THE likely age of Dorset s Cerne Giant has been revealed for the first time - and it has come as a surprise to historians. Archaeologists at the National Trust have been analysing sediment taken from the carving - considered to be Britain’s largest and perhaps best-known chalk hill figure. Generations have speculated about the age and meaning of the club-brandishing giant hewn into a Dorset hillside with some theories including it being a depiction of the legendary demi-god Hercules, an ancient fertility symbol, or even the soldier and statesman Oliver Cromwell. Another theory is that the figure was carved around the body of a giant who was slain by local people after he terrorised the countryside.
THE likely age of Dorset s Cerne Abbas Giant has been revealed for the first time - and it has come as a surprise to historians. Archaeologists at the National Trust have been analysing sediment taken from the carving - considered to be Britain’s largest and perhaps best-known chalk hill figure. Generations have speculated about the age and meaning of the club-brandishing giant hewn into a Dorset hillside with some theories including it being a depiction of the legendary demi-god Hercules, an ancient fertility symbol, or even the soldier and statesman Oliver Cromwell. Another theory is that the figure was carved around the body of a giant who was slain by local people after he terrorised the countryside.
Wednesday briefing: Warning over escalation of Israel-Gaza violence Warren Murray
Hello, Warren Murray with your first look at Wednesday’s news.
Israeli jets and Palestinian militants have traded fresh airstrikes and rocket fire with the death toll rising to at least 40 since unrest broke out early on Tuesday, including 35 in Gaza and five in Israel. Israel carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Gaza and Palestinian militant groups fired multiple rocket barrages at Tel Aviv, Beersheba and other central Israeli cities.
Among targets has been a 13-storey tower housing apartments and the offices of officials from Hamas, which collapsed after it was hit by an Israeli airstrike. Israeli aircraft also attacked another high-rise building in Gaza City. Five warning rockets were fired from a drone to alert people in the nine-storey block beforehand.
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A huge chalk figure cut into the side of a hill in southern England is younger than previously thought.
Scientific analysis of sand particles taken from the 180-foot-tall Cerne Giant show that it was probably made between 700 and 1100 AD, conservation body the National Trust said in a press release published Tuesday.
“This is not what was expected. Many archaeologists and historians thought he was prehistoric or post-medieval, but not medieval,” said Mike Allen, an independent geoarchaeologist who was part of the project.
“Everyone was wrong, and that makes these results even more exciting,” he said.
Scientists used optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) to determine when the sand had last been exposed to sunlight, and the results of the sediment analysis showed the figure was probably first cut in the late-Saxon period, the National Trust said.
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The sun was still low in the sky on the spring morning last year when Martin Papworth, an archeologist for the National Trust, arrived in the village of Cerne Abbas. Setting off along a wooded path at the foot of Giant Hill, he carried in each hand a bucket loaded with excavation tools. Cerne Abbas, in a picturesque valley in Dorset, about three hours southwest of London, is an ancient settlement. At one end of the village, beneath a meadow abutting a burial ground, lie the foundations of what was, a thousand years ago, a thriving abbey. Close by is a spring-fed well named for St. Augustine, a monk who was sent by Rome in the sixth century to convert Britain to Christianity, and who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury. According to legend, he caused the spring to stream forth by striking the ground with his staff. Atop Giant Hill lies an earthwork, possibly dating from the Iron Age: a rectangular enclosure, known as the Trendle, that may have been a