Quote:
Originally Posted by Rumil
Evening all,
Some good points made on this thread already, just a few more comments-
The Uffington White Horse doesn't belong to the English, it's Celtic or more likely pre-Celtic, estimated as going back to 1000BC. By the way its a great place to have a look at on a sunny day, and Wayland's Forge (a proper Barrow on the Downs) is just round the corner.
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Yes sure, but in those days, people often identified with the land they occupied and one of the reasons they built barrows was to use their dead to show that they had occupied that particular area of land for a very long time. To some extenet they also cheated by "adopting" barrows etc that previous civilisations had left behind. hence obvious similarities between Anglo-Saxon burial mounds and bronze age barrows.
Although the White Horse at Uffington goes back thousands of years and is probably pre-Celtic, it would never have survived if not look after by local people. The chalk is soft and the grass grows quickly and in less than a lifetime there would be no visible remains left if ever peopel stopped looking after it. Hence we know that every single people or culture that occupied the area cared for and hence identified with the White Horse.
It is thus entirely fair to say that the White Horse was an Anglo Saxon symbol, just as it is right to say it was a Celtic or a pre-Celtic symbol. In Reading museum there is actually a bronze trinket that somebody must have worn around their neck. Guess who made it? The Romans. Guess what it depicts? The White Horse of Uffington.