Archaeology Notes

Event ID 643578

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/643578

HY21NW 15 2388 1913.

(HY 2388 1913) Tumuli (NR)

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

Three ancient burial mounds, the largest of which was opened by Sir Joseph Banks (Name Book 1880) before 1772, disclosing three cists, one of which contained beads. These may be the jet necklace reported by Low as having been found by Banks in the area.(Information from G Low 1879) The type of cists is not stated but Banks records two variations in the vicinity, one - a short cist of five rough-hewn stones, covered by a small cairn and overlaid by sand, and the other - a cist of six stones, the sixth forming the floor, inserted into the sand-hills, some times

in layers. They contained skeletons of men, women and children, but whether crouched or extended is not known. The Commission, in 1928, found it impossible to locate the three published mounds among so many of their kind.

RCAHMS 1946.

Only two sandy grass-covered mounds can now be identified with any of those published on the OS 6" - B and C.

A - HY 2379 1912, no trace, possibly ploughed out.

B - HY 2382 1915 - a large, well-shaped circular mound, 1.8m. high, possibly a natural sand-dune.

C - HY 2389 1915 - a low spread mound, 1.2m. high, possibly a natural sand-dune.

D - HY 2394 1915 - Mrs Linklater (Information from Mrs Linklater, Millcroft, Beyskaill.) pointed out the spot where, while quarrying for sand c.1945, a mechanical excavator exposed a capstone below which was a human skull. This site occurred under a mound similar to the others, but only a fraction of its west side now remains.

Surveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (AA) 20 May 1967.