140 Congress of British Archceologieal Association at Devizes. 



the bank was for the accommodation of the people. The two circles 

 inside the area he felt assm-ed must have been intended for some 

 sort of religious rites connected with processions which probably 

 entered and retired by the avenues. 



Mr. Myers pointed out that here was an example of a work being 

 constructed without the use of tools^ a fact corresponding with the 

 Scriptural record of the injunction to the ancient Israelites that no 

 tool should pass over their altars. Abury was without doubt by far 

 the largest and most interesting pre-historic monument in England, 

 and indeed — except at Carnac — he knew of nothing to be compared 

 with it. 



Dr. Stevens asked the company to consider a circumstance which 

 had struck him as worth notice, that in respect to the number of 

 stones, the multiple of three seemed to be adopted, as twelve, thirty, 

 the numbers they had heard stated, with reference to the outer and 

 inner circles of each of the two temples. The recurrence of the 

 number three was most significant, in all kinds of matters, and 

 might be noticed with great frequency in public-house signs, as 

 "Three Crowns," "Three Tuns," "Three Cups," "Three Bells," 

 &c,, indeed the mystic properties of that number might be in- 

 definitely descanted on. He believed that all these circles were 

 based on multiples of three. 



Mr. CuNNiNGTON, speaking of the " Sarsens," remarked that 

 they were the remains of a layer of sandstone which once overlaid 

 the chalk ; he deeply regi-etted the breaking up and removal of so 

 many of them for building purposes. 



Mr. Morgan, P.S.A., suggested that the word " Abury " was 

 derived, not from the Saxon ea (a river), but from the Icelandic root 

 aar (a year) , and that the name meant a yearly assembly of people. 



Mr. Brock, F.S.A., gave it as his decided opinion that this was 

 a temple, and that the two avenues described the form of a serpent, 

 of which the head existed in the form of a double circle on Overton 

 Hill. 



Mr. Smith then led the party round the remaining portion of 

 the vallum, and afterwards to the more important of the stones still 

 standing, including two which formed part of the cove in the centre 



