Publication Account

Date 1996

Event ID 1016525

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016525

At once communal and anonymous, the essentially neolithic nature of the recumbent stone circle is perhaps nowhere better seen than at Old Keig where the circle, 20m in diameter, is now represented by a gigantic recumbent of sillimanite gneiss, two Bankers and one other stone, standing on a low bank. The circle is located on a very slight crest on rising ground with distant, sometimes magical, views over the Howe of Alford. The site was probably levelled and the enormous recumbent, which weighs 53 tons and is the largest known (4.9m by 2.1m by 2.0m), dragged from somewhere in the Don valley about 10km away. The last 1km would have been uphill, at a gradient of 1:14, requiring well over 100 people. Prior to the building of the eccentrically placed ring cairn, a small timber structure may have stood for a short time in the central area (cf Loanhead, no. 98).

Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Aberdeen and North-East Scotland’, (1996).