The Dashka Stone: Map of the Creator

In 1999, a professor at Bashkir State University in Russia named Alexander Chuvyrov made a remarkable archeological discovery. He was called to the house of Vladimir Krainov, who reported a strange slab buried in his backyard. Chuvyrov was instantly intrigued, as he had been searching for similar slabs that have been cited in various historical manuscripts. The slab was so heavy that it took over a week to unearth. The discovery was named the Dashka stone and later titled the Map of the Creator. The artifact is approximately 5 feet high, 3.5 feet wide, .5 feet thick, and weighs at least one ton. The stone was investigated and determined to be some sort of three-dimensional relief map of the Ural Region. Today the military uses similar maps to measure elevation and terrain. The Dashka stone reportedly contains representations of civil engineering work, weirs, an irrigation system, and powerful dams. To date, the ancient technology used to make the map is unknown and extremely advanced.

The map also contains numerous inscriptions. At first, the scientists thought that it was an Old Chinese language, although it was later reported that the inscriptions were done in a hieroglyphic-syllabic language of unknown origin. A group of Russian and Chinese specialists in the fields of cartography, physics, mathematics, geology, chemistry, and Old Chinese language researched the artifact and were the ones that identified it as a map of Ural region, with rivers Belya, Ufimka, and Sutolka listed.

Dating of the slab was reported to be over 100 million years old, but no reliable resources citing evidence of what type of test were used or the exact results could be found. If the Map of the Creator is genuine then it would suggest the existence of an ancient highly developed civilization. Researchers have claimed that a three-dimensional map of this order could have only been used for navigational purposes. Many websites claim that the slab is proof of ancient flight. Recent discoveries indicate that the slab is a piece of a larger artifact.

The Dashka stone continues to undergo scientific testing and is not available for public viewing.

http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-bizarre-a … veries.php
http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/04/30/28149.html
http://www.itogi.ru/paper2002.nsf/Artic … _0237.html

California’s Mysterious Blythe Intaglios: America’s Nazca Lines

The Blythe Intaglios or Blythe Geoglyphs are a group of gigantic figures found on the ground near Blythe, California. The intaglios are found about 15 miles (24 km) north of downtown Blythe, just west of U.S. Highway 95. The largest human figure is 171 feet (52 m) long. The intaglios are best viewed from the air.

The figures are so immense that they were not observed by non-Indians until the 1930s.  The set of geoglyphs includes several dozen figures and a labrynth, thought to be ceremonial in nature. They are believed to date from 1000 AD but could range from 450 to 10,000 years old. Although most think they were created by Mojave and Quechan Indians, their true origin is unknown. Many believe, due to their similarities of the Nazca Lines in Peru, that they are extraterrestrial in origin.

The (re)discovery of the Blythe Intaglios: In 1932, a pilot flying between Las Vegas and Blythe noticed the Blythe geoglyphs as they are only truly visible by air.

The labyrinth, known as The Topock Maze, covers 18 acres (73,000 m²) and consists of a series of parallel windrows (a row of trimmed crops) about five feet apart. A late 19th century unpublished ethnographic report states that the Mojave people used to put some of their men into the center of the maze, leaving them to find their way out without crossing the windrows.

Edward Curtis wrote in 1908 that, “It is believed that by running in and out through one of these immense labyrinths, one haunted with a dread [ghost] may bewilder the spirit occasioning it, and thus elude them.”  In other words, a way to ditch a ghost.

Via: ACuriousHistory

The Voynich Manuscript

Written in Central Europe at the end of the 15th or during the 16th century, the origin, language, and date of the Voynich Manuscript—named after the Polish-American antiquarian bookseller, Wilfrid M. Voynich, who acquired it in 1912—are still being debated as vigorously as its puzzling drawings and undeciphered text. Described as a magical or scientific text, nearly every page contains botanical, figurative, and scientific drawings of a provincial but lively character, drawn in ink with vibrant washes in various shades of green, brown, yellow, blue, and red.

