\n Steel sculptor Dan North was commissioned by the Amesbury History Centre to produce the unique furniture piece back in September 2025 and he was supplied an artist’s impression by artist Clare Moggridge, based on archaeological finds and records of bones, teeth, and horns.\n<\/p>\n
\n On Friday 1 May at 11am, as residents celebrate the unveiling of Mr North’s aurochs-bench at the junction of Salisbury Street and Church Street, they acknowledge not only this giant beast but also Amesbury’s enduring connection to its stunning prehistory.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr North said: \u201cI\u2019ve never made any thing this big before. It took me 7 months\u201d.\n<\/p>\n
\n Aurochs were essential for Mesolithic people.\n<\/p>\n
\n Depiction of the animal the bench is based on (Image: Amesbury History Centre)\n<\/p>\n
\n Once renowned for their formidable size, about three times that of a domestic bull today, an entire carcass would provide a bonanza of resources skillfully utilised by the Mesolithic people in Amesbury as far back as 8,000 years ago.\n<\/p>\n
\n Providing enough meat to feed around 300 people, it was a significant prize for any hunting party.\n<\/p>\n
\n But it wasn\u2019t just the meat that was valuable.\n<\/p>\n
\n Their skin and hide could be transformed into clothing or shelter, sinew was used for bowstrings and other purposes, bones and horns were our ancestors’ tools and weapons, and even the marrow inside the bones was consumed.\n<\/p>\n
\n Evidence from archaeological digs at Blick Mead indicates that Amesbury was a hotspot for these mighty creatures during the Mesolithic period.\n<\/p>\n
\n In an extraordinary find, aurochs hoof prints were discovered imprinted in the spring at Blick Mead.\n<\/p>\n
\n These prints, dating back to the Mesolithic period, were covered by a cobbled layer of hand placed regular sized stones\u2014possibly to preserve them in some kind of sacred manner or when people built a jetty to access the water.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Amesbury History Centre adopted the aurochs as their logo as the archaeologists have proven that there were more aurochs being eaten here than anywhere else in North Western Europe.\n<\/p>\n
\n The steel aurochs bench was made possible by funds from the Wiltshire Towns Fund and Amesbury Town Council.\n<\/p>\n
\n Dan North, also known as ‘Dan of Steel’, who typically works on smaller steel pieces, took seven months to complete this striking addition to Amesbury’s townscape.\n<\/p>\n
\n For those wishing to explore further, the Blick Mead dig site can be experienced through a 3D headset, and Dan’s smaller sculptures are available at the Amesbury History Centre gift shop.\n<\/p>\n
\n Celebrations for the installation of the aurochs-bench will begin on 1 May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steel sculptor Dan North was commissioned by the Amesbury History Centre to produce the unique furniture piece back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-564302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}