At the Threshold of Eternity: A Journey into the Spirit World of the Neolithic Through West Kennet Long Barrow.
Updated: Oct 22, 2024
West Kennet Long Barrow: The Foundation of the Ceremonial Landscape of Neolithic Wiltshire
Welcome back to Stone Temple Gardening where we are busy cultivating new ideas dug deep from the rich cool earth of the ancient past!
My two previous posts were on Long Barrows, their forms and significance along with an introduction into their cultural and religious functions. Today, in order to draw all these threads into one, we are focusing on West Kennet Long Barrow. This post stands alone, but to really understand the depth of knowledge surrounding this essay I recommend reading my previous posts on Long Barrows here and here.
The West Kennet Long Barrow is a foundational tomb nestled in the heart of Wiltshire’s sacred ceremonial landscape. Held within its green mound are some of the most evocative lost stories of the Neolithic, echoes trapped beneath layers of time, waiting to rise and speak again of an age steeped in ritual, reverence, and a deep connection to the earth. As you stand before its towering façade of sarsen stones, you cannot help but feel the weight of history, a palpable presence of those who walked these lands thousands of years ago. The barrow is more than just a burial site; it is a testament to the beliefs, traditions, and cosmic worldview of a forgotten age. But masked beneath the earth and stones is something more magical—faces and figures, creatures and symbols etched into the very fabric of the barrow, their meanings lost to time, yet stirring the imagination. As you delve deeper into the secrets of West Kennet, the boundary between knowledge and legend begins to blur, and you find yourself standing at the crossroads of history and myth, eager to uncover what lies hidden beneath.
West Kennet Long Barrow
Introducing West Kennet Long Barrow.
The West Kennet Long Barrow, situated near the village and megalithic complex of Avebury in Wiltshire, is one of the most remarkable and well-preserved Neolithic chambered tombs in Britain. Along with the nearby larger, under investigated and out of bounds East Kennet Long Barrow, these ancient structures provide an invaluable glimpse into the rituals, beliefs, and mortuary practices of the Neolithic communities that constructed them. First erected around 3600 BCE, the twin Barrows have a good claim to be among the earliest foundational Neolithic monuments of the rich ceremonial landscape that grew up around them. Around 2000BCE and1,600 years later, West Kennet was ritually closed, a victim of the changing religious tides between the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. But despite this, and the weathering of the years, it still stands proud after 5,600 winters. Over time, archaeologists have proposed various interpretations of the significance of Long Barrows, from their alignment with celestial events to their role in the community as well as their connection to ancestral ceremony, worship, and the surrounding landscape.
Happy Day! Children Of The Stones: An Avebury Fantasy
I personally have visited West Kennet many times over the years. My first appearance was as a wide eyed 14-year-old, ushered inside by my gregarious geography teacher Mr Pell. Mr Pell loved these places and took us all over Avebury and beyond to many other extraordinary landscapes. That trip, along with the broadcasting of the phantasmagorical kids TV horror drama The Children of the Stones, I blame for starting my lifelong love of Avebury and Neolithic monuments in general. Ever since, I have taken great pleasure in introducing the wonders of the ancient past to friends and family, and now, dear reader, to your good self.
Source of the River Kennet at Swallowhead Springs
As one of the largest and certainly oldest Long Barrows in the UK, West Kennet is particularly impressive. Standing as it does proud close to the summit of a ridge near the source of the river Kennet. The path starts opposite the younger Silbury Hill and rises past the rag-tied trees above the Swallowhead Springs. looking up as you walk the barrow plays hide-and-seek before finally rising majestically and settling on the skyline like some beached, broken-backed whale, laid on its belly as if contemplating the view. Its magnificent portal of sarsen stones emerge like broken smooth-edged teeth, nibbling the landscape and smiling crookedly at the sky. The site was originally open to the east to let the rising sun and moon - especially at the equinoxes - shine in to illuminate the interior chamber. After the blocking sarsens were erected, the ritual forecourt threshold was filled in with clods of insulating earth and small stones to permanently seal the entrance. Fortunately, it has now been reopened.