Based on the subject matter of the drawings, the contents of the manuscript falls into six sections:
1) botanicals containing drawings of 113 unidentified plant species;
2) astronomical and astrological drawings including astral charts with radiating circles, suns and moons, Zodiac symbols such as fish (Pisces), a bull (Taurus), and an archer (Sagittarius), nude females emerging from pipes or chimneys, and courtly figures;
3) a biological section containing a myriad of drawings of miniature female nudes, most with swelled abdomens, immersed or wading in fluids and oddly interacting with interconnecting tubes and capsules;
4) an elaborate array of nine cosmological medallions, many drawn across several folded folios and depicting possible geographical forms;
5) pharmaceutical drawings of over 100 different species of medicinal herbs and roots portrayed with jars or vessels in red, blue, or green, and
6) continuous pages of text, possibly recipes, with star-like flowers marking each entry in the margins.

History of the Collection
Like its contents, the history of ownership of the Voynich manuscript is contested and filled with some gaps. The codex belonged to Emperor Rudolph II of Germany (Holy Roman Emperor, 1576-1612), who purchased it for 600 gold ducats and believed that it was the work of Roger Bacon. It is very likely that Emperor Rudolph acquired the manuscript from the English astrologer John Dee (1527-1608). Dee apparently owned the manuscript along with a number of other Roger Bacon manuscripts. In addition, Dee stated that he had 630 ducats in October 1586, and his son noted that Dee, while in Bohemia, owned “a booke…containing nothing butt Hieroglyphicks, which booke his father bestowed much time upon: but I could not heare that hee could make it out.” Emperor Rudolph seems to have given the manuscript to Jacobus Horcicky de Tepenecz (d. 1622), an exchange based on the inscription visible only with ultraviolet light on folio 1r which reads: “Jacobi de Tepenecz.” Johannes Marcus Marci of Cronland presented the book to Athanasius Kircher (1601-1680) in 1666. In 1912, Wilfred M. Voynich purchased the manuscript from the Jesuit College at Frascati near Rome. In 1969, the codex was given to the Beinecke Library by H. P. Kraus, who had purchased it from the estate of Ethel Voynich, Wilfrid Voynich’s widow.

For a complete look at all the Voynich catalog’s pages visit Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Libraries Slideshow here.  You can also read a detailed chemical analysis of the Voynich Manuscript here.

Via: BoingBoing & Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library

The Holy Lines and The Extersteine

About the same time ley lines were first introduced by Alfred Watkins (1855–1935) in the 1920s, a German evangelical parson named Wilhelm Teudt proposed a similar theory he called heilige linien (holy lines) that linked a number of standing stones, churches, crosses, and other objects of spiritual significance in Germany. Teudt’s holy line theory met the same fate as Watkins’s ley lines. There were so many possibilities for connecting a variety of objects on a landscape that the odds were better of finding alignments than not finding them.

Teudt made another observation that had more lasting significance. He noted that an ancient chamber constructed in the naturally formed megaliths called the Extersteine had a circular window that formed a point where rays of light at the midsummer solstice shone through, and where the moon was visible when it reached its northernmost position. He believed the Neolithic peoples (before 2000 B.C.E.) had used the site as an astronomical observatory and a calendar.

The Extersteine, which lies at the approximate latitude as Stonehenge in Great Britain, is a natural site of five sandstone pillars rising 120 feet above an area filled with caves and grottoes. It served as a ritual center for nomadic reindeer hunters, and later was the site of pagan rituals until the eighth century, when such rituals were forbidden by law. Christian monks took over the site and set up crosses and reliefs depicting biblical scenes. They abandoned it after about 1600. Many people continued to visit the Extersteine, claiming they were aware of its energy and that their physical ailments had been cured by walking among or rubbing against the stones.

Via: EncyclopediaOfTheUnusualAndUnexplained

The Los Lunas Decalogue Stone

The Los Lunas Decalogue Stone is a large boulder on the side of Hidden Mountain, near Los Lunas, New Mexico, about 35 miles south of Albuquerque. The stone bears an inscription carved into a flat panel. The inscription is interpreted by some to be an abridged version of the Decalogue or Ten Commandments in a form of Paleo-Hebrew.

