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Publication Account
Date 1997
Event ID 1017140
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1017140
The Islesburgh tomb is tiny and perfect. An excellent example of a heel-shaped cairn, it was excavated in 1959, revealing a concave facade with the entrance to the chamber in the centre. T he tips of the facade are missing, but it must have been almost 9m across, and the cairn is almost 5m deep. A narrow passage leads into a small rectangular chamber, little more than a metre across. It is open to the sky now, but there would originally have been higher walls and a stone slab roof, with cairn material piled on top. There were no finds in the chamber.
Set on a slope, the tomb faces south-east over the sheltered voe. A short distance to the west is the site of a prehistoric house, which may well be the home of the people who built the tomb. A planticrue has been built on top of the house, but the north end of the house can still be seen. A hand quern for grinding grain lies a little to the south-east. The house is enclosed with in a substantial walled enclosure, 61m across, which runs down to finish above the shore, and a stream passes immediately west of the enclosure. The modern cairn to the west is a sea-mark for navigation.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Shetland’, (1997).
