page_title: West Kennet Long Barrow
section_title: Tourism and Modern Paganism
hierarchical_section_title: West Kennet Long Barrow / Tourism and Modern Paganism
caption_attribution_description: English: West Kennet long barrow, 800m south-east of Silbury Hill Wikidata has entry Q17648040 with data related to this item.This is a photo of listed building number 1010628.
context_page_description: The West Kennet Long Barrow, also known as South Long Barrow, is a chambered long barrow located near the village of Avebury in the south-western English county of Wiltshire. Probably constructed in the thirty-seventh century BCE, during Britain's Early Neolithic period, today it survives in a partially reconstructed state.
  Archaeologists have established that the monument was built by pastoralist communities shortly after the introduction of agriculture to Britain from continental Europe. Although representing part of an architectural tradition of long barrow building that was widespread across Neolithic Europe, the West Kennet Long Barrow belongs to a localised regional variant of barrows in Western Britain, now known as the Cotswold-Severn Group. Of these, it is part of a cluster of around thirty centring around Avebury in the uplands of northern Wiltshire.
  Built out of earth, local sarsen megaliths, and oolitic limestone imported from the Cotswolds, the long barrow consisted of a sub-rectangular earthen tumulus enclosed by kerb-stones. Its precise date of construction is not known.
context_section_description: West Kennet Long Barrow now serves as a tourist attraction. In 1997, the cultural historian Richard Hayman noted that it was "a tomb no more, it has become a sanitised cultural commodity."
  Many modern Pagans view West Kennet Long Barrow as a "temple" and use it for their rituals. Some see it as a place of the ancestors where they can engage in "vision quests" and other neo-shamanic practices. Others have seen it as a womb of the Great Goddess, and as a sort of living entity. The winter solstice has been a particularly popular occasion for Pagans to visit. Modern Pagan visitors have often left items, including tea lights, incense, flowers, fruit, and coins, in the long barrow, often regarding these as offerings to "spirits" which they believe reside there. Various fires lit within the long barrow have left scorch marks and damaged the stones; one of the sarsens had to be glued back together after having been fractured by the impact of fire. Some Pagans have advocated for all human remains found within the barrow to be re-buried within it, after which they believe the chamber should again be sealed.
caption: Offerings placed inside the chamber of West Kennet Long Barrow
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