Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret Knowledge, and Ancient Mysteries by Brian Haughton (beginner reading books for adults txt) 📕

The earliest documentary reference to a horse at Uffington is from the 1070s, when "White Horse Hill" is mentioned in the charters from the nearby Abingdon Abbey, and the first reference to the horse itself is soon after, in 1190. However, the carving is believed to date back much further than that. Due to the similarity of the Uffington White Horse to the stylized depictions of horses on first century B.C. Celtic coins, it had been thought that the creature must also date to that period. However, in 1995 Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) testing was carried out by the Oxford Archaeological Unit on soil sediments from two of the lower layers of the horse's body, and from another cut near the base. The result was a date for the horse's construction somewhere between 1400 and 600 B.C. In other words, it had a Late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age origin. The latter end of this date range would tie the carving of the horse with occupation of the adjacent Uffington hillfort, and may perhaps represent a tribal emblem or symbol marking the land of the inhabitants of the hillfort.

Alternatively, the carving may have been created for ritual/religious purposes. Some see the horse as representing the Celtic horse goddess Epona, who was worshipped as a protector of horses, and also had associations with fertility. However, the cult of Epona was imported from Gaul (France) probably in the first century A.D., which is when we find the first depictions of the horse goddess. This date is at least six centuries after the Uffington Horse was carved. Nevertheless, the horse was of great ritual and economic importance during the Bronze and Iron Ages, as attested by its depictions on jewelry, coins, and other metal objects. Perhaps the carving represents a native British horsegoddess, such as Rhiannon, described in later Welsh mythology as a beautiful woman dressed in gold and riding a white horse. Others see the White Horse as connected with the worship of Belinos or Belinus, "the shining one," a Celtic Sun God often associated with horses. Bronze and Iron Age sun chariots (mythological representations of the sun in a chariot), were shown as being pulled by horses, as can be seen from the 14th century B.c. example from Trundholm in Denmark. If, as is now believed, Celtic culture had reached Britain by the very end of the Bronze Age, then the White Horse could still be interpreted as a Celtic horsegoddess symbol.

There are some who believe that the great carving does not represent a horse at all, but rather a dragon. A legend connected with Dragon Hill, a low natural flat-topped mound situated in the valley below the White Horse, suggests that the horse depicts the mythical dragon slain by St. George on that hill. The blood of the dying dragon was supposed to have been spilled on Dragon Hill, leaving a bare, white chalk scar where, to this day, no grass will grow. Perhaps the St. George connection with the White Horse is a confused memory of some strange prehistoric ritual performed

on Dragon Hill by its creators, perhaps as long as 3,000 years ago. Up until the late 19th century the White horse was scoured every year, as part of a two day Midsummer country fair, which also included traditional games and merrymaking. Nowadays, the accompanying festival is gone, and the task of maintaining the horse is undertaken by English Heritage, the organization responsible for the site. The last scouring took place on June 24, 2000.

A further example of an ancient horse is the Red Horse of Tysoe, which once existed on the Edgehill scarp, above the village of Lower Tysoe in Warwickshire. Unfortunately, this strange creature, actually multiple horses carved in the same area, was ploughed over and disappeared in 1800. The history and design of the Red Horse is obscure. It was first mentioned in 1607 in Britanica, written by the English antiquarian and historian William Camden. In the 17th century, the English traveler Celia Feinnes described the horse when travelling through the area, writing, "It's called the Vale of Eshum or `of the Red Horse' from a red horse cut on some of the hills about it, and the Earth all looking red the horse lookes so as that of the White Horse Vale." Since the 1960s, investigation into the Red Horse using ground survey, aerial photographs, and local archives research has managed to locate as many as six separate horses. At present, the consensus of opinion is that the original Red Horse of Tysoe, or Great Horse, was cut in Anglo-Saxon times around A.D. 600, possibly as a representation of the Saxon war god Tiw or Tiu, from whom the village of Tysoe allegedly takes its name, and from where we get our word Tuesday (Tiw's day).

Photograph courtesy of SacredSites.com.

The Cerne Abbas giant.

Almost as well-known as the Uffington White Horse is the 180 foot tall Cerne Abbas Giant, an ithyphallic figure cut into the hillside to the northeast of the village of Cerne Abbas, and to the north of Dorchester, Dorset. The carving is of a giant, roundheaded, naked man with a distinct erect penis and testicles, wielding a huge knobbed club in his right hand. As with the White Horse at Uffington, it is not possible to fully appreciate the figure from the ground; only from the air can the giant be seen in all his glory. Above the giants's head lies a rectangular earthwork enclosure, called the Trendle, or frying pan, thought possibly to be an Iron Age temple site, which some researchers believe is connected with the huge chalk figure below it. The favorite interpretations of the Cerne Giant is that he either represents a prehistoric fertility god or a Roman carving of Hercules wielding his giant club. Up

until 1635 there were Mayday fertility celebrations on the hill, with the maypole being erected inside