Glastonbury Tor is a
hill at
Glastonbury,
Somerset,
England, which features the roofless St. Michael's Tower. The site is managed by the
National Trust.
The slopes of the Tor appear to be quite regularly terraced. Some believe that this formation is the remains of an ancient, perhaps Neolithic, sacred labyrinth.[3] Others attribute the terraces to natural ruts formed everywhere on grassy slopes by generations of grazing animals, which are slow to disappear if the grass cover is left undisturbed. The generally accepted explanation is terracing for farming, possibly by medieval monks.[4] Even after the wetlands were drained by the Monks of Glastonbury Abbey via their vast network of drainage canals, the risk of flooding on the plain meant that farm land was at a premium for anything other than grazing cattle.
Some Neolithic flint tools recovered from the top of the Tor show that the site has been visited and perhaps occupied throughout human prehistory. Excavations on Glastonbury Tor, undertaken by a team led by Philip Rahtz between 1964 and 1966, revealed evidence of Dark Age occupation around the later medieval church of St. Michael postholes, two hearths including a metalworker's forge, two burials oriented north-south (thus unlikely to be Christian), fragments of 6th century Mediterranean amphorae (for wine or oil), and a worn hollow bronze head which may have topped a Saxon staff.[5]
The Celtic name of the Tor was "Ynys Witrin," or sometimes "Ynys Gutrin," meaning "Isle of Glass". At this time the plain was flooded, the isle becoming a peninsula at low tide.
