AVEBURY is a major World Heritage sitewhich attracts thousands of visitors every year and is recognised by English Heritage as the best preserved prehistoric temple of a type unique to Britain.

Yet it remains a poor relation on a tourism trail on which Stonehenge has long been a fixture.

Both sites were at the height of their glory around 4,500 years ago.

Over many years archaeologists and antiquarians have studied Avebury, but the man credited with unravelling much of its history is Wiltshire physicist Dr Terence Meaden.

Today his 1999 book The Secrets of the Avebury Stones: Britain's Greatest Megalithic Temple is being re-released.

In it Dr Meaden comprehensively guides the reader around every standing stone in Avebury the first time that every stone has been discussed and most of them photographed.

It means people who visit Avebury can get a real insight into the meaning of the site and unlike Stonehenge they are able to walk among the stones and literally feel their presence in the village.

Long-time resident of Avebury, Sir Ludovic Kennedy, said: "The book has been a revelation to me. Under his guidance I am enabled to understand the stones and see them with reawakened eyes."

Dr Meaden wrote his book after years of studying megalithic sites all over Britain, Ireland and Europe, and in it he reveals the hidden wonders of the temple which was built to the glory of the Neolithic Earth Goddess.

Built with sarsen stones dragged from the hills, Avebury's circles and avenues originally covered a 28 acre site. The biggest surviving stone the Swindon Stone or Diamond Stone at the north entrance weighs 60 tons. The largest of all the stones which has now been destroyed weighed in nearer to 80 tons.

Dr Meaden said that at first sight Avebury's stones showed few signs of carving unlike those at Stonehenge but he went on to reveal in detail that the majority of undamaged standing stones do in fact bear traces of an art-form.

This, he says, is the result of a subtle sculptural technique which is difficult to spot unless a visitor knows what to look for.

When studied closely from particular angles some of the stones reveal profiles of human or animal heads. And when the sun is out and shining at critical angles and at certain times of the day, many more can be seen.

Dr Meaden's book describes the symbolic meaning of each stone as they were positioned so that at specific times, each year and each day, the sun and moon would strike it bringing the unseen spirit of the stone to life.

He believes that the labour-intensive building of the Avebury monument went hand in hand with the rise of a powerful leadership which benefited from the influence of organised religion.