Figsbury Ring
The Figsbury Ring in Wiltshire is an oval, approximately 15.5 acre hillfort in Firsdown Parish, northeast of Salisbury in England . Its entrances are in the east and west.
The Hillfort is different from other facilities in Wiltshire in that it has an inner moat in addition to the outer one. The outer trench is too shallow to have supplied the material for the high wall. Maud Cunnington (1869–1951) has therefore suggested that the remaining building material was taken from the inner trench, which looks unfinished. The inner trench is evenly spaced about 30.0 m from the wall. Cunnington's 1924 excavation showed that the material of the moat and wall are identical. Other scientists believe the moat is an early henge , but no finds have been made from the Neolithic period , so this interpretation is unlikely.
Figsbury Ring was used intermittently but over a longer period of time. The excavation revealed fragments of "All Cannings Ware" and animal bones, but no signs of housing development. Most of the pottery found in clusters in the inner moat and under the south-western section of the rampart is from the early Iron Age .
A Bronze Age sword blade in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford is said to have been found in Figsbury Ring. The handle shows that it dates from the Late Bronze or Early Iron Age.
literature
- James Dyer: "Hillforts of England and Wales" 1999. ISBN 0747801800
- James Forde-Johnston: Hillforts of the Iron Age in England and Wales: A Survey of the Surface Evidence. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press 1976.
- John A. Gator, Anthony J. Clark: Figsbury Rings: Geophysical Survey Autumn 1981 , Photocopy report available from English Heritage: Fort Cumberland, Fort Cumberland Road, Eastney, Portsmouth 1981
- M. Guido, IF Smith: Figsbury rings: A Reconsideration of the Inner Enclosure. Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 76, 1982 pp. 22-25
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 6 '11 " N , 1 ° 43' 51" W.