Shouldn't the other one be the Long Man?
May 20, 2007 9:46 PM   Subscribe

Homo sapiens enjoys carving big pictures of himself in the ground. Exhibit A: The Wilmington Long Man, a geoglyph associated with a Morris dancing squad, and curiously similar to an Andean carving at the Tiwanuku site. Exhibit B: The rude giant of Cerne Abbas, an impressively well-endowed figure of similarly unknown origin. (aerial photo) Over in Chile, they've got El gigante de Atacama. Oh, and there's also a 3,000 year old white horse. The hill on which it was carved was featured in the video for Kate Bush's Cloudbusting (obligatory Kate Bush/Donald Sutherland Youtube goodness).
posted by greatgefilte (23 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
I've climbed the hill that Long Man is on, and brother, is that a steep hike.

It's also very difficult to see the whole thing up close, as the angles are all wrong. This sort of thing fascinates me in terms of the effort required.
posted by Zinger at 10:16 PM on May 20, 2007


(In case you're wondering what that Kate Bush video is about.)
posted by Rich Smorgasbord at 10:16 PM on May 20, 2007


Kate Bush?
English Settlement!
(Not that I minded watching the video, but I didn't see the chalk horse.)

I remember reading a few years back about a proposed nuclear waste burial site in the southwestern U.S. with giant earth works around it intended to warn people in the future (for thousands of years) about the dangers therein. I think it was posted here but a quick google search isn't turning it.
posted by D.C. at 10:22 PM on May 20, 2007


I think it's now generally accepted that the Cerne Abbas Giant is a 17th c. creation, perhaps an attempt at some kind of post-Civil War political satire. As I understand, the debate as to the date of the Long Man of Wilmington is still ongoing, but there certainly exists the possibility that it too is much later than once thought.
posted by hydatius at 10:26 PM on May 20, 2007


D.C., I don't have a MeFi link, but if you're close to a research library, a reference for what you're discussing is:
Bryan-Wilson, J., 2003 "Building a marker of nuclear warning" in R. Nelson and M. Olin, edd. Monuments and memory, made and unmade (Chicago) pp. 183-204.
It's an amazing project: the idea that somehow information needs to imparted that the location is the site of extremely hazardous material, and that this needs to be read and understood ten thousand years hence.
posted by hydatius at 10:30 PM on May 20, 2007


I take your dinky little ground carvings and raise you Nazca.
posted by lalochezia at 10:33 PM on May 20, 2007


The giant ... carries a huge knobbled club, which measures 120 feet in length.

And, as we all know, knoblesse oblige.
posted by rob511 at 10:45 PM on May 20, 2007


Always with the negative waves Moriarty, always with the negative waves.
posted by Dave Faris at 10:59 PM on May 20, 2007


I'd read that the Cerne Abbas Giant was a local satire on Cromwell as the "English Hercules." Denzil Holles as the local squire. Here's an account of that theory.
posted by Abiezer at 11:05 PM on May 20, 2007


Or what hydatius said. Read the thread, Abiezer!
posted by Abiezer at 11:07 PM on May 20, 2007


Marree Man - a recent creation, and slowly fading into the desert...
posted by Jimbob at 11:09 PM on May 20, 2007


So Burning Man wasn't a new idea....
posted by Eekacat at 11:54 PM on May 20, 2007


(oh, and that Kate Bush video was my introduction to her music. Gotta love that steampunk vibe of the machine in that video)
posted by Eekacat at 11:55 PM on May 20, 2007



Nice post.
In Brooklyn, there are no giant carvings of man.
posted by From Bklyn at 12:02 AM on May 21, 2007


The rude giant of Cerne Abbas, an impressively well-endowed figure

Not all are so lucky.
posted by homunculus at 12:14 AM on May 21, 2007


I've got a Google Earth bookmark set to a blotch that I'm reasonably certain is the Uffington White Horse, waiting for the day that Google get off their collective arse and get some decent pictures in.
posted by darksasami at 12:41 AM on May 21, 2007


It's a shame Marree Man, the biggest (it's two and half miles long!) and newest of them all, is already fading after less than a decade. Nazca and the rest have lasted for centuries. I guess there's more erosion there. Maybe they'll touch it up.
posted by wsg at 12:57 AM on May 21, 2007


waiting for the day that Google get off their collective arse and get some decent pictures in.

Try this. Microsoft seem to have the whole of the UK in hi-res (NB doesn't work in Safari - ttry this).
posted by cillit bang at 3:58 AM on May 21, 2007


Also: Wilmington Long Man and Cerne Abbas Giant.
posted by cillit bang at 4:09 AM on May 21, 2007


Related reading:

Fiction about the Long Man.

Thank you, and good evening.
posted by CheeseburgerBrown at 5:08 AM on May 21, 2007


The White Horse is the finest example of what 3000 years of regular weeding can do.
posted by smackfu at 5:30 AM on May 21, 2007


In addition to the English Settlement cover, there's also The Ballad of the White Horse, by G.K. Chesterton. And a children's book by Rosemary Sutcliff about the white horse. I even have a tattoo of the white horse.
posted by gingerbeer at 11:15 AM on May 21, 2007


I found this horse and rider in the Black Rock Desert.
And there is a 171 foot long man in the Blythe Intaglios in California, USA.
posted by the Real Dan at 12:28 PM on May 21, 2007


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