The Blocking Megaliths of 2000BCE
The Barrow
The barrow itself reaches a time weathered height of ten and a half feet and broadens as it stretches eastward from its narrower western edge to a grand breadth of 82 feet near the entrance. Measuring just over 328 feet in length (a precise 100 meters) it is second in size only to its neighbour, the East Kennet Barrow. Once, it would have stood stark and luminous, like a beacon on the landscape, its sides of ghost-white chalk gleaming against the earth as if carved from moonlight itself. Now cloaked in the soft, green mantle of turf, it retains the secrets of millennia, its heart made of sarsen stones, encased in the chalk rubble quarried from the ditches that embrace it. I have often mused on the shapes of long barrows. Why so...well long! Personally, I think they look like sacred polished stone hand axes that are found as ritual deposits in many barrows including at least two at West Kennet. I will explore this idea in my next blog post. Watch this space!
Plan of West Kennet With Blocking Stones in White
From the eastern end of the mound and tunneling westward into its depths, lie five shadowy internal chambers, opening off a central passageway that is framed by a semicircular forecourt of colossal sarsen stones aligned along the north-south axis of the entrance. The passage burrows some 42 feet into the mound's core, with two burial chambers on either side and a final, solitary chamber awaiting at the passage's end. Shafts of light trickle through small glass windows embedded in its ceiling by generous restorers, illuminating the mysterious once dark interior. This cave like construction has been theorised as a mirror of older, darker sepulchers inside deep caves. An evocation of ancestral rites from the deep past into the New Age of the Neolithic.
Original Entrance With North Facing Calf-Lintel Stone
Exploring the Barrow
Although time and the plough have softened West Kennet’s once-sharp edges and buried the side ditches to the north and south, the site still speaks to you, whispering murmurs of its ancient past to those who will listen. Last time I visited I started by standing alone on the mound’s summit at dusk. A panorama unfolded revealing the haunting silhouettes of Silbury Hill, East Kennet Barrow, the Avenue, the Sanctuary and distant, dreaming Windmill Hill. All stood in eternal witness to the mysteries of this most sacred of landscapes. For the visitor clambering through the blocking stones you will come to the original porch of the ceremonial temple-grave. Above you on the lintel is a clear image of a calf gazing north towards Avebury like a guardian carved in stone, forever watching the horizon with unblinking eyes. Just inside looking south but not quite as clear is another, as if both creatures were placed to stand vigil over the ancient temple-tomb, their stony gazes holding the mysteries of past and present while whispering to the ghosts of their creators.
In Neolithic Britain, cattle held profound symbolic importance, their hulking forms often intertwined with both the mundane and the mystical. They were not merely sources of sustenance; they embodied power, wealth, and the connection between humans and the natural world. To offer a beast in death was to invoke primal forces, binding the community to the earth and the ancestors. This ritualistic practice left its mark in the long barrows, where the remains of cattle lay interred alongside human bones, suggesting a shared journey into the afterlife.
At West Kennet Long Barrow, excavation revealed the presence of cattle bones. These remains were primarily found in the chambers and passageways of the barrow, intermingled with human skeletons. The bones were often fragmented, suggesting that the cattle may have been butchered as part of ceremonial feasting or ritual offerings. Jawbones and skull fragments were unearthed, potentially symbolizing the sacrifice of strength and fertility. The ritual importance of cattle here—whether as symbolic protectors of the dead or as offerings to the ancestors—highlights their role in the communal practices that sustained Neolithic spirituality.
The deliberate placement of these bones within the barrow speaks to the reverence with which cattle were regarded in death, echoing the reverence given to the human dead. These remains are a testament to how cattle were interwoven with the sacred landscape, offering a tangible connection between the living, the dead, and the land that sustained them all.
Inner Portal With North Facing Calf-Lintel
As an aside, there is another image of a Bull's head in profile that I spotted on the lintel stone at the Long Barrow called Hetty Peglar's Tump near Uley, Gloucestershire. Its horn is clearly visible as is its neckline and snout, and a possible closed eye.
Bull's Head at Portal on the Lintel Stone of Hetty Pegler's Tump. Also called Uley Long Barrow
Into the Tomb-Temple
As you tread softly inside, keep an attentive eye on the details hidden within. Along the left side of the main passage, just inside the entrance, stands a towering sarsen stone etched with two parallel grooves, as if marked by the hands of time itself. Deeper within, near the second chamber on the same side, another stone reveals a sleek, vertical groove worn smooth by countless rituals. These are no ordinary stones; they are “polissoirs”, ancient polishing stones once used to hone the sacred ceremonial axes that the trapezoid shape of so many Long Barrows mirror. For generations, the axeheads were meticulously drawn across these stones, stroke upon stroke carving grooves into the rock’s surface, slowly yet relentlessly. These stones, shaped by the rhythm of craftsmanship, held their purpose long before they found their place in the tomb. Why, you might wonder, did the builders choose to enshrine these stones within? Perhaps they understood that even the most natural of objects carry histories as powerful as the monuments they help create.
