Publication Account
Date 1986
Event ID 1017338
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1017338
At once communal and anonymous, the essentially neolithic nature of the recumbent stone circle is perhaps nowhere better seen than at Old Keig there the circle, 20 m in diameter, is now represented by a gigantic recumbent of sillimanite gneiss, two flankers 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: Grampian’, (1986).
