East Kennett, Wilts Corn Circles 2000 John Hinde

Postcard

 

• Picture / Image:  Crop circles near East Kennett in Wiltshire that appeared on 2nd July 2000 close to the West Kennett Longbarrow. Approx. 220ft in diameter and consisting of 1600 shapes. Photo - Steve Alexander, 2000
• Publisher:  John Hinde
• Postally used:  yes
• Stamp:  2nd class Christmas stamp (2004 - Santa on chimney)
• Postmark(s):  Bath & Bristol 11 Dec 2004
• Sent to:  Bristol
• Notes & Key words:  Has some surface damage on front of card near bottom right (see scan)

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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information:

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East Kennett is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. In the Census 2001 the parish had a population of 105.

East Kennett is a civil parish governed by a parish meeting, a form of governance only adopted for very small parishes. It also falls within the area of Wiltshire Council. The parish meeting and the council are responsible for different aspects of local government.

The West Kennet Long Barrow is a Neolithic tomb or barrow, situated on a prominent chalk ridge, near Silbury Hill, one-and-a-half miles south of Avebury in Wiltshire. The site was recorded by John Aubrey in the 17th century and by William Stukeley in the 18th century.

Archaeologists classify it as a chambered long barrow and one of the Severn-Cotswold tombs. It has two pairs of opposing transept chambers and a single terminal chamber used for burial. The stone burial chambers are located at one end of one of the longest barrows in Britain at 100 m: in total it is estimated that 15,700 manhours were expended in its construction. The entrance consists of a concave forecourt with a facade made from large slabs of sarsen stones which were placed to seal entry.

The construction of the West Kennet Long Barrow commenced about 3600 BC, which is some 400 years before the first stage of Stonehenge, and it was in use until around 2500 BC. The mound has been damaged by indiscriminate digging, but archaeological excavations in 1859 and 1955-56 found at least 46 burials, ranging from babies to elderly persons. The bones were disarticulated with some of the skulls and long bones missing. It has been suggested that the bones were removed periodically for display or transported elsewhere with the blocking facade being removed and replaced each time.

The latest excavations also revealed that the side chambers occur inside an exact isosceles triangle, whose height is twice the length of its base. Artefacts associated with the burials include Neolithic Grooved ware similar to that found at nearby Windmill Hill.

It is thought that this tomb was in use for as long as 1,000 years and at the end of this period the passage and chamber were filled to the roof by the Beaker people with earth and stones, among which were found pieces of Grooved ware, Peterborough ware and Beaker pottery, charcoal, bone tools, and beads. Stuart Piggott, who excavated this mixture of secondary material, suggested that it had been collected from a nearby 'mortuary temple' showing that the site had been used for ritual activity long after it was used for burial.

Michael Dames (see References) put forward a composite theory of seasonal rituals, in an attempt to explain the Long Barrow and its associated sites (the Avebury henge, Silbury Hill, The Sanctuary and Windmill Hill).

A local legend tells how this tomb is visited on Midsummer Day by a ghostly priest and a large white hound.

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Crop circles are patterns created by the flattening of crops such as wheat, barley, rapeseed (also called "canola"), rye, corn, linseed, rice paddies and soy.

The term was first used by paranormal researcher Colin Andrews to describe simple circles he was researching. While patterns involving complex geometries have been observed, the term circle has stuck as a generic term for crop patterns.

Many circles are known to be man-made,^[6][7][8] such as those created by Doug Bower, Dave Chorley, and John Lundberg. ^[6][9] Bower and Chorley started the crop circle phenomenon in 1978^[10] and were awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in 1992 for their crop circle hoaxing.

Various hypotheses have been offered to explain the formation of crop circles of unknown origin, ranging from the naturalistic to the paranormal. The main naturalistic explanation suggests that all crop circles are man-made, primarily as a hoax. Another naturalistic explanation is that they are caused by ball lightning. Paranormal explanations suggest that, while some crop circles are man-made, others are the product of alien spacecraft or supernatural processes such as communication from Gaia or from extraterrestrials. Various eyewitness accounts attribute the formations to balls of light or energy seen above the fields, leading some to believe the phenomena contain a message from the cosmos to humankind. ^[11][12]