Likely an anglo-saxon creation…
The U.K.’s largest chalk hill figure was also likely an Anglo Saxon creation, according to new research.
Archaeologists have made remarkable new discoveries about the mysterious Cerne Abbas Giant, the U.K.’s largest chalk hill figure. Perhaps most notably, they have determined that the 180-foot-tall naked man may have originally been wearing pants.
The figure is also likely an Anglo Saxon creation dating to medieval times. “This is not what was expected,” geoarchaeologist Mike Allen, who helped conduct tests on the massive artwork, said in a statement. “Many archaeologists and historians thought he was prehistoric or post-medieval, but not medieval. Everyone was wrong, and that makes these results even more exciting.”
Phillip Toms, a physical geography professor in at the University of Gloucestershire, used Optically Stimulated Luminescence testing, which can determine when individual grains of sand last were exposed to sunlight, to study samples from the figure and the surrounding hillside. In the deepest layer of earth, the date range was 700 to 1100 A.D.
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