The Polissoir Stone
Now inside, more cold stone greets the visitor. An expectant silence pregnant with possibility enfolds the listener. As your eyes adjust to the shadows within the ancient heart of the chamber, over forty great sarsen stones are slowly revealed as silent custodians, their surfaces weathered yet timeless, bearing witness to millennia of reverence and ritual. Corbelling stones arch overhead, and heavy capping stones crown the sacred gallery, creating a structure that leads deep along the temple’s spine into the soul of the barrow. Here, five distinct cells lie—one at the western terminus, and two flanking each side of the central passage, each a portal to a forgotten world.
Centuries of Ritual Use
Before its sealing, this chambered tomb cradled the dead for centuries, a place where the living returned time and again to polish their axes, pray to their gods and lay their kin to rest. But unlike modern burials, these remains were not settled into the earth in quiet repose. The bones were laid in disarray, fragmented and disarticulated, moved and manipulated as part of an ongoing ritual of remembrance and reverence. Archaeologists unearthed the remains of at least 46 individuals, their bones shuffled and reshaped over time, as if their spirits still mingled with the living. These Neolithic practices—where bodies were exposed to the elements, de-fleshed by nature, wind and sun, before their bones were gathered into the sacred stone chambers—tell of a belief in the continuity of life and death. Each movement of a bone, each reorganization of a skeleton, was part of a cycle that transcended modern notions of death as a terminus… an entombment… an End…
Earth, Stone, and Bone
DNA studies, led by researchers such as Alison Sheridan, have peeled back the layers of time to reveal that many of the individuals accumulated and deposited here were bound by blood. These long barrows were not just communal resting places but ancestral sanctuaries, where families intertwined with the landscape, and lineage became sacred. The very act of placing these bones was an acknowledgment of belonging, a return to the land from which they had sprung. Ashes to ashes… dust to dust… bones to Earth…
The Triple Goddess
The Goddess of the Barrow: Professor Terrence Meaden
Despite the lifelessness we might now associate with such places, some, like myself and Professor Terrence Meaden, believe that West Kennet Long Barrow was more than a tomb—it was also a temple. In his eyes, it was a place where life and death, the Earth Mother and the turning of the seasons converged. Meaden describes it as a "death-and-rebirth-tomb-temple" where the influence of the Earth Mother made this monument far more than a mere resting place for bones—it was a site of sacred ritual and cosmic connection.
Meaden’s theories reach beyond mere burial. Although he seems to have missed the portal calf stones, he points to subtle carvings and simulacra—natural or intentional— that adorn both the inner sanctum and the outer stones. Though controversial, with some scholars dismissing these forms as mere tricks of the mind or instances of pareidolia, Meaden’s vision of a living, breathing stone temple remains compelling. And yet, even if pareidolia—the human tendency to see familiar patterns in randomness—is at work here, this does not lessen the power of the stones. If we, with modern eyes, see faces, creatures, and symbols, then surely the Neolithic builders, also divined meaning and magic from these forms. The stones, carefully chosen, delicately placed, may have held mystical power because they echoed life—living rock imbued with spirit.
Spirits in Stone
Meaden identifies subtle figures in the stones: on the outside entrance stone he sees a large vulva-shaped fissure that for him symbolises the Earth Mother and the sacred womb from which all life emerges. Inside is a carved ewe’s head that catches the light of the pre-equinoctial sun. These figures, he argues, are not mere accident but deliberate symbols, invoking the power of the divine feminine, of spring’s renewal, and the eternal cycle of life and death.
The Ewe's Head at West Kennet
As the Seasons Turn...
At the heart of Meaden’s interpretation is the alignment of these carvings with the seasons. The ewe’s head is illuminated by the rising sun of late winter. It speaks to the ancient festival of Imbolc—the time of lambing and the ewe’s flow of life-giving milk. Another figure he describes, facing the western chamber, is illuminated by the spring equinox, its feminine profile embodying the Earth Mother herself. A third stands between, skull like, signalling the death of winter and new life coming. An argument fortified by the discovery of an infant’s cranium buried beneath. Together, these figures chart the passage of time, as winter gives way to spring, and life stirs anew within the barrow.
The Inner Sanctum: Face of the Earth Goddess on the Left.
Face of the Goddess
More Faces?
