THE LARGEST MAN-MADE PREHISTORIC MOUND IN EUROPE, Silbury Hill, Avebury, Wiltshire. Mining engineers and archaeologists have begun driving a 250ft tunnel into this mound in an attempt to discover when and why it was built. The notice shown in the photograph states that Silbury Hill’s “date and purpose remain a mystery. It is certainly earlier than the Roman road from Bath to Marlborough, which is aligned on the mound but swerves to avoid its base. The mound consists of chalk rubble dug from a huge ditch, now almost entirely silted up. It was built on a spur of downland whose sides have been cut back to the same angle as the mound. The total height is about 130 feet and the area of the base covers five and a half acres.” The archaeological research is expected to last two years.

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31661, 23 April 1968, Page 22

THE LARGEST MAN-MADE PREHISTORIC MOUND IN EUROPE, Silbury Hill, Avebury, Wiltshire. Mining engineers and archaeologists have begun driving a 250ft tunnel into this mound in an attempt to discover when and why it was built. The notice shown in the photograph states that Silbury Hill’s “date and purpose remain a mystery. It is certainly earlier than the Roman road from Bath to Marlborough, which is aligned on the mound but swerves to avoid its base. The mound consists of chalk rubble dug from a huge ditch, now almost entirely silted up. It was built on a spur of downland whose sides have been cut back to the same angle as the mound. The total height is about 130 feet and the area of the base covers five and a half acres.” The archaeological research is expected to last two years.