One interesting aspect of Glastonbury is the giant earthwork in the countryside around the town. Known as the Twelve Giants, this great landscape configuration forms a circle 10 miles across and 30 miles in circumference and formed by hills, mounds, roads, and rivers that can only be seen in its entirety from high above. The Giant Figures are representations of constellations in the heavens moulded into the fabric of the land. Occasionally it differs from the standard pattern, making a ship out of Cancer, a dove out of Libra, while some interpretations say Scorpio is an eagle and Capricorn a unicorn.
The Glastonbury Zodiac can be seen as the earthly counterpart of the Caer Sidi of the Celts - a great Star Temple reflecting the Zodiac in the heavens in its natural contours and streams.
It is said that the Zodiac was first outlined in 1927 by Katherine Maltwood. Some say that Maltwood ‘re-discovered’ it though, based on the ‘evidence’ that in 1582, John Dee; Astrologer to Elisabeth I, wrote:
“the starres which agree with their reproductions on the ground do lye onlie on the celestial path of the Sonne, moon and planets, with the notable exception of Orion and Hercules….all the greater starres of Sagittarius fall in the hinde quarters of the horse, while Altair, Tarazed and Alschain from Aquilla do fall on its cheste…thus is astrologie and astronomie carefullie and exactly married and measured in a scientific reconstruction of the heavens which shews that the ancients understode all which today the lerned know to be factes.”
Dee’s reference to the Zodiac lies in the story of the biographer Richard Deacon who went to the Warburg Institute where Dee’s papers were kept. Looking through them, Deacon found a map with Dee’s zodiac quote written on the margin. He copied it down and went home. Apparently, the next time Richard Deacon went back to the Warburg to see these documents the ‘zodiacal map’ couldn’t be found, and never has been.
The mythological archetypes of the Zodiac can be seen as depicting the Grail Quest. Like the Twelve Giants, the Round Table has twelve places. Even the land around Glastonbury has been known for centuries as the Twelve Hides (given to Joseph of Arimathea the uncle of Jesus, when he arrived here with the Holy Grail).
This vast complex encompasses Glastonbury Tor and Chalice Hill in the sign of Aquarius (Phoenix), Wearyall Hill in Pisces, and so forth, as it weaves round the Isle of Avalon. Arthur, Guinevere, Merlin, and the Knights are still remembered in the signs of the Giant Zodiac.
Maltwood believed the Zodiac was constructed sometime around 2700 BCE, but earlier dates of 7000 BCE relating to Egypt’s Dendarah Zodiac, have also been suggested.
Pauline Ross / Morgana West
