Silbury Hill Summer Solstice Sunset

Summer Solstice sunset down Silbury Hill as seen from the path up to West Kennet Long Barrow (recorded 19th June 2010)

Lovely clear sky today, perhaps I left the sun a fraction too close to the hill, which gives it a bit of a flat tyre when it passes the bulge. (The slope isn't as straight as it looks.)


When I complained to the men of Kent (who were passing on their annual visit to West Kennet Long Barrow) that the entire herd of cows was trying to lick my skin, suck my jacket and walk through my tripod the whole time, they told me that was actually a load of bullocks!

One thing I'd like to make clear; at no point during this sequence of photos of Silbury Hill did I move the camera in order to make the slope look more parallel than it is. I had one camera on a tripod pointed at Silbury Hill for an hour and a half taking shots at roughly regular intervals and I took the pictures of the cows and the passers by with a second hand-held camera.

The closer you are to Silbury Hill the smaller the sun appears in relation to it, the longer the sunset takes and the better the parallel and the straighter the slope need to be for a good effect.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Summer
• Solstice
• Sunset
• Silbury
• Hill
• Avebury

[JackyRowe]

Well if indeed this is shot from West kennet, or at least in line between Silbury and the Long Barrow, the fact that the sun is sliding down the side of the hill is of quite archaeological importance!! I wonder if anyone else has noticed this before?

[marinagraham]

@JackyRowe

There are different opinions about whether this effect is likely to have been intentional on the part of the builders or just coincidence. From what is known by archeologists about the construction of Silbury Hill I'd say the builders didn't start out with this effect in mind.

But... since I am a sculptor I will say that I reckon once they got the slopes up to the height where this effect happens, if they'd noticed it they would have wanted to make something of it!

[JackyRowe]

@marinagraham Very true... but you've got to remember that the Ancient Egyptians built pyramids with tiny gaps that allowed starlight from specific stars to shine down them on certain dates. Whilst, admittedly, they were far more mechanised and industrial than our neolithic ancestors might have been, I like to think it's a definite possibilty that this alignment was intentional.

[marinagraham]

@JackyRowe

Personally, I'm pretty sure it was intentional but there are people who fear that their credibility will be undermined if they show any respect to this point of view!

[JackyRowe]

@marinagraham Well I'm off to Worcester this September to study Archaeology, as it happens, and this sort of thing is what I "specialize" in (I know, I'm 18, but it's the archaeology that fascinates me the most, from this period), so as soon as I become famous and gain credibilty, I'll put it to the experts! There's a circle near me that I'm investigating, and the amount of things coming up about it is far far FAR too big to be just mere coincidence!

[CantataRV682]

Fantastic shots of the sun sliding down the edge of Silbury Hill - I am still trying to work out where you were film from in my head. I shot from West Kennet Long Barrow in 1997 and I would have thought you were on the other side of the road? I only ask because it's such a beautiful shot I want to find the spot for the next film I shoot.

[KurdstanPlanetarium]

Truely awesome...