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Archaeology Notes
Date - 1970
Event ID 674881
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Archaeology Notes
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/674881
NM80SW 1 8306 0497
(NM 8305 0497) Standing Stone (NR)
(NM 8304 0496) Cairns (NR)
OS 6" map, Argyllshire, 2nd ed., (1900)
See also NM80NW 35.
A Bronze Age complex consisting of a standing stone and three cairns (four if NM80NW 29 is included).
The standing stone, which leans NW, faces approximately E-W and measures 13' in height and 3'6" in breadth with a thin lozenge section and a rounded top. A horizontal notch is cut in the S edge about 4'6" from the ground.
Cairn 'A' lies about 13' NE of the stone and was excavated by Simpson in 1959 and 1960, after which it was restored to its former appearance - an 8' high stone mound on the perimeter of which a number of kerb-stones were visible, giving a diameter of 48'. Outside the kerb the cairn material extended for some 8' - 10', generally as a grass-covered slope. It bore traces of superficial disturbance, including robbing on the N for the building of an adjacent sheep-fold.
The excavation showed that the cairn had several unusual features, viz: (1) The ground surface was undisturbed except where a probable false portal had been set into it on the S of the cairn.
(2) The cairn material outside the kerb was not slip but was original support for the kerb.
(3) A segmented cist, presumably primary since it was the only burial found, was set only a few inches within the kerb on the NW.
(4) There was a gap in the centre of the cairn where a wooden post, presumably used in its setting out, had disintegrated.
A recumbent monolith, 7'6" long, covered by collapsed cairn material, lay to the S of the false portal. That it had ever been upright was uncertain as no socket-hole was found.
The only finds were six jet beads, apparently unique in their spiral-fluted ornamentation, a medieval bronze buckle, marine shells and animal teeth. None of the finds was necessarily contemporary with the cairn.
A date somewhere in the first half of the second millenium BC is suggested for the cairn, which is thought to have been originally covered in white quartz.
Cairn 'B' lies 20' SW of the standing stone, is 11' in diameter and 1'6" high; it was also excavated in 1959 and 1960 and restored to its former appearance. It was a low, grass-covered mound which showed slight disturbance in the centre. Round the perimeter some of the unusually large kerb-stones projected. Little cairn material lay outside the kerb. Excavation revealed, on the W edge of the cairn, a small stone cist, 8" square internally, built against the inner face of the kerb, one stone of which served as a side slab. Although apparently undisturbed, it contained only a few fragments of carbonised wood. There were no small finds from this cairn.
Cairn 'C' is a low cairn lying 10' W of 'B'. It was not excavated. (Misplaced on OS 6" map) An early 18th century sketch-plan shows a row of four stones running SW from either cairn 'B' or 'C', but this is no longer visible.
The standing stone is said to have been erected to a Norse prince (Argyll County Council 1914) and is known as the "Danish King's Grave" as also apparently is cairn 'A' (Campbell and Sandeman 1964).
Argyll County Council 1914; M Campbell and M Sandeman 1964; D D A Simpson 1968..
The cairns and standing stone are generally as described, although 'B' is 8.4m in diameter and 'C' is visible as an amorphous grass-covered mound c.7.0m in diameter x 0.3m high.
Between 'B' and NM80NW 29 is the grass-covered base of a probable cairn 'D' measuring c. 23.0m in diameter with a maximum height of 1.3m. It was probably robbed to build the sheepfold nearby. Two grass-covered piles of stones alongside may also be the remains of cairns.
Surveyed at 1/10,000.
Visited by OS (R D) 4 March 1970.
