Editing Silbury Hill (section)

==Purpose==
[[File:Silbury Hill, Wiltshire. - geograph.org.uk - 364299.jpg|thumb|Aerial view of Silbury Hill and the A4 road]]
{{OSM Location map
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|width=290| height=300
| coord = {{coord|51.415|-1.852}}              
| zoom = 12         <!--(1=whole world, 18=a street)-->
| caption = Map of Silbury Hill, Wiltshire, and nearby Neolithic sites

| minimap = file 
| mini-file = Wiltshire UK location map.svg
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| mark-coord = {{coord|51.41556|-1.85750}}
| label=Silbury Hill     
| label-pos=left|mark-title=Silbury Hill| mark-image=Avebury Trusloe, Avebury - geograph.org.uk - 1010863.jpg

| label1=West Kennet Long Barrow| mark-coord1={{coord|51.408564|-1.851083}}|mark-size1=8| label-size1=9| mark-title1=[[West Kennet Long Barrow]]| mark-image1=West Kennet Long Barrow entry.jpg
| label2=Avebury Ring| mark-coord2={{coord|51.4286|-1.85417}}|label-pos2=right| mark-title2=[[Avebury Ring]] stone circle| mark-image2=Avebury Ring - geograph.org.uk - 442927.jpg
| label3='The Sanctuary'| mark-coord3={{coord|51.41|-1.8317}}|label-pos3=top| mark-title3='[[The Sanctuary]]' concentric stone circles| mark-image3=Thesanctuary.jpg
| label4=Windmill Hill| mark-coord4={{coord|51.4415|-1.8762}}|label-pos4=bottom| mark-title4=[[Windmill Hill, Avebury]] causewayed enclosure| mark-image4=The eastern edge of Windmill Hill, near Winterbourne Monkton - geograph.org.uk - 1011020.jpg
| label5=River Kennet| mark-coord5={{coord|51.4210|-1.8568}}|label-pos5=top|mark-size5=0|label-color5=#77A1CB|label-size5=8|label-angle5=62| mark-title5=River Kennet| mark-image5=River Kennet between Avebury and Silbury Hill - geograph.org.uk - 282009.jpg
| label6=Marlborough Mound| mark-coord6={{coord|51.416|-1.737}}| mark-title6=Marlborough Mound| mark-image6 =Marlborough College from St Peter's church roof - geograph.org.uk - 460663.jpg| mark-description6=Marlborough College, The tree-covered mound is visible beyond the college building.
| label7=Hatfield Barrow, Marden Henge| mark-coord7={{coord|51.3233|-1.8712}}| mark-title7=Hatfield Barrow| mark-image7=Marden, bridge - geograph.org.uk - 1757024.jpg| mark-description7=[[Marden Henge]], now largely lost, included a large mound in the vicinity of Hatfield Farm.
| label8=P E W S E Y   D O W N S | mark-coord8={{coord|51.398|-1.8557}} |label-pos8=left | mark-size8=0 | label-color8=#81AF81| mark-title8=none
| label9=F Y F I E L D | labela9=D O W N | mark-coord9={{coord|51.43|-1.803}} |label-pos9=left | mark-size9=0 | label-color9=#81AF81 | mark-title9=none
}}
The purpose of the hill is unknown, though various suggestions have been put forward.

===Folklore===
According to legend, Silbury is the last resting place of a King Sil, represented in a life-size gold statue and sitting on a golden horse. A local legend noted in 1913<ref>
{{cite journal
 |first = Robert M. |last = Heanley
 |date = December 1913
 |title = Silbury Hill
 |journal = [[Folklore (journal)|Folklore]]
 |volume = 24 |issue = 4 |page = 524
}}
</ref> states that the [[Devil]] was carrying a bag of soil to drop on the citizens of [[Marlborough, Wiltshire|Marlborough]], but he was stopped by the priests of nearby Avebury. In 1861 it was reported<ref>
{{cite magazine
 |title = {{grey|[no title cited]}}
 |date = December 1861
 |magazine=Wilts Archaeological Magazine
 |page = 181 }} as cited by
: {{cite journal
 |first = J.B. |last = Partridge
 |date = June 1915
 |title = Wiltshire folklore
 |journal = [[Folklore (journal)|Folklore]]
 |volume = 26 |issue = 2 |page = 212
|doi = 10.1080/0015587X.1915.9718879
 |url = https://zenodo.org/record/2501522
 }}
</ref> that hundreds of people from Kennet, Avebury, Overton, and the neighbouring villages thronged Silbury Hill every [[Palm Sunday]].

===Other suggestions===

John C. Barret asserts that any ritual at Silbury Hill would have involved physically raising a few individuals far above the level of everyone else, where they would have been visible for miles around and from several other monuments in the area. This would possibly indicate an elite group, perhaps a priesthood, powerfully displaying their authority.<ref>
{{cite book
 |last = Barret |first = John
 |year = 1994
 |title = Fragments from Antiquity: An archaeology of social life in Britain {{nobr|2900–1200 {{sc|BC}}}}
 |publisher = Blackwell
 |place = Oxford, UK
 |pages = 29–31
}}
</ref>

Michael Dames has put forward a composite theory of seasonal rituals, in an attempt to explain the purpose of Silbury Hill and its associated sites (West Kennet Long Barrow, the Avebury henge, [[The Sanctuary]] and [[Windmill Hill, Avebury|Windmill Hill]]), from which the summit of Silbury Hill is visible.{{sfnp|Dames|1976}}

[[Paul Devereux]]  observes that Silbury and its surrounding monuments appear to have been designed with a system of inter-related sightlines, focusing on the step several metres below the summit. From various surrounding barrows and from Avebury, the step aligns with hills on the horizon behind Silbury, or with the hills in front of Silbury, leaving only the topmost part visible. In the latter case, Devereux hypothesises that ripe cereal crops grown on the intervening hill would perfectly cover the upper portion of Silbury, with the top of the corn and the top of Silbury coinciding.

Jim Leary and David Field (2010) conclude that the mound's purpose cannot be known, and the multiple and overlapping construction phases – almost continuous remodelling – suggest there was no blueprint and that the process of building was probably the most important thing of all: perhaps the process was more important than the hill.<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1 = Leary |first1 = Jim
 |last2 = Field |first2 = David
 |year = 2010
 |title = The Story of Silbury Hill
 |publisher = [[English Heritage]]
 |place = Swindon, UK
}}
</ref>