Archaeology Notes

Event ID 647038

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/647038

HY63NE 6 c. 673 375.

See also HY63NE 5 and HY63NE 13.

(Area: HY 673 375 Tumuli (NR)

(HY 6736 3740) Tumulus(NR)

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

More than twenty small mounds with faint traces of others which have been destroyed by cultivation. The survivors seem to have been connected by a rudely built wall or setting of stones, but this feature is not continuously traceable.

The diameters of the mounds range from about 18' to 36' but none is more than 2' high. They are composed largely of stones now so overgrown that details are obscured, but it is noticeable that on each there is distinct evidence of 'cramp'.

Cists are said to have been exposed in some of them and the discovery of a large stone arrow or spear-head about 3" long, as well as a bone axe, is also recorded. (New Statistical Account [NSA, Rev W Traill] 1845).

RCAHMS 1946, visited 1928 and 1935.

Scattered over a wide area of pasture are at least 26 turf-covered cairns, varying in size from c6.0m to 12.0m in diameter and 0.3m to 0.8m high, and in shape from circular to oval, with one being "mirror-shaped" (See 'A' on plan). Stones can be seen protruding through the turf.

These cairns are similar in size and shape to the group of eleven, 100.0m to the E (HY63NE 5), but there is no trace of the "rudely built wall" connecting them mentioned by the RCAHMS, although the tops of one or two isolated upright slabs are visible. There have almost certainly been several other mounds, now surviving as faint swellings too amorphous to identify positively.

Some 300.0m to the SE by the shore at HY 6753 3728, is a turf-covered stony bank containing numerous upright slabs, which with the shoreline forms an enclosure, c40.0m by c20.0m.

Its date or purpose cannot be ascertained.

Surveyed at 1/2500

Visited by OS(NKB) 7 July 1970.

HY 676 375 (centre) EDM survey was undertaken at this site near Quoyness in September 1996. The site comprises a large field of 18 mounds (including NMRS HY63NE 3, HY63NE 5, HY63NE 6 ), and a chain of 11 mounds linked by a dyke which surround the probable chambered cairn at Egmondshowe. Since the survey was undertaken, the Scheduled area has been enlarged to take in the chain of mounds.

A survey report has been lodged with the NMRS.

Sponsor: Historic Scotland

J Downes 1998