The inscription has been translated by the Epigraphic Society as follows:

I (am) Yahweh [the Eternal] Eloah [your God] who brought you out of the land of Mitsrayim [Mizraim or the two Egypts] out of the house of bondages. You shall not have other [foreign] gods in place of (me). You shall not make for yourself molded (or carved) idols [graven images]. You shall not lift up your voice to connect the name of Yahweh in hate. Remember you (the) Sabbath to make it holy. Honor your father and your mother to make long your existence upon the land which Yahweh Eloah [the Eternal your God] gave to you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery (or idolatry).You shall not steal (or deceive). You shall not bear witness against your neighbor, testimony for a bribe. You shall not covet (the) wife of your neighbour and all which belongs to your neighbour.

A letter group resembling the tetragrammaton YHWH, or ‘Yahweh,’ makes four appearances on the stone. The first recorded mention of the artifact is from 1933, when Professor Frank Hibben, an archaeologist from the University of New Mexico, reportedly saw it.

Hibben was led to the stone by an unnamed guide who claimed to have found it as a boy in the 1880s. If this information is accurate, a forgery would be unlikely because the Paleo-Hebrew script was unknown to scholars in the 1880s.

One argument against the stone’s authenticity is the apparent use of Modern Hebrew punctuation, although epigrapher Barry Fell argued that the punctuation is consistent with antiquity.

Other researchers dismiss the artifact based on the numerous stylistic and grammatical errors that appear in the inscription. The stone is controversial because many feel the artifact is Pre-Columbian and proof of early Semitic contact with the Americas, providing evidence that people from Israel settled in America.

Because of the stone’s weight of over 80 tons, it was never moved to a museum or laboratory for study and safekeeping. The stone is accessible to visitors by purchasing a $25 Recreational Access Permit from the New Mexico State Land Office.

The Dropa Stones

On the border of China and Tibet in the remote mountains of Bayan-Kara-Ula a truly amazing discovery was made in the 1930’s during the exploration of  the interlinked tunnels. A team lead by Chinese archaeologist, Professor Chu Pu Tei had been exploring the caves when they came upon a series of very unusual but neatly arranged burial sites containing the skeletons of creatures with spindly bodies and disproportionally huge skulls and were originally thought to have been the remains of the a Tibetan Ape. But that explanation was quickly ruled out by the fact that Ape’s do not bury their dead. After further more modern techniques of  testing, it has led experts to believe that these skeletal remains belong to an ancient unknown race of a humanoids.

They also went on to find cave paintings portraying beings wearing round helmets along with the Sun, Moon, Earth and stars all being connected by small dots. It became quickly obvious the paintings were some sort of map, undoubtedly made by intelligent beings. The carbon dating tests reviled that the findings were around 12,000 years old and the fact that the cranial cavity of these beings were so large would indicate that these beings were extremely intelligent and had very large brains but the skeletons were a little more than three feet tall.

This is where the mystery just begins. In addition to finding a new species of humanoid unknown to the world, while examining the surrounding caves Yei and his men also discovered what might be the most incredible, tangible artifacts in human history. 716 stone disks ranging anywhere from 9 inches to 3 feet in diameter and 3/4 to 3 inches thick with an engraved spiral going from the outside edge to the hole in the center of the disk. After close examination of the disks it was realized that the engraved spirals were actually code for something, a type of language unknown to any one on the planet. The disks came to be known as The Dropa Stones.

The strange new unknown written language dates back to 10,000 BC. Our earliest written language that’s recorded in the history books dates back to 3500 BC in Sumeria and the first Chinese inscriptions date to about 1200 BC.

The Dropa Stones were sent to a variety of scholars for investigation. One of them, Professor Tsum Um Nui of the Beijing Academy for Ancient Studies, found that the spiral grooves were actually a line of characters written in an unknown language. In 1962, he announced that he had managed to translate the language. For a long time, the Peking Academy of Prehistory forbade the professor from publishing anything about the Dropa Stones. However, after many years of debate he published his hypothesis.

