Real age of giant man with erect penis revealed - new findings change history

After a year of scientific analysis and centuries of conjecture, experts from the National Trust have confirmed the true age of the so-called. The "Cerne Giant" - a 55-metre-tall figure of a man with a nine-metre-long penis that someone carved centuries ago into a chalk hillside near the village of Cerne Abbas in England. The new data debunks virtually all previous theories, changing the outdated view of all chalk figures in England.
Generations of scholars have speculated about the age and meaning of the depiction of the giant man on the Dorset hillside. Was it a depiction of the legendary Hercules, the ancient symbol of fertility, or perhaps a satire of the soldier and statesman Oliver Cromwell? Some have even claimed that the figure was 'sketched' around the body of a real giant who was supposed to have been killed by the local people after terrorising the local area...
The latest analyses of sediments at National Trust laboratories, the University of Gloucestershire, Allen Environmental Archaeology and Pratt Bequest have led archaeologists to conclude that the giant man was probably only immolated in the late Saxon period. That is - for the first time, as the drawing appeared to have become overgrown over time and was probably repeatedly restored.

Phillip Toms - Professor of Geography at the University of Gloucestershire studied the samples using optically stimulated luminescence (OSL). This technology assesses when individual sediment grains were last exposed to sunlight. Material recovered from the deepest layer (one metre) provided a date range between AD 700 and AD 1100, suggesting that the image was first taken in the Late Saxon period.

According to independent geoarchaeologist Mike Allen, who examined the environment around the giant man, the result is very surprising: 'This was not expected. Many archaeologists and historians thought the image was prehistoric or early modern, but not medieval. Everyone was wrong! That makes these results even more exciting."

Archaeologist Martin Papworth of the National Trust said, "The excavations on the hillside were surprisingly deep - people have repeatedly refurbished the giant with chalk over a long period of time. The deepest sample from its elbows and feet tells us it could not have been made before 700 which rules out theories that it is of prehistoric or Roman origin. This probable Saxon work places it in a dramatic part of history around Cerne Abbas. A nearby abbey was founded in 987 and some sources state that the abbey was established to reverse thethe local inhabitants who worshipped an Anglo-Saxon god known as "Heil" or "Helith". Newly discovered data leads to the question: was the giant work originally a representation of this god? “

However, there are still unresolved questions. Some of the specimens refer to 1560, which has Martin and his team puzzled because the earliest documented reference to the giant man is a church warden's report from 1694: "Research suggests that he could be medieval, but interestingly the surviving documents from the abbey do not mention the giant. The giant does not seem to have been there in the 16th century, nor does John Norden's survey of 1617 mention him."

Martin's working theory is that the giant may have been a medieval creation, but then - for reasons we may never know - was neglected for several hundred years before being rediscovered: "I wonder if it was created in the early or perhaps late Saxon period, but then overgrown with grass and forgotten. Perhaps at some stage, in low sunlight, people noticed the shadows of the figure on the hill and decided to recreate it. This would explain why it does not appear in the Abbey records or in Tudor surveys."

This is consistent with research by Mike Allen, who found that microscopic snail tracks in sediment samples included species that were not introduced to Britain until the Middle Ages. However, archaeological fieldwork and scientific studies have found no archaeological evidence that the giant was deliberately covered up. Mike Allen added that the results shed more light on the phenomenon of Cretaceous figures in Britain: "Archaeologists wanted to pigeonhole all figures into the same period. But these creations were not part of specific phases of history, they are all individual characters with local significance, each telling us something different about a particular place and time."
"Refining the dating of the giant is a big goal that we are now much closer to. Future research could tell us more about how it has changed over time, and whether our theory of 'lost' years is true," Martin continued. He added: "When we started the work, some people wanted the age of the giant to remain a mystery forever, but archaeologists use science to find answers. We have moved our understanding a little closer to the truth, but the giant still retains many of its secrets. So I think everyone's happy.

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Sources: thehistoryblog.com, bbc.com, livescience.com