Menu
 
Portfolio
 
Terms of Use
 

 

The Uffington White Horse is a prehistoric hill figure, formed from deep trenches filled with crushed white chalk.

The figure has long been presumed to date to “the later prehistory” – the Iron Age (800 BC-AD 100) or the late Bronze Age (1000–700 BC). This view was generally held by scholars before the 1990s, based on the similarity of the horse’s design to comparable figures in Celtic art. This theory was confirmed following a 1990 excavation led by Simon Palmer and David Miles of the Oxford Archaeological Unit: deposits of fine silt removed from the horse’s ‘beak’ were scientifically dated to the Late Bronze Age, sometime between 1380 and 550 BC. They also discovered the figure was cut into the hill up to a meter, not simply scratched into the chalk surface.
The medieval Welsh book Llyfr Coch Hergest (Red Book of Hergest, 1375–1425) states: “Gerllaw tref Abington y mae mynydd ac eilun march arno a gwyn ydiw. Ni thyf dim arno.” This translates as “Near to the town of Abington there is a mountain with a figure of a stallion upon it, and it is white. Nothing grows upon it.”

More posts..

Ipswich Hoard

    Ipswich Hoard, plus – There are two notable Ipswich Hoards. The first was a hoard of Anglo-Saxon coins discovered in 1863. The second was a hoard of six Iron Age gold torcs that was discovered in 1968 and 1969. The latter hoard has

Read More
Warwick Castle

Warwick Castle is a medieval castle developed from a wooden fort, originally built by William the Conqueror during 1068. Warwick is the county town of Warwickshire, England, situated on a meander of the River Avon. The original wooden motte-and-bailey castle was rebuilt in stone during

Read More
Royston Cave

Royston Cave is an artificial cave located in Katherine’s Yard, Melbourn Street, Royston, England. It is located beneath the crossroads formed by Ermine Street and the Icknield Way. It has been speculated that it was used by the Knights Templar, who founded nearby Baldock, but

Read More
Jórvík

Scandinavian York, referred to at the time as Jórvík or Danish York is a term used by historians for the south of Northumbria (modern-day Yorkshire) during the period of the late 9th century and the first half of the 10th century, when it was dominated

Read More
Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin
Share on pinterest
error: