Long Man of Wilmington

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Long Man of Wilmington

The Long Man of Wilmington is a hill figure on a slope south of the village of Wilmington in the South Downs between the towns of Eastbourne and Brighton in East Sussex in England. The hill figure represents the outline of a man.

description

The figure is about 70 meters high. The man shown holds a staff in each hand, which is slightly larger than himself, and resembles images of warriors armed with spears and helmets on fibulas and helmets of the Scandinavians and Anglo-Saxons . It could therefore be a representation of a god of war . The age of the figure is unknown. Originally the outlines were just a depression in the ground that was only faintly visible through the deeper growing grass, which is why the figure was locally known as the Green Man .

The first documentation of the hill figure is a sketch from 1710. It differs from today's figure and shows a different foot position, a face and a different head shape that could represent a hat. In 1874, The Long Man was exposed after it was largely overgrown. In this Roman shards discovered. To make the figure more clearly visible, the contours were covered with light-colored stones. The attempt to carve the figure into the hill down to the underlying chalk layer failed because of the thickness of the overlying layer of earth in this area. In 1969 the stones were replaced by white concrete blocks. During the work, Roman artifacts were discovered again.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ C. Hawkes in Antiquity 39, 1965, pp. 27-30
  2. ^ Castleden, Rodney (2002). "Shape-shifting: The changing outline of the Long Man of Wilmington". Sussex Archaeological Collections (140): 83-95.
  3. ^ JH Farrant Sussex in Archaeological Collections 131, 1993, pp. 129-38
  4. ^ Castleden, Rodney (2002). "Shape-shifting: The changing outline of the Long Man of Wilmington". Sussex Archaeological Collections (140): 83-95.

literature

  • Jacqueline Simpson, Steve Roud: The Long Man of Wilmington . In: A Dictionary of English Folklore. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000.

Web links

Commons : Long Man of Wilmington  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 50 ° 48 ′ 36 ″  N , 0 ° 11 ′ 17 ″  E