Here is one of the translations made by Nui:

An alien spacecraft crashed in the Bayan Har Shan region 12,000 years ago. The occupants were aliens called Dropa or Dzopa. The Dropa could not repair their craft, so they tried to adapt to the conditions on Earth. Meanwhile, the local Ham tribesmen hunted down and killed most of the aliens. Supposedly, the aliens had intermarried with the locals, making identification of the origins of the skeletons more difficult.

Another translation described how the Ham tribe showed remorse and regret that their spaceship crash-landed in such a remote mountain range having no way to repair their ship and that the Dropa would be stuck on earth forever never being able to return to their home planet. Since this incredible discovery, archeologists and anthropologists have learned much more then what was known about the isolated Bayan-Kara-Ula mountains and the people that inhabited them. An old legend still told by locals speak of small, gaunt, yellow faced men who came from the stars, long, long ago.

In 1968, a Russian scientist named W. Saitsew published a paper on the subject of extraterrestrials visiting earth throughout story and some of the information was gathered from the works of Nui. The Russians became very interested in the stone disks and later had some of the disks examined in a Moscow laboratory where two extraordinary discoveries were made. One, is that the disks contained traces of metal, mostly cobalt. Two, is the fact that when the disks were placed on a special turntable, they hummed in a very unusual rhythm as if they had an electrical charge going through them.

After that, nothing was heard of the disk for years, until a Austrian engineer by the name of Ernst Wegener in 1974, spotted the disks in Xian at the Banpo Museum, although the director of the museum could tell him nothing about the disks, he was aloud to take some photographs and hold them in his hands. All he had was a Polaroid camera and many of the photo’s circulating today are the one’s Wegner took.

Hartwig Hausdorf who is author of many book covering UFO’s, the Chinese Pyramids and other X-file conspiracy’s, once he heard the disks went to the museum in Xian he decided to examine the disks for himself in 1994.  When he contacted the director of the museum, he was told that the disks had disappeared with no explanation to their whereabouts.

Then in 1995 a special news report was released by Chinese government:

“In the province of Sichuan, which lies on the eastern border of the Baian-Kara-Ula mountains, 120 people of a previously ethnologically unclassified tribe have been discovered. The most important aspect of this new tribe is the size of its people: No taller than 3 ft. 10 in., the smallest adult measuring only 2 ft. 1 in! This discovery might be the first hard evidence on the existence of the Dropa/Dzopa – a people whose predecessors are said to have come from the stars.”

These two tribes still exist today in the isolated area between Tibet and China, though the two tribes now live in harmony with each other. Anthropologists have been unable to categorize either tribe into any known race of humans.  These tribes are neither Chinese nor Tibetan. These people are of pygmy stature with adults measuring between 3’6″ and 4’7″ with an average height of 4’2″, and an average body weight of 40 pounds. Their skin is a pale yellow, their body’s are very thin and their head’s are disproportionately large. Directly corresponding with the skeletal remains found in the caves back in the 1930’s. Oddly enough the Dropa and the Han tribe’s people have very little hair on their bodies if any, very large blue eyes, which is not at all common in that area of the world.

One other interesting fact is the similarity’s between the Dropa stones and the UFO’s that NASA caught on tape during their tether incident back in 96′. Many people have challenged these claims and Tsum Um Nui was forced to resign from the Beijing Academy. The Dropa Stones have been rapidly disappearing all over the world and are currently not available for public viewing at any museum. However, pictures of the artifacts do exist.

The Acámbaro Figures

The Acámbaro Figures are a collection of small ceramic figurines allegedly found in Acámbaro, Guanajuato, Mexico. They were discovered by Waldemar Julsrud in July of 1944. According to accounts, Julsrud stumbled upon the artifacts while riding his horse in the Acámbaro area. He hired a local farmer to dig up the remaining figures, paying him for each object he found. Eventually, the farmer and his assistants discovered over 32,000 figures, which included representations of everything from dinosaurs to people from all over the world, including Egyptians, Sumerians, and bearded Caucasians.

