Archaeology Notes

Event ID 644860

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/644860

HY40SE 6 4702 0136

(HY 470 013) Broch (NR)

OS 1" map, (1959).

Excavations in 1901-2 revealed the complete outline still visible, of a broch, and traces of internal detail and external subsiding buildings.

A S Graeme 1914; RCAHMS 1946, visited 7 August 1929.

The external wall (18.0m diameter) of the broch at HY 4702 0136 exists to a miximum height of 1.3m. The inner wall is fragmentary. The internal detail can no longer be seen, and the only sign of possible external buildings is vague traces of dry stone walling in two excavation trenches.

Resurveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (NKB), 31 August 1964.

In the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS) from this site, is a bone dice (Accession no L.1948.35) and a fragment of incised pottery (Accession no L.1948.49).

A Young 1955; D V Clarke 1970.

Two bone dice found: RMS L.1948.35. Two surfaces and one end damaged. Numbered 3, 4, 5, 6 (or possibly 3, 6, 5, 6). 52 x 22mm. From the lowest level in a passage of an outbuilding. Associated finds were 'a large quantity of pottery', two riveted antler plates, a bone awl, a long-handled comb, and a whale vertebra cup.

Royal Museum of Scotland L.1948.36. Solid bone. Numbered 3, 4, 5, 6; one end is also marked with a single dot enclosed by two concentric circles. On all faces there is evidence for the dots having been enclosed by two concentric circles, but no example survives complete. 44 x 18mm. Find spot unknown.

D V Clarke 1970; E J Mackie 1971.

(There is a description of the broch in 'The Orkney Herald', August 25 1908).

M Howe 2006.