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Archaeology Notes

Event ID 644964

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/644964

HY32NE 1 3733 2978.

(HY 3733 2978) Mound (NAT)

OS 6" map, Orkney, 2nd ed.,(1900).

Knowe of Rowiegar, an Orkney-Cromarty type stalled cairn, now a grass-covered mound with a few slabs projecting near the centre.

The mound was excavated by W G Grant in 1937, who found that the SE end had been so badly damaged that it obscured all trace of the entrance, and that an earth-house had been constructed in the easternmost half of the cairn. Other Iron Age building, datable by pottery (J Phemister 1942) and other relics, lay on and around the cairn.

The mass of masonry (the unhatched area in Fig.26, A S Henshall 1963) which lies at the SE end of the cairn is too dilapidated for identification but from it springs a thick wall which curves towards the shore. A similar wall springs from the NW corner of the cairn, at which point the absence of a bond can be clearly seen. Similar walls occur at Mid Howe (HY33SE 1).

On the NE side of the cairn, near the NW end, some further remains have been uncovered. These consist partly of masonry foundations and partly of slabs set on edge. There is also a socket-stone, apparently intended to receive the pivot stone of a door. Possibly to be connected with this occupation are the buildings which seem to have risen on the summit of the cairn at some time after its upper parts had fallen into ruin. Numerous finds from the site, including pottery and stone implements, are in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS).

RCAHMS 1946; J Phemister 1942; A S Henshall 1963.

The Knowe of Rowiegar, a stalled cairn, is as described and illustrated by the above authorities.

Resurveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (NKB) 11 June 1967.

Rectangular Orkney-Cromarty cairn with stalled chamber. Radiocarbon dates from unstated contexts:

Cattle bone 2355 +/- 60 bc (Q-1221)

Deer bone 2055 +/- 60 bc (Q-1227)

J L Davidson and A S Henshall 1989.

People and Organisations

References