Archaeology Notes

Event ID 642559

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/642559

HU44SE 1 4905 4397.

(HU 491 439) Tumuli (NR)

OS 6" map, Shetland, 2nd ed., (1902).

Washy Knowe is a knoll composed of two conjoined tumuli (a broch) - (A description written by J Anderson quoting MacDonald).

Name Book 1878.

This mainly turf-covered mound of burnt stones, shown by the OS as two separate monuments, is about 70ft long by 40 to 45ft wide and from 5 to 7ft high. It has been partially excavated on the SE, where a hollow marks the site of a rough cist-like structure, and on the NW, where fragments of a steatite vessel were found on 0th July 1930, embedded in the burnt material composing the mound. The fragments are in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS).

Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1931 (Accessions); RCAHMS 1946, visited 10th July 1930.

HU 4906 4398. This is a turf-covered mound, 2.2m high, with burnt stones showing in the excavation pit in the north side. In the top of the mound a vague indentation, 1.0m long and 0.4m wide, suggests that this is the position of the 'cist-like structure' mentioned by the RCAHMS. No recent finds have been made here, and the name 'Washy Knowe' is now known locally as 'Washing Knowe'.

Re-surveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (NKB) 7 September 1964.