I like it. Especially as it is a distinctly 17/18th century Stubbs vibe.
Thanks! Garry Gibbon's research (who quoted this fact in a talk yesterday) shows that a lot of received wisdom about the dates is wrong.
He says up to 40,000 during the 18th c in his chapter of the new Cerne Abbas book although no direct citation unfortunately. I'm sure I heard correctly though, my shock led me to write it down! The idea is that these events inspired the creation of most other horses.
It was from a talk by Garry Gibbons, former curator of Tom Brown's School Museum, Uffington, who has been doing loads of local history research on this and other white horses in Wiltshire. I think this was from a local newspaper (so perhaps somewhat inflated?).
Best fact learnt yesterday - in 1771 an estimated 70,000 people attended the Whitsun scouring of the horse festival at Uffington, which was accompanied by sports and festivities. 70,000. That's Glastonbury sized!
We have shut the bathroom window, which has been open since April. Autumn is definitely here!
Oh, thank you! Archaeology is a bit of a dark art sometimes. We're not very good at seeing the wood for the trees!
In my opinion your important research on the sprouted grains from Balbridie(?) really needs publishing in a peer-reviewed format. Archaeologists really want evidence that they can cite.
The conference was great, here is Kate Adie giving her elegant talk on what the giant means to the people of Cerne.
Well, there are talks on Long Man of Wilmington and Uffington Horse too, if that helps?