The Acámbaro Figures have been cited as out of place artifacts, as they are clearly human made and portray a large variety of dinosaur species. According to all history books, humans did not live in the time of the dinosaurs. Upon the discovery of the figures, many creationists from all over the world proclaimed the artifacts legitimate. If these figures are genuine, it could stand as credible evidence for the coexistence of dinosaurs and humans, which would severely damage the theory of evolution and offer support for the literal interpretation of the Bible.

Attempts have been made to date these figures using Thermoluminescence, or TL dating, and the results suggested a date around 2500 BCE. A man named Don Patton claims he found radiocarbon dates for the figures ranging from 6500 years to 1500 years ago; however, the objects are in very good shape and show no characteristic evidence of having been in the ground for at least 1500 years. If they were authentic artifacts, they should be scratched and marred from the rocky soil, which is characteristic of other objects found in that area of Mexico. Other supporters of the figures claim that the incredible detail of the dinosaurs suggest a firsthand experience with the creatures. The sheer number of the figures discovered is often cited as evidence for a hoax. To date, no credible scholars of archaeology or paleontology accept the discovery as valid.

Via: MythicMysteriesMiscellany

England’s Hill Figures, Part 6: The Kilburn White Horse

The final of our six part posting of England’s Hill Figures the Kilburn White Horse, is formed in the hillside near the village of Kilburn, in North Yorkshire, England. The horse is 318 feet long by 220 ft high and covers about 1.6 acres and is said to be the largest and most northerly of the chalk figures in England.

The Kilburn horse faces south-south-west and is clearly visible from some distance. On a clear day, the horse is visible from north Leeds, 28 miles away on the higher ground to the west of the Vale of York.

Sutton Bank, geologically, is formed of limestone. The horse was created by removing the topsoil and exposing the underlying rock. It was created in November 1857, and some accounts state that it was done by school master John Hodgson and his pupils, together with local volunteers. A tablet erected at the car park below it reads, “The Kilburn ‘White Horse’ — This figure was cut in 1857 on the initiative of Thomas Taylor, a native of Kilburn. In 1925 a restoration fund was created by the readers of the Yorkshire Evening Post to provide for the ongoing grooming of the figure.”

However, Morris Marples in his 1949 book gives Thomas Taylor the credit for being the prime mover: a native of Kilburn, he was a buyer for a London provision merchant, and he seems to have attended celebrations at Uffington White Horse in 1857, at which time he became inspired to give his home village a similar example. Thirty-three men were involved in the cutting of the figure, and 6 tons of lime were used to whiten the exposed rock. The image itself is now formed of off-white limestone chips, but the steep gradient of the hillside, especially at the horse’s breast and forelegs, have led to slumping. Retention boards have been used to fix and halt the degredation.

During World War II the horse was covered over to prevent it from becoming a conspicuous navigation landmark for enemy bombers. This white horse can reputedly be seen from Julian’s Bower, Alkborough in North Lincolnshire, over 45 miles away.

Via: Wikipedia

England’s Hill Figures, Part 5: The Cerne Abbas Giant

The Cerne Abbas Giant or the ‘Rude Man’ is one of the largest hillfigures in Britain, he is one of two representations of the human form, the other being the Long Man of Wilmington in East Sussex. The giant, carved in solid lines from the chalk bedrock measures in at 180 feet high, and carries a huge knobby club, which measures 120 feet in length.

The first written record of the giant appears in 1751 in a letter by Dorset historian John Hutchins, he suggested that the figure was cut in the mid 1600’s. Another slightly later reference to the figure can be found in the Gentleman’s magazine of 1764, where the figure is described and depicted with a navel, that has long since disappeared. The lack of earlier references is frustrating but does not mean that the figure dates to the 17th century, and its style and proximity to an Iron Age earthwork suggests a much earlier origin.

There are numerous theories as to when and why the giant was created, one of the more popular is that he is the Greek-Roman god Hercules, who is often represented with a club and an animal fur. It has been suggested that the figure was once depicted carrying and animal fur in his left hand. It is possible that worship of Hercules arrived in the early part of the Roman invasion, which was then became amalgamated with a god of a local Celtic tribe. The theory given the most weight by historians is that it was created during the reign of the Emperor Commodus between 180 – 193 AD, he believed himself to be a reincarnation of Hercules and allowed the cult to revive.