Stone 21 Face
In the southwest chamber, three cup marks carved into a sarsen stone align with three female human skulls found beneath—a child, a woman of childbearing age, and an elder. For Meaden, these are more than relics of a forgotten past—they are the physical manifestation of the triple goddess, the Maiden, Mother, and Crone, presiding over the sacred tomb. This symbolism, repeated across the ancient world, speaks to a time when life, death, and rebirth were seen as an eternal, cyclical dance, played out under the watchful eye of the Earth Mother. To add to Meaden’s story are the calves heads guarding the inner and outer thresholds to the chamber. One looks north, the other south. What symbolism could they signal? What tales of lost times? What stories of the pastoral magic of the ancestors do they keep, guard, and hide?
The Triple Goddess of the Moon
Echoes of the Ancestors
Researcher Steve Marshall has delved even deeper into the mysteries of the inner chambers by analysing the mystical acoustics of the Barrow. Its two pairs of chambers have remarkable acoustic properties. Recording the echoes of his singing voice he notes that both sets hum with a resonance that echoes the ancient harmony of a musical "perfect fourth," linked to a ratio of 4:3, determined by the very proportions of the chambers themselves. These chambers, like many others in the Cotswold-Severn tombs, are meticulously crafted in this 4:3 ratio, as if the builders sought to harmonize space with sound.
See my blog that includes a discussion on sacred ratios at Stonehenge, The Pyramids and Oracle of Delphi . Neolithic Cursi: The Forgotten Link Between Earth, Sky, Sacred Geometry and Stonehenge
3:4 Resonance in Space
But beyond this, the central passage of West Kennet reverberates with a deep, primal frequency, so low it could stir the very soul, capable of inducing psychological effects. This unique acoustic design, echoed in other Neolithic tombs, suggests more than coincidence. It whispers of an intentional use, a ritual purpose, where sound and space merged to transform human experience in ways lost to time yet still felt in the silent resonance of the stones.
In sacred geometry and architecture, the 4:3 ratio holds a profound significance, deeply rooted in both mathematical elegance and spiritual symbolism. This simple yet powerful proportion has been woven through the ages into the design of temples, tombs, and sacred spaces, its harmonious balance resonating with ancient perceptions of the universe’s inherent order.
Mathematically, the 4:3 ratio embodies a perfect equilibrium. It reflects a fundamental relationship between numbers that ancient civilisations revered. The Greeks, and particularly the Pythagoreans, saw these proportions as expressions of cosmic harmony—where balance, unity, and strength converge. This is no mere aesthetic choice; it is a deliberate echo of the universal patterns that shape the world, a bridge between the tangible and the metaphysical. The ratio speaks to the physical world’s solidity, symbolised by the number four—earth, air, fire, and water—while the number three often represents the divine, the trinity, the sacred. Together, the 4:3 ratio is a poetic interaction of earth and heaven, material and spirit, making it perfect for spaces intended to invoke a sense of the divine and express the trinity of the Triple Goddess.
But this ratio’s influence is not limited to the visual realm—it reaches into the auditory world, shaping the very sound within a space. When architecture embraces the 4:3 proportion, it creates a soundscape steeped in harmony. Such spaces resonate with frequencies that correspond to the interval of a perfect fourth, a musical harmony that ancient cultures perceived as inherently balanced and complete. These chambers, whether they are tombs or temples, are designed to hum with an otherworldly music—a resonance that vibrates in tune with the fabric of the universe.
Music of the Spheres
The acoustics in a space shaped by the 4:3 ratio are not merely pleasant—they are transformative. These dimensions amplify sound in ways that can evoke powerful psychological and even physical effects. Low frequencies, often produced by narrow passages or grand chambers like those found in the West Kennet long barrow, reverberate at deep, primal tones that can stir the soul. Such low resonances, tied to the perfect fourth, wrap around the listener like an unseen presence, inducing a state of calm, focus, or even transcendence. This is not accidental—our ancestors may have purposefully crafted these spaces to influence the mind and spirit, using sound to open doorways to altered states of consciousness during rituals.
The magic of such proportions is not only in what the eye sees but in what the body feels and the soul perceives. Chanting, drumming, or even speaking within a 4:3 space becomes an act of communion, as the space itself sings back, amplifying the sounds, reinforcing the ritual, and deepening the connection between participants and the sacred. These proportions, far from arbitrary, were meticulously chosen to heighten the spiritual atmosphere, binding together the senses of sight, sound, and space in a powerful, unified experience.
