The body of a wealthy man found buried under the bleak Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire may have been a king.
And the treasures he was buried with may have been Britain's first Crown Jewels.
The artefacts that the man, dubbed "Tall Stout Man", had been buried with are so rare that they have been kept in a bank vault for the past 30 years.
Tall Stout Man was discovered in 1808 by archaeologists trying to unlock the secrets of ancient Stonehenge which sits on Salisbury Plain, a 300 square mile expanse of chalk plateau in Wiltshire and neighbouring Hampshire.
The highlight of the collection is a bronze dagger that had been 'richly and most singularly ornamented' with more than 140,000 minute gold rivets.
The king of Stonehenge: Were artefacts at ancient chief's burial site Britain's first Crown Jewels?
By Paul Harris
12th May 2009
Daily Mail
An artist's impression of the 'King of Stonehange' who was buried at Bush Barrow 4,000 years ago
He was a giant of a man, a chieftain who ruled with a royal sceptre and a warrior's axe.
When they laid him to rest they dressed him in his finest regalia and placed his weapons at his side. Then they turned his face towards the setting sun and sealed him in a burial mound that would keep him safe for the next 4,000 years.
In his grave were some of the most exquisitely fashioned artefacts of the Bronze Age, intricately crafted to honour the status of a figure who bore them in life in death.
For this may have been the last resting place of the King of Stonehenge - and the treasures that are effectively Britain's first Crown Jewels.
Now the entire hoard, recovered from the richest and most important Bronze Age grave on Salisbury Plain, is set to go on permanent display.
But 21st-century Britain has thrown up a problem that never troubled ancient man.
The artefacts are so rare that they have been kept in a bank vault for the past three decades because they are too precious to put on show without extensive security.
So today the Wiltshire Heritage Museum at Devizes is announcing a £500,000 appeal to fund a secure gallery. It will allow the treasures to be displayed alongside some of the many other wonders of Stonehenge, giving a fascinating glimpse of what life was like some 1,800 years BC.
The remains of 'Tall Stout Man' were uncovered two centuries ago by archaeologists trying to unravel the ancient stone circle's enduring secrets. In 1808 their attention turned to Bush Barrow, a huge burial mound that boasts the most commanding view of Stonehenge from nearby Normanton Down.
Clearly whoever lay here was important. Only when the chamber was excavated, however, did it become apparent just how important. Measurements taken from the skeleton showed that the man would have towered above contemporaries at over 6ft tall.
Most of the articles buried with him in the 130ft-diameter, 10ft-high barrow were so fabulously rare that only someone of royal, military or religious power might possess them.
A 4,000-year-old gold body ornament found at the burial site in Wiltshire
Some believe Tall Stout Man was all three - a monarch, a general and a spiritual leader.
The highlight of the collection is a bronze dagger that had been 'richly and most singularly ornamented' with more than 140,000 minute gold rivets, arranged to form a zig-zag pattern in the hilt.
Each rivet - as fine as a human hair and no more than a millimetre long - had been meticulously placed in tiny, individually drilled holes, then glued into place to form a brilliant lustre. Bronze daggers were very rare in those days, with probably only 50 in the country. This one was unique - and certainly fit for a king.
Other treasures include what appears to be a sceptre of office, sleeved with jagged-toothed, interlocking bone rings; an oval mace head, laboriously shaped, drilled and polished from a fossil sponge; two more bronze daggers and an axe head; a gold belt buckle; a lozenge- shaped insignia or piece of gold jewellery; and a gold breast-plate, enhanced by symmetrically carved patterns.
Archaeologists have long believed these to have been among the most valuable possessions of the age, taking teams of craftsmen and women up to five years to make.
The hoard of jewellery was recovered from Salisbury Plain near Stonehenge (pictured)
They used materials sourced from all over the country, possibly from Europe as well.
But it is recent research that underlines the status of Tall Stout Man, whose remains still lie sealed inside Bush Barrow.
It is one of the most prominent burial mounds around Stonehenge and is thought to have been directly linked with the stone circle by a processional walkway lined with stone pillars, the so-called heel stone.
Museum director David Dawson said: 'It's a leap of faith, but it's not impossible that Bush Barrow was the burial place of the person who had Stonehenge built.
'It appears to be a family vault, in which Tall Stout Man was placed about 400 years later. It is therefore almost certain he was part of that elite dynasty. There is no doubt he was an important figure.
'He clearly had the power to command the considerable collaboration it would take to fashion the kind of treasures which, in a culture which knew no diamonds or precious stones, were essentially Britain's first Crown Jewels.
