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Osweo
05-13-2009, 08:32 PM
A fund-raising campaign is underway for a new exhibition at the Wiltshire Heritage Museum to display the treasures from Bush Barrow.

From http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=6904

An article in the Daily Mail features the finds from Bush Barrow, and calls the man buried there the "king of Stonehenge". The article announces the start of a fund-raising campaign for a new exhibition at the Wiltshire Heritage Museum in Devizes so that it can display the real finds, rather than them being kept out of sight.

He was a giant of a man, a chieftain who ruled with a royal sceptre and a warrior's axe.

When they laid him to rest they dressed him in his finest regalia and placed his weapons at his side. Then they turned his face towards the setting sun and sealed him in a burial mound that would keep him safe for the next 4,000 years.

In his grave were some of the most exquisitely fashioned artefacts of the Bronze Age, intricately crafted to honour the status of a figure who bore them in life in death.

For this may have been the last resting place of the King of Stonehenge - and the treasures that are effectively Britain's first Crown Jewels.

Now the entire hoard, recovered from the richest and most important Bronze Age grave on Salisbury Plain, is set to go on permanent display.

But 21st-century Britain has thrown up a problem that never troubled ancient man. The artefacts are so rare that they have been kept in a bank vault for the past three decades because they are too precious to put on show without extensive security.

So today the Wiltshire Heritage Museum at Devizes is announcing a £500,000 appeal to fund a secure gallery. It will allow the treasures to be displayed alongside some of the many other wonders of Stonehenge, giving a fascinating glimpse of what life was like some 1,800 years BC.

The remains of 'Tall Stout Man' were uncovered two centuries ago by archaeologists trying to unravel the ancient stone circle's enduring secrets. In 1808 their attention turned to Bush Barrow, a huge burial mound that boasts the most commanding view of Stonehenge from nearby Normanton Down.

Clearly whoever lay here was important. Only when the chamber was excavated, however, did it become apparent just how important. Measurements taken from the skeleton showed that the man would have towered above contemporaries at over 6ft tall.

Most of the articles buried with him in the 130ft-diameter, 10ft-high barrow were so fabulously rare that only someone of royal, military or religious power might possess them.

More in the Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1180243/The-king-Stonehenge-Were-artefacts-ancient-chiefs-burial-site-Britains-Crown-Jewels.html

It's a cause very close to my heart that archaeological finds, especially ones so prestigious, should be on show as close as possible to their place of discovery. Do go along to the museum in Devizes to show support if you can! I'll be going in a month or so. :thumbs up