Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret Knowledge, and Ancient Mysteries

than defense. Further work on the hill will surely reveal more evidence of medieval interest in Silbury.
Unfortunately, the recent history of Silbury Hill has been rather worrying. In 2000, the collapse of the 1776 excavation shaft (due to heavy rainfall) produced a substantial hole in the top of the earthwork. The one positive aspect of this disaster was that it enabled the English Heritage Society to undertake a seismic survey of the mound to probe the extent of the damage caused by the collapse. Fortunately, the ensuing repair work led to further archaeological investigations of the earthwork, which revealed the possible spiral staircase mentioned previously, and the first secure radiocarbon date from the site. Since this collapse, in order to preserve the longterm stability of the site, the Silbury mound has been off limits to the public. But despite the signs prohibiting the act, people continue to attempt to break in to the site and climb to the top. The worst offenders so far have been the Dutch couple Janet Ossebaard and Bert Janssen, professional crop circle enthusiasts and alien hunters. Suspecting Silbury was some kind of ancient power plant, the couple, along with another crop circle hunter, tunnelled under the temporary roof installed by English Heritage and abseiled into the shaft, damaging the mound in the process. There is even a commercially available video of the couple's investigation inside Silbury, which shows "the descent into the hole, the spontaneous burning of a cell phone display, the appearance of beautiful colored balls of light, and the discovery of secret chambers inside Silbury Hill." The couple later receieved a £5,000 fine for their act of vandalization and trespassing.
In November 2005, new plans to stabilize Silbury Hill were revealed by English Heritage. Their strategy
includes the infilling with chalk of various shafts and cavities caused by the often clumsily performed investigations of the site in the 18th and 19th centuries. Over the coming years, English Heritage will also investigate the erosion on the monument resulting from the thousands of years of enthusiastic visitors climbing on the mound. Unfortunately, while there remains no supervised access to the site, there will always be people willing to ignore the warning signs and attempt a climb to the summit. Hopefully English Heritage will take this into consideration when they implement their new strategy. All this brings us no closer to finding an explanation and a meaning behind the construction of Silbury Hill. Most importantly, the great earthwork needs to be considered in the context of the sacred area of Neolithic monuments in which it lies. The meaning of the mound may be inextricably linked with the surrounding landscape, and the other neighboring monuments, such as the West Kennet Long Barrow (a rectangular earthen burial mound) and the Avebury Henge and stone alignments. The whole Avebury area functioned as a monumental religious center for generations, and perhaps the method of preserving the memory of ancestors in a preliterate society was to give it material form. Silbury Hill is perhaps one such surviving memory of our remote ancestors.

Troy: The Myth of I,he Lost City
Photograph by Adam Carr. (GNU Free Documentation License).
Walls of the excavated city of Troy.
The legendary city of Troy, scene of the 10-year-long Trojan War, is inextricably linked with some of the most prominent characters in Greek myth. From the goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite (and the matchless beauty of Helen) to the action heroes Achilles, Paris, and Odysseus. Most people are familiar with the story of the fall of Troy. But is there any truth to the tale of this mighty conflict caused by the love of Paris for Helen, which only ended when the Greeks introduced the Trojan Horse? Did the war really take place? Was there a city called Troy?
The myth of Troy begins with the marriage celebration of King Peleus, one of the Argonauts who accompanied Jason on his quest for the Golden Fleece, and his wife Thetis, a seagoddess. The couple neglected to invite Eris, goddess of discord, to the wedding, but she arrived at the banquet anyway, and in her anger threw a golden apple onto the table inscribed "For the most beautiful." Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite all reached for the apple at the same time. To resolve the conflict, Zeus assigned the crucial decision to the most handsome man aliveParis, the son of Priam, king of Troy. Hera promised Paris great power if she were his choice, Athena offered him military glory, and Aphrodite promised the love of the most beautiful woman in the world. Paris decided to present the golden apple to Aphrodite, who gave him Helen, the wife of Menelaus, and Paris set off for the Greek city of Sparta to find her. The Trojan prince was welcomed as an honored guest at Menelaus's palace in Sparta. But when Menelaus was absent at a funeral, Paris and Helen escaped to Troy, taking with them a large amount of the king's wealth. On his return, Menelaus was understandably outraged to find his wife had been abducted and his treasures stolen. He immediately gathered Helen's old suitors, who had long before sworn an oath to protect the marriage of Helen and Menelaus, and they decided to raise an army and sail for Troy. And so the seed for the legendary Trojan War was sown.
After more than two years of preparation, the Greek fleet (consisting of more than 1,000 ships under the command of Agamemnon, King of Mycenae) assembled at the port of Aulis in east central Greece, ready for the voyage to Troy. However, there was no wind to carry the ships, so the seer Calchis told Agamemnon that in order for the ships to sail he must sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to the goddess Artemis. With this barbarous-but apparently necessary-act accomplished, the Greeks were able to leave for Troy. For nine years the battle raged, during which time many great heroes from both sides were slain, including Achilles, who was killed by Paris. But