Nobody Knows Why These Mysterious Giant White Horses Were Carved Into The Hillsides Of England, And The Oldest One Has Been There For A Few Thousand Years
Three millennia ago, an ancient carving of an enormous white horse appeared on a hill near the village of Uffington in Oxfordshire, England.
The horse has a thin, elegant body, stubby legs, and a long tail. It is known as the Uffington White Horse, the oldest of the giant archaeological artworks in the English hills.
Over the years, dozens of other massive horse-shaped figures were carved into hillsides, revealing the layers of white chalk underneath.
Several other types of drawings have been made as well, but the horses remain the most common one. No one knows why the giant geoglyphs were created or how the mysterious trend started.
Most of the geoglyphs can be found in the southern portion of England because of the hills that are in the region.
During World War II, the white horses stood out against the landscape so prominently that they had to be camouflaged in order to prevent the German Air Force from using them to aid in navigation.
A mid-20th century author named Morris Marples was inspired by the chalk horses to coin the term “leucippotomy,” which referred to the special art of carving white horses into hillsides.
Currently, Britain has 16 white horses. There used to be many more, but years of neglect caused them to fade away.
The Uffington White Horse is located in the area where Saint George was said to have slain his dragon.
James – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
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The figure is 360 feet long and was originally cut during the Bronze Age about 3,000 years ago. It is the best-known and most spectacular out of all the chalk drawings.
The second oldest white horse in Britain didn’t exist until the 18th century. People believe it was carved to honor King Alfred’s victory at the Battle of Ethandun. Others think the white horse was a symbol of the House of Hanover, an 18th-century royal family.
Only one of the 16 horses has a rider: the Osmington White Horse. It was created to commemorate King George III in 1808.
According to legend, the king was offended by the massive carving and took it as a sign that the villagers wanted him to leave and never return.
Keeping the chalk horses well-preserved is no easy task, though. The horses must be cleaned or scoured regularly to prevent the grass and vegetation from obscuring the chalk outlines from view.
It requires smashing buckets of chalk into a paste and whitening the figures. The cleaning ritual has been a regular practice since before the earliest documentation of it in 1736.
Today, the National Trust oversees the cleaning to ensure that the original shape of the horses is maintained.
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