Aerial Atlas of Ancient Britain

A spectacular and mesmerizing collection of aerial photographs of Britain’s most extraordinary prehistoric sites. Drawing on years of travel around Britain’s most extraordinary prehistoric sites, David Abram’s aerial photographs reveal the ancient wonders hiding in plain sight around the country, from Neolithic tombs on the Wessex chalklands to Iron Age crannogs in Hebridean lochs. Breathtaking photos reveal Neolithic enclosures, cairns, and stone circles; Bronze Age villages, farmsteads, tombs, and burial mounds; and Iron Age hillforts, all captured in spectacular bird’s-eye-view detail. Stone cairns and circles evoke lost rituals and religious ceremonies; Iron Age ramparts hint at former strongholds; and tangible geographical clues reveal the scars of real or mythical battles. The eye-in-the-sky perspective unveils both the unseen forms of these ancestral monuments as well as their relationship to their wider landscapes, capturing subtle symmetries and forgotten sight lines. Many of Abram’s images have an abstract quality that momentarily disrupts one’s sense of perspective, allowing the shapes carved thousands of years ago to evoke an emotional resonance—an experience at once pleasurable and instructive. This is an inspiring way to discover the beauty and history of the British landscape, revealing the visible traces of our ancestors, from such famous monuments as Stonehenge to little-known gems that have never before been seen from the air.