Archaeology Notes

Event ID 646625

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/646625

HY74SW 10 7158 4335.

(HY 7158 4335) Ivar's Knowe (NR)

Brough (NR)

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

This mound now lies in cultivated land and its original characteristics have been destroyed, but there is nothing to indicate that the site was ever occupied by a stone structure, though the field and the adjacent coastward area is littered with a deposit of kitchen- midden refuse from which a neighbouring farmer has made a collection of miscellaneous stone and bone artifacts.

The site is originally described in Ordnance Survey Bame Book (ONB) as ' an ancient tumulus or burial place' but this has been changed to 'Brough' on the strength of its inclusion in Petrie's list of brochs. New Statistica Account (NSA) describes it as a tumulus which has never been opened.

A perforated stone and two flint scrapers from the site were donated by the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS) by William Skea, Hillhead in 1928.

RCAHMS 1946, visited 1928; Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1929 (Donations); Name Book 1879; G Petrie 1873; NSA (Rev W Traill) 1845.

A ploughed down mound of burnt stones and black earth measuring 26.0m NE-SW by 22.0m transversely. The name "Ivar's Knowe" is still known locally.

A piece of bone comb (Accession no. 233) from Ivar's Knowe, Sanday, is in Tankerness Museum.

Visited by OS(NKB) 12 July 1970.