Other stories suggest that the monks at the nearby monastery cut the giant as a joke on an Abbott called Thomas Corton, who was expelled from the area for malpractice. This is unlikely but its close proximity to a ecclesiastical house is strange, how could such an obviously pagan symbol have survived for so long? especially through puritanical times and the reformation. It may be that the religious buildings were built close to the giant as a form of amalgamation of the pagan site. This was common practice, and many churches are built on, or near to, sites that were once Pagan religious centres.

According to one legend, the figure represents a Danish giant who led an invasion of England from the coast. He had fallen asleep on the side of the hill, and the local villagers had taken advantage of his slumber to cut off his head. They then drew around his prone body in the manner of a gigantic police chalk line, to show where he met his doom. However, the chalk figure sometimes rose from the dead on dark nights, to quench his thirst in the local stream, a habit also common to certain standing stones.

The giant’s obvious sexuality and virility was put to use in fertility folk magic. Local women who wanted to conceive would spend a night alone on the hillside – most productively within the confines of his giant phallus, and young couples would make love on the giant to ensure conception.

Sleeping on the giant was also thought to be a good way to ensure a future wedding for unmarried women. Just above the giant’s head is a small Iron Age earthwork which encloses a roughly square piece of land, this is known as the ‘Frying Pan’ or the ‘Trendle’ and it was within this enclosure that the Mayday Maypole was erected during the festival celebrations. Like many traditional village Maypole ceremonies this practice died out in the 19th century.

Via: MysteriousBritain

England’s Hill Figures, Part 4: The Long Man of Wilmington

The Long Man of Wilmington, the mysterious guardian of the South Downs, has baffled archaeologists and historians for hundreds of years.

Until recently the earliest record of Europe’s largest representation of the human form was in a drawing made by William Burrell when he visited Wilmington Priory, nestling under the steep slopes of Windover Hill, home of the 235 feet high Wilmington Giant.  In 1993, however, a new version of the Long Man was discovered by surveyor, John Rowley, in 1710.

The new figure has confirmed some theories and dispelled others. It suggests that the original figure was a shadow or indentation in the grass rather than a solid line; there were facial features that are no longer visible; the staffs being held were not a rake and a scythe as once described and the head was once a distinctive helmet shape, giving credence to the idea of the figure as a helmeted war-god.

Until the 19^th century the Long Man was only visible in certain light conditions and after a light fall of snow, but in 1874, it was marked out in yellow bricks. It’s claimed that during this restoration, the feet were incorrectly positioned, but, despite popular local legend, there is no evidence, historical or archaeological, to suggest that prudish Victorians altered the hill figure or robbed the giant of his manhood.

In 1925, the site of the Long Man was given to the Sussex Archaeological Society by the Duke of Devonshire. During World War II, the figure was painted green to prevent enemy aviators from using it as a landmark. In 1969, further restoration took place and the bricks were replaced with pre-cast concrete blocks that are now regularly painted to keep the Long Man visible from many miles away. The terracettes, horizontal ripples in the turf, change constantly as the soil is rolled downhill by weathering, erosion and animal activity.

The lack of firm historical evidence leaves many theories surrounding the Long Man’s history. Many in Sussex are convinced the figure is prehistoric, while other believe that he’s the work of an artistic monk from the local Priory dating back to between the 11^th and 15^th centuries. Roman coins bearing a similar figure suggest that he belonged to the 4^th century AD and there may be plausible parallels with a helmeted figure found on Anglo-Saxon ornaments.

Fertility symbol? Ancient Warrior? Early 18^th century folly? We may never know. Until such time as new evidence is unearthed.

England’s Hill Figures, Part 2: The Westbury White Horse

The Westbury or Bratton White Horse is a hill figure on the escarpment of Salisbury Plain, approximately 1.6 mi east of Westbury in England. Located on the edge of Bratton Downs and lying just below an Iron Age hill fort, it is the second oldest of several white horses carved in the Wiltshire hillsides. It was restored in 1778, an action which may have obliterated a previous horse which had occupied the same slope. A contemporary engraving of the 1760s appears to show a horse facing in the opposite direction, and also rather smaller than the present figure. However, there is at present no other evidence for the existence of a chalk horse at Westbury before the year 1742.

