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Publication Account
Date 1996
Event ID 1016374
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016374
This large cairn was excavated in 1936 and, although ruinous and overgrown, the two chambers are still visible. This is a multi-period monument and very similar in its development to Holm of Papa Westray North (no. 78). The earliest tomb was small and consisted of two compartments within a small cairn. At some later stage (the detailed chronology is unknown), a larger stalled tomb was built to the immediate east, within its own rectangular cairn. Finally, both chambers and their cairns were enclosed within a larger rectangular cairn, maintaining the entrance passage into the eastern tomb. Sherds of Unstan pottery, flint tools and two stones axes were recovered from the stalled chamber, but soil conditions were unsuited to the recovery of bones, with the result that the number of burials is unknown.
On the slope just east of the cairn are the ruins of an iron-age domestic settlement, and the two smaller tombs nearby are almost intact and can be entered, although very little is known of their history or contents.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Orkney’, (1996).
