Archaeology Notes

Event ID 643101

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/643101

HY21SE 10 2864 1412.

HY 2864 1412) Tumulus (NR) Stone Cist found A.D. 1860.

OS 6" map, Orkney, 2nd ed., (1903).

This Orkney-Cromarty Bookan-type chambered cairn (A S Henshall 1963) presents some rather unusual features. As the result of excavation in 1861 the chamber, now roofless and much broken-down, is exposed at ground level. Only the tops of a few slabs project from the debris in the centre.

Petrie, describing this excavation, states that the mound was about 44ft diameter by 6 ft high but had, even then, been partially examined on some former occasion and tthe upper part was ruinous. On cutting into the mound a circular wall or facing, about ft high, was found, about 11ft within the base edge of the cairn. A low passage, 6 1/4 ft long by 1 3/4 ft wide and high, led from this wall to a central cist, 7ft 1 in. by 4ft by 2ft 8 ins deep, in which lay a flint lance-head and pottery sherds of at least three small vessels or cups but no bones. At the north end of this was another cist, 4ft 8 ins by 2ft 9 ins by 2ft 8 ins deep. On the east side of the central cist or chamber was another cist and on its west side two cists, all of similar dimensions and each containing remains of human skeletons.

G Petrie 1863; RCAHMS 1946.

A chambered cairn, generally as described by the above authorities, but much smaller than planned by Henshall. Several of the stones of the chamber could not be traced. It now measures c. 160.0m. in diameter and 1.6m. high. The circular wall within the base edge of the cairn, the entrance passage, and the cists shown on the Commission plan and described by Petrie are no longer visible and the cairn is in a very ruined condition. The present whereabouts of the finds could not be determined.

Resurveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (RB) 27 April 1966.

Only portions of 4 upright slabs of the chamber remain, 3 in alignment on the W side, and 1 (1.4m distant from the N slab) on the E side, all parts of the SW & N compartments shown on Petrie's plan. The statement by OS in 1966 (RB) that the cairn is much smaller than that planned by Miss Henshall is erroneous, due to a wrong scale being applied to the plan by the OS Recorder. The plan has been replaced and amended. The section, however, is incorrect, that by the RCAHM (after Dryden) being more accurate.

Visited OS (JLD) 17 May 1981

Orkney-Cromarty round cairn with Bookan-type chamber.

J L Davidson and A S Henshall 1989.