The Cerne Abbas Giant
A 55-metre chalk giant with a club on a Dorset hill was thought to be prehistoric, until soil tests in 2021 gave a surprise.
What was reported
On a hillside above the village of Cerne Abbas, in Dorset, is a huge figure of a naked man holding a club, about 55 metres tall, outlined in chalk. It isn't mentioned in any record before the late 1600s.
Theories placed it in prehistory, in Roman times as a figure of Hercules, or in the 1600s as a joke at Oliver Cromwell's expense.
Explanations offered
In 2021 the National Trust announced results from dating soil samples, which suggested it was first made in the late Saxon period, between about 700 and 1100 AD. Why it was made then, and why it went unrecorded for centuries, is still unknown.
- When
- Made around 700–1100 AD
- Where
- Cerne Abbas, Dorset, England
- Witnesses
- Archaeologists and the National Trust
- Status
- Partly explained
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