Stone 7, South-West Quadrant, Avebury Henge - (January 2020)     

Explanatory Materials Appear Below This Image - Please Scroll Down To View

 

 


Faces on the north side of Stone 7 (forgive my lack of drawing skill!):

 

No.1   Large east (left) looking "D" face:

Intriguingly this very distinctive version of the "D" type face is repeated on West Kennet Avenue Stone 34A.  That stone has a similar and highly distinctive left facing profile its western side, although it doesn't appear to have an eye like Stone 7 above.   The similarity makes me wonder if these two stones had the same sculptor or represent the same character.


 

No.2   Gaunt east-looking face, gazing up slightly, perhaps to the risen sun?:

CF Di Pattison's "Avebury's Stones Book" p188


 


 

No.3   I've been looking at this partial face for a long time, trying to decide if it is carved or is merely pareidolic. I've decided that it is a real carving after all because ...

a]   ... both faces No.2 (above) and No.3 are sited on the same side of the same monolith and appear to looking in exactly the same direction - this is surely unlikely to be accidental. These faces appear linked and complementary not only by relative location, but by theme. The No.3 face appears alive, with flesh and hooded eyes.   By contrast, there is something scary and gaunt about face No.2, with expressionless eyes and flattened nose.   I wonder therefore if the two faces are side by side representations of the same person before and after death both looking eastwards hopefully to the life giving/resurrecting sunrise? I seem to have seen a broadly similar set of faces in the Beckhampton Cove.
 


b]   ... face No.3 bears an amazing resemblance to a comparable face on the lower flank of nearby Stone 10. Both faces share similar styles, left profiling and analogous positioning on the north sides of nearly adjacent stones, these unusual resonances strongly suggest
artificiality. This pair of wonderful lithic cartoon portraits are so alike that I seriously wonder if they were carved by the same artist.
 


 

No.4   Ewe zenith-seeker:

 

I wonder if this distinctive animal face is a copy of the one I discovered out at West Kennet Long Barrow (Facade, Stone 2)?   I've stated elsewhere on this website my belief that the art built into that earlier barrow (presumably by the Windmill Hill People) was subsequently referenced in some of the stone faces on display here in the main henge and also in West Kennet Avenue (both built by the incoming Beaker People). 

I have also noticed a sheeps face on Stone 44, visible here.  



 

Image copyright David Baldwin Night Photography