■245 



geant Colorations at &tttwg pill. 



By Alfeed C. Pass. 



iilLBURY HILL has been described so accurately by the 

 J Rev. A. C. Smith, in the " Wiltshire Magazine" for 1861, 

 ST has been so frequently referred to in this Magazine, that a 

 detailed description of the hill itself would be superfluous, But 

 before describing- my recent excavations I will refresh the memories 

 of readers by remarking that it is stated to be the greatest artificial 

 mound in Europe, covering about five acres of ground, it is 125ft. 

 high, and is level on the summit, where it measures 103ft. diameter. 



It is composed chiefly of chalk rubble, which was obtained by 

 excavating the solid chalk rock from the land surrounding the base 

 of the mound. 



In the belief that this great mound had been raised as a sepulchral 

 tumulus, it has been twice excavated and explored. In the year 

 1777 the Duke of Northumberland brought miners from Cornwall, 

 and sunk a shaft from the summit to the base of the hill. In 1849 

 the Archaeological Institute caused a tunnel to be made from the 

 south side to the centre of the hill, when the original nucleus or 

 central point was found, but no trace of sepulture was discovered. 

 A few fragments of deer's horns and some pieces of twisted grass 

 only rewarded their search. The deer's horns were, perhaps, the 

 broken tools used in excavating the chalk rock, of which the hill is 

 chiefly composed, and the twisted grass may have been remains of 

 the baskets in which the chalk was carried on the heads of the 

 builders. From the results of this examination, it may be inferred 

 that the mound is not sepulchral. If it had been, then, surely, in 

 the central point from which the hill was started, one would expect 

 to find some remains of the great dead in whose honour it was 

 erected. 



In describing the tunnel of 1849 the Dean of Hereford, in his 

 " Diary of a Dean/' says "Nothing could be more evident than the 



VOL. XXIII. NO. LXIX. S 