'Four thousand years later, we want to allow the public to see them as part of the experience of visiting Stonehenge and discovering Britain's past.'
SOME STONEHENGE FACTS
A ruin: Stonehenge in 1836
1) Stonehenge was not always held in such high regard as it is now. During the First World War it was considered for demolition. Those who ran a nearby airfield wanted the stones removed because they thought Stonehenge might pose a danger to low-flying planes. Luckily, the application was never sanctioned.
2) Stonehenge as we see it today actually dates from the early 20th Century when it was substantially restored. Stones that had started to fall over were straightened up and set in concrete. This can be seen by comparing the monument as it stands today with the picture by John Constable showing it as it was in 1836 (see above). The last stone to fall toppled over on 31st December 1899.
3) King Henry VIII used to own Stonehenge; later owners included the nuns of Amesbury Abbey; and the last private owner Sir Cecil Chubb bought Stonehenge in 1915 for £6,600 and gifted it to the nation in 1918, with a condition that the entrance fee would never be more than one shilling. Somehow that condition appears to have been forgotten about.
4) Stonehenge became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986, putting it on a par with the Great Pyramid of Khufu (the only one remaining of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) and the Great Wall of China.
5) Stonehenge is aligned in such a way that for a person standing at the exact centre of the monument, on the morning of the summer solstice (21st June), the sun will rise directly above the heel stone. The horseshoe shape of the giant sarsens is arranged in such a way that the open end of horseshoe points the same direction. Such alignments are very common in Stone Age megaliths. Many of the thousands of megaliths throughout the British Isles are aligned with one or other of the solstices.
6) On 8 April, 2000 a group of volunteers from a lottery funded project tried to show how part of Stonehenge could have been built, 4,000 years ago. Using only methods available at that period in history they planned to take an eight feet tall, three tonne Bluestone from the Presceli Mountains (Mynydd Preseli in Welsh) around the Welsh coast and eventually to Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire [Mynydd Presceli is 135 miles from Stonehenge in a straight line; the roundabout sea-and-land route, which the builders probably used, is 240 miles long.] The scheme failed after just 17 miles when the stone sank in 50 feet of water off the Pembrokeshire coast.
telegraph.co.uk
BBC - Homepage
And the treasures he was buried with may have been Britain's first Crown Jewels.
The artefacts that the man, dubbed "Tall Stout Man", had been buried with are so rare that they have been kept in a bank vault for the past 30 years.
Tall Stout Man was discovered in 1808 by archaeologists trying to unlock the secrets of ancient Stonehenge which sits on Salisbury Plain, a 300 square mile expanse of chalk plateau in Wiltshire and neighbouring Hampshire.
The highlight of the collection is a bronze dagger that had been 'richly and most singularly ornamented' with more than 140,000 minute gold rivets.
The king of Stonehenge: Were artefacts at ancient chief's burial site Britain's first Crown Jewels?
By Paul Harris
12th May 2009
Daily Mail
An artist's impression of the 'King of Stonehange' who was buried at Bush Barrow 4,000 years ago
He was a giant of a man, a chieftain who ruled with a royal sceptre and a warrior's axe.
When they laid him to rest they dressed him in his finest regalia and placed his weapons at his side. Then they turned his face towards the setting sun and sealed him in a burial mound that would keep him safe for the next 4,000 years.
In his grave were some of the most exquisitely fashioned artefacts of the Bronze Age, intricately crafted to honour the status of a figure who bore them in life in death.
For this may have been the last resting place of the King of Stonehenge - and the treasures that are effectively Britain's first Crown Jewels.
Now the entire hoard, recovered from the richest and most important Bronze Age grave on Salisbury Plain, is set to go on permanent display.
But 21st-century Britain has thrown up a problem that never troubled ancient man.
The artefacts are so rare that they have been kept in a bank vault for the past three decades because they are too precious to put on show without extensive security.
So today the Wiltshire Heritage Museum at Devizes is announcing a £500,000 appeal to fund a secure gallery. It will allow the treasures to be displayed alongside some of the many other wonders of Stonehenge, giving a fascinating glimpse of what life was like some 1,800 years BC.
The remains of 'Tall Stout Man' were uncovered two centuries ago by archaeologists trying to unravel the ancient stone circle's enduring secrets. In 1808 their attention turned to Bush Barrow, a huge burial mound that boasts the most commanding view of Stonehenge from nearby Normanton Down.
