This
project originally began as a proposal to experiment with the
acoustics of the Beckhampton Cove by building three moveable
plywood panels to the approximate size of the missing stones,
and placing them on site to replicate the original setting.
Of
the western avenue leading from the Avebury henge only two
stones remain. Known as 'The Longstones' the two have also
been named 'Adam & Eve'. The avenue was a long, curving
double row of stones, of which Eve is the only survivor; Adam
is the only remaining stone of the Beckhampton Cove. Coves
are a little-understood feature of some Neolithic henge monuments.
Roughly rectilinear, some coves appear to have been made up
of three stones, with one open side; the Beckhampton Cove
had four. It is particularly unusual in that the two side
stones were splayed.
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Aubrey Burl has suggested (WAM, 1988) that coves may be representations
of the stone chambers found inside some long barrows. If ancestor
or initiation rituals were once performed inside the barrows
then few people could be present, due to the lack of space.
Perhaps using a cove instead allowed a bigger audience to witness
or participate in the the ritual?
Such an arrangement of stones may also have had acoustic effects,
with resonances or flutter echo. Perhaps the splayed sides
of the Beckhampton Cove may have projected sound out from
the cove?
ORIGINAL
PROPOSAL
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