Click the image you wish to view.

A crone or snake-woman’s head at Avebury stone circle, Wilts

The top of this stone has been damaged yet this alert staring face remains powerful. It is one of a small group of Avebury’s carvings featuring animal-human hybrid characters. The crone is an image found across Neolithic Europe – the snake here probably symbolising all-knowing wisdom, a metaphor derived from the snake never closing its eyes. She watches over the proceedings within the great stone circle.