Clearly whoever lay here was important. Only when the chamber was excavated, however, did it become apparent just how important. Measurements taken from the skeleton showed that the man would have towered above contemporaries at over 6ft tall.
Most of the articles buried with him in the 130ft-diameter, 10ft-high barrow were so fabulously rare that only someone of royal, military or religious power might possess them.
A 4,000-year-old gold body ornament found at the burial site in Wiltshire
Some believe Tall Stout Man was all three - a monarch, a general and a spiritual leader.
The highlight of the collection is a bronze dagger that had been 'richly and most singularly ornamented' with more than 140,000 minute gold rivets, arranged to form a zig-zag pattern in the hilt.
Each rivet - as fine as a human hair and no more than a millimetre long - had been meticulously placed in tiny, individually drilled holes, then glued into place to form a brilliant lustre. Bronze daggers were very rare in those days, with probably only 50 in the country. This one was unique - and certainly fit for a king.
Other treasures include what appears to be a sceptre of office, sleeved with jagged-toothed, interlocking bone rings; an oval mace head, laboriously shaped, drilled and polished from a fossil sponge; two more bronze daggers and an axe head; a gold belt buckle; a lozenge- shaped insignia or piece of gold jewellery; and a gold breast-plate, enhanced by symmetrically carved patterns.
Archaeologists have long believed these to have been among the most valuable possessions of the age, taking teams of craftsmen and women up to five years to make.
The hoard of jewellery was recovered from Salisbury Plain near Stonehenge (pictured)
They used materials sourced from all over the country, possibly from Europe as well.
But it is recent research that underlines the status of Tall Stout Man, whose remains still lie sealed inside Bush Barrow.
It is one of the most prominent burial mounds around Stonehenge and is thought to have been directly linked with the stone circle by a processional walkway lined with stone pillars, the so-called heel stone.
Museum director David Dawson said: 'It's a leap of faith, but it's not impossible that Bush Barrow was the burial place of the person who had Stonehenge built.
'It appears to be a family vault, in which Tall Stout Man was placed about 400 years later. It is therefore almost certain he was part of that elite dynasty. There is no doubt he was an important figure.
'He clearly had the power to command the considerable collaboration it would take to fashion the kind of treasures which, in a culture which knew no diamonds or precious stones, were essentially Britain's first Crown Jewels.
'Four thousand years later, we want to allow the public to see them as part of the experience of visiting Stonehenge and discovering Britain's past.'
SOME STONEHENGE FACTS
A ruin: Stonehenge in 1836
1) Stonehenge was not always held in such high regard as it is now. During the First World War it was considered for demolition. Those who ran a nearby airfield wanted the stones removed because they thought Stonehenge might pose a danger to low-flying planes. Luckily, the application was never sanctioned.
2) Stonehenge as we see it today actually dates from the early 20th Century when it was substantially restored. Stones that had started to fall over were straightened up and set in concrete. This can be seen by comparing the monument as it stands today with the picture by John Constable showing it as it was in 1836 (see above). The last stone to fall toppled over on 31st December 1899.
3) King Henry VIII used to own Stonehenge; later owners included the nuns of Amesbury Abbey; and the last private owner Sir Cecil Chubb bought Stonehenge in 1915 for £6,600 and gifted it to the nation in 1918, with a condition that the entrance fee would never be more than one shilling. Somehow that condition appears to have been forgotten about.
4) Stonehenge became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986, putting it on a par with the Great Pyramid of Khufu (the only one remaining of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) and the Great Wall of China.
5) Stonehenge is aligned in such a way that for a person standing at the exact centre of the monument, on the morning of the summer solstice (21st June), the sun will rise directly above the heel stone. The horseshoe shape of the giant sarsens is arranged in such a way that the open end of horseshoe points the same direction. Such alignments are very common in Stone Age megaliths. Many of the thousands of megaliths throughout the British Isles are aligned with one or other of the solstices.
6) On 8 April, 2000 a group of volunteers from a lottery funded project tried to show how part of Stonehenge could have been built, 4,000 years ago. Using only methods available at that period in history they planned to take an eight feet tall, three tonne Bluestone from the Presceli Mountains (Mynydd Preseli in Welsh) around the Welsh coast and eventually to Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire [Mynydd Presceli is 135 miles from Stonehenge in a straight line; the roundabout sea-and-land route, which the builders probably used, is 240 miles long.] The scheme failed after just 17 miles when the stone sank in 50 feet of water off the Pembrokeshire coast.
telegraph.co.uk
BBC - Homepage
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