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The Avebury Vulvas/Yoni Symbols - Click On The Thumbails For Larger Images
Avebury expressed a religious
belief in a sacred cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. It should be no
surprise then to appreciated that Avebury was constructed with many
direct references to rebirth and creative femine power. Avebury symbolises sacred rebirth by displaying carvings/selected simulacra of vulvas, these are intended to counterbalance the various
stone skulls around the site, skulls which of course are frightening symbols
of death.
A is carved onto the large central facade Stone 45 at West Kennet Long Barrow, a barrow which was the early center of Avebury's rebirth religion.
C is known as the Vulva Stone, important because scholars have shown that on a certain spring day, at dawn, it received the shadow of an (now lost male) upright stone in a crucial neolithic religious sacred conception ceremony.
D is very unusual and its location renders it particularly important. It is on the south side of Cove Stone I. The main feature is (I believe) a naturally ocurring roothole or something of that sort, a kind of empty fossil recording the site of some long lost bush or tree that used to grow in the soft sediment that after millions of years became sarsen. However, although the circular shape is natural, and not a carving, I believe its existence was valued by Avebury's creators and this is partly why this stone was selected to be the south flanking stone of the famous and ceremonially crucial Cove. It occurs to me that when light from the rising sun or moon tangentially hits this circular feature, the aperture appears (relatively speaking) to lengthen vertically, and contract horizontally, until it presents a vulvar appearance. As this feature shares this side of the sarsen with a giant depiction of a hare* (representing fertility), we can interpret this side of the monolith as celebrating rebirth. Conversely, the other, north facing side of Cove Stone I displays a rather sinister horned face which looks broadly to the west. Does this latter face represent Death? (Click here to view).
* To see the hare please click on thumbnail D above and scroll down the page that opens to see the explanatory graphic there.
Please aso see Di Pattison's "Avebury's Stones" CD p 23.3.html
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