Thus, the 4:3 ratio in sacred architecture serves as a silent, invisible guide, ushering those who enter into a deeper awareness of the world’s underlying harmony. It is a reminder that both space and sound can work in concert to shape not only our physical surroundings but also the unseen dimensions of human experience. In such spaces, one is not merely a visitor but a participant in a cosmic symphony, where the material world and the divine resonate in perfect unity.
Communion
Conclusion
And so, as the light shifts and shadows lengthen across the stones, faces of ewe, calf, and Goddess emerge, some of their forms only visible to those who know how to look. Flickering in the torch light, bringing them to life like ghosts from the past, as they stand over the threshold and cave like womb, silent witnesses to the rites of spring and the mysteries of the universe. Chanting reverberates and uplifts the initiate, awakening the ancestors as Time's Loom spins their souls together in the shadows, within the stones, and in the earth...
As I stand at the summit and twilight dims, the sun sinks low while the shadows lengthen across the ancient stones of West Kennet Long Barrow. Here it is easy to feel the pull of the past—those distant, mysterious echoes of a time when the land and its people were intertwined in ways we can barely comprehend. Whether you see the faces and animals as tricks of light, sculpted by nature, or as deliberate markers of a sacred worldview, or listening to the reverberent echoes of your breath within the chambers, both stir something deep within me, connecting the living to the long dead. Their meaning, like so much else at West Kennet, remains elusive, yet they speak to something deep and enduring—a connection between our lives and theirs, the land and its people, that has survived across the ages. The barrow, with its weathered stones and enduring presence, remains a place of awe, where time circles and the ancient spirits seem to stir beneath the turf calling to those who stand upon its summit or step into its silent, sacred chambers. West Kennet Long Barrow is more than a relic of time; it is a doorway into the mystical, a portal into the past where imagination, memory, and history meet, and the ancestors still speak through the susurrant murmurings of the ancient stones themselves. Next time you visit, take with you a sense of awe, a sense of reverence, a sense of wonder. Tread lightly, leave no stain, enter with open heart. Close your eyes and imagine, breathe, listen and experience the glory, the magnificence the sheer splendour of this ancient temple and tomb.
Alexander Peach. October 2024
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Epitaph
An Invocation...
Between Earth and Stone...
Imagine… you are at the heart of a Neolithic long barrow,
A mystical air stirs, breathing in timeless secrets.
Pale light trickles through slender crevices,
Casting shadows that sway like stray spirits on the cool, damp walls.
Each surface speaks a story,
Garlanded with relics of antiquity:
Shards of shattered pottery—
Broken, bleached, and brittle—
Scattered bones,
Twisting like roots around a sacred stone axe,
Whispering stories of long-lost hands.
At the axis, the burial mound rises—
Silent, solemn—
As still as freshly laid earth, cool and damp beneath the weight of time,
Cradling the remains of lineages long gone,
Wrapped in woven fabrics, laid in caskets of earth,
Oak, and stone.
Silent testaments to those who have crossed
Into the arms of eternity.
Encircling sacred space,
Time-worn figures, grey as hoarfrost,
Stand silent, staring into infinity—
Etched symbols, ancient motifs,
Traces of time without end,
And spirits that linger unseen
Between.
The air thickens,
Sharp with fiery herbs that cling to the skin,
Tendrils of resin coil into haunted shadows,
Sealing the chamber with the gifts of ghostly dreams.
Figures move softly—initiates in the sacrament,
Adorned in raiment,
Simple, sacred,
Their gestures considered,
And steeped in veneration.
Softly, they chant, their voices low…
Like a breeze that whispers through leaves,
Calling to the spirits of the ancestors,
Sharing the stories of lineage,
Twisting, weaving, winding the past and present into one,
Like the loom of time pulling souls from above,
Into the stone-cold earth beneath.
Beyond these walls, twilight descends,
Ancestral inks spill across the sky,
Bathing the land in a glowing, ethereal radiance.
The setting sun smiles in soft sanctity,
As the world tempers beneath the weight of twilight’s ancient embrace,
It is as if the Earth itself remembers the spirits long buried within.
Here, at this moment, in this place,
The essence of Neolithic life endures—
Bound by earth, spirit, and blood
Pulsing in the endless rhythm of eternity...
Alexander Peach
October 2024.
Marvellous!! Thank you for a story so far back in time that it takes the telling of it to remind us who we were .... and now are, in essence.