The origin of the Westbury White Horse is obscure. It is often claimed to commemorate King Alfred‘s victory at the Battle of Eðandun in 878, and while this is not impossible, there is no trace of such a legend before the second half of the eighteenth century. It should also be noted that the battle of Eðandun has only tentatively been identified with Edington in Wiltshire.

Another white horse, that of Uffington, featured in King Alfred’s earlier life. He was born in the Vale of White Horse, not far from Uffington. Unlike Westbury, documents as early as the 11th century refer to the “White Horse Hill” at Uffington (“mons albi equi”), and archaeological evidence has dated the Uffington White Horse to the Bronze Age, although it is not certain that it was originally intended to represent a horse.

A white horse war standard was associated with the continental Saxons in the Dark Ages, and the figures of Hengest and Horsa who, according to legend, led the first Anglo-Saxon invaders into England. They are said to have fought under a white horse standard, a claim recalled in the heraldic badge of the county of Kent.

During the 18th century, the white horse was a heraldic symbol associated with the new British Royal Family, the House of Hanover, and it’s argued by some scholars that the Westbury White Horse may have first been carved in the early 18th century as a symbol of loyalty to the new Protestant reigning house.

In the 1950s, the horse was vandalized. It was repaired, but the damage could still be seen. The horse was fully restored in late 2006.

Via: Wikipedia

England’s Hill Figures, Part 1: The Uffington White Horse

The Uffington White Horse is undoubtedly Britain’s oldest and most famous hill figure. For quite some time it was thought to date from the Iron Age. However, in the nineteen-nineties, a new dating technique was developed. Optical stimulated luminescence dating (OSL), can show how long soil has been hidden from sunlight. The lines of the horse consist of trenches dug in the hillside, then filled with chalk. OSL testing of soil from between the lower layers of that chalk shows that it has been buried since between 1400 BC and 600 BC, and probably between 1200 BC and 800 BC, and thus the horse is of Bronze Age origin and has been dated at 3000 years old by the Oxford Archeological Unit. At an age 1000 years older than previously thought the discovery makes this the oldest hill figure and the most likely inspiration for the creation of many of the other local white horses and hill figures.

Although its closeness to Uffington castle may have inspired the creation of the first Westbury horse by Bratton camp, which also faced right. The earliest reference to Uffington’s White Horse was in in the 1070’s when white horse hill was mentioned, the first actual reference to the horse itself was in 1190.

The horse is unique in its features, being a very long sleek disjointed figure. This leads some to believe it represents the mythical dragon that St. George slain on the adjacent Dragon hill or it may represent his horse. However others believe it represents a Celtic horse goddess Epona, known to represent fertility, healing and death. The horse may have been created to be worshipped in religious ceremonies. Similar horses feature in Celtic jewelry and there is also evidence of horse worship in the Iron Age. The scouring or cleaning of the horse is believed to have been a religious festival in later times, giving more creditability to the figure being of religious origin.

Others believe that it commemorates Alfred’s victory over the Danes in 861 AD or that it was created in the seventh century by Hengist in the image of a horse on his standard. However the recent scientific data upon its age seem to discount these more modern theories. Several Iron age coins bearing representations of horses very similar in style and design to the Uffington horse have been found and help support the theory of the horse being from an earlier period than the seventh or eight centuries.

Also unusual is the fact that the horse faces to the right while all other horses and other animal hill figures face left, with three exceptions, the very first Westbury horse, the Osmington horse and the more modern Bulford Kiwi. The earliest record of the white horse is from Abingdon Abbey in the late 12th century, although white horse hill was mentioned a century earlier. There are many records after this period with a very good historical record from the 18th century in which the horse has changed little in appearance from then to present day. There were occasions when the horse became overgrown. In 1880, the geoglyph was in danger of being lost like many of the other hill figures of the past but since that time English Heritage has begun caring for this ancient monument.