones...
. 162
posthole,In archaeology a posthole is a cut feature used to hold a surface timber or stone. They are usually much deeper than they are wide although truncation may not make this apparent....
s were excavated, some with double posts and the remains of
postpipeIn archaeology, a postpipe is the term given to the remains of an upright timber placed in a posthole. Given the right conditions, timbers may survive over long periods of time and a recovered postpipe can simply be of solid wood...
s still visible. Later interpretations have made much of The Sanctuary's link with Avebury via the
AvenueBritish Archaeologists refine the general archaeological use of avenue to denote a long, parallel-sided strip of land, measuring up to about 30m in width, open at either end and with edges marked by stone or timber alignments and/or a low earth bank and ditch...
and suggested that the two sites may have served different but complementary purposes. The timbers may have supported a roof of turf or thatch and been a high status dwelling serving the
ritualA ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers, or dictated purely by logic, chance, necessity, etc.A ritual may be...
site at Avebury, although this can only be conjectural. Another interpretation is that it served as a
mortuary houseIn archaeology and anthropology a mortuary house is any purpose-built structure, often resembling a normal dwelling in many ways, in which a dead body is buried....
where corpses were kept either before or after ritual treatment at Avebury. Neolithic pottery and animal bone were recovered by the Cunningtons, indicating that the site saw some degree of occupation activity. Recent excavation by Mike Pitts has given greater credence to the Cunningtons' original interpretation of freestanding posts.
What was probably a series of three increasingly large timber structures was eventually superseded around 2,100 BC by two concentric
stone circleA stone circle is a monument of standing stones arranged in a circle, dated to the period of the European Neolithic known as the "Megalithic"...
s of different diameters and numbers to the preceding timber circles. Stuart Piggott has suggested that the stones stood within the third larger contemporary timber building. The Cunningtons excavated Beaker items from this phase including the remains of an adolescent interred with a pot.
The site was largely destroyed in 1723 although not before
William StukeleyWilliam Stukeley FRS, FRCP, FSA was an English antiquary who pioneered the archaeological investigation of Stonehenge and Avebury and was one of the founders of field archaeology...
was able to visit and draw it. Stukeley considered the stones at The Sanctuary to represent the head of a giant pagan serpent marked out by the Kennet and
Beckhampton AvenueThe Beckhampton Avenue was a curving prehistoric avenue of stones that ran broadly south west from Avebury towards The Longstones at Beckhampton in the English county of Wiltshire. It probably dates to the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age....
s.
The Sanctuary is open to the public, with concrete posts used to mark the positions of the stones and timbers.
Michael Dames (see
References) put forward a composite theory of seasonal rituals, in an attempt to explain the Sanctuary and its associated sites (
West Kennet Long BarrowThe West Kennet Long Barrow is a Neolithic tomb or barrow, situated on a prominent chalk ridge, near Silbury Hill, one-and-a-half miles south of Avebury in Wiltshire. The site was recorded by John Aubrey in the 17th century and by William Stukeley in the 18th century.Archaeologists classify it as a...
, the
Avebury hengeAvebury is the site of an ancient monument consisting of a large henge, several stone circles, stone avenues and barrows, surrounding the village of Avebury in the English county of Wiltshire. It is one of the finest and largest Neolithic monuments in Europe, about 5,000 years old...
,
Silbury HillSilbury Hill is an artificial chalk mound near Avebury in the English county of Wiltshire. It is part of the Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites UNESCO World Heritage Site, and lies at ....
and
Windmill HillWindmill Hill is a Neolithic causewayed enclosure in the English county of Wiltshire, situated around 1 mile north west of Avebury. It is the largest example of its type in the British Isles enclosing an area of 85,000 square metres...
).
Location
The Sanctuary is located at
Ordnance SurveyOrdnance Survey is an executive agency of the United Kingdom government. It is the national mapping agency for Great Britain, and one of the world's largest producers of maps...
mapping six-figure grid reference
SU 118679
External links