South Uist, Carnan, Sig More

Chambered Cairn, Sig More, Carnan.

About 25 yards from the eastern shore of Sig More, or Ceann Langavat, just before it enters the South Ford, about 1 mile south-east of the post office at Carnan, on a rocky knoll, which is a tidal islet only during the highest tides, is a denuded chambered cairn. Most of the stones have been removed, leaving a stony mound about 5 feet in height at the most, in the eastern side of which is the ruined chamber of the long cist, or perhaps segmented, class. The cairn has been surrounded by a circle of standing stones or slabs set up on the margin. Those which have not been carried off remain overthrown amongst other boulders near their original positions. Fourteen large stones, five on the south half and nine on the north half, have evidently been marginal slabs. They are all of considerable size; the largest, which lies in the south. is an irregular slab measuring diagonally 9 feet 7 inches by 5 feet 9 inches. Measured to the outside of the fallen slabs, the cairn is 69 feet from north to south, and 65 feet 6 inches from east to west. (Fig. 166.)

The chamber has been formed by two roughly parallel rows of slabs set on edge, with the spaces between filled in with drystone building. At the eastern end of the chamber, near its entrance, is a rough four-sided pillar stone, 5 feet in height and 5 feet 3 inches in girth at the base, placed some distance within the outer ring of stones. The chamber extends some 21 feet 4 inches, from the pillar, almost due west, towards the interior of the cairn. Four of the slabs on its northern side remain near, if not in, their original places; on the opposite side only two slabs are seen. Some 3 feet 8 inches from the pillar, two stones placed across the chamber, with a space 1 foot 7 inches wide between them, probably indicate the portal, as behind them the chamber is about4 feet 6 inches in width. Possibly the chamber may have been divided into two compartments, as near its centre two of the side slabs converge to within 1 foot 3 inches of each other at their eastern ends, although the general width of this compartment seems to have been over 3 feet. The largest side slab measures 4 feet 3 inches in length and 2 feet 7 inches in height. Lying to the north-east of the erect pillar are five other tumbled monoliths.

RCAHMS 1928, visited 6 July 1915.

South Uist xlviii (unnoted).

This chambered cairn is generally as described by Henshall. It occupies a rocky islet that is cut off from the coast to the S at high tide and is often inundated by the sea. The cairn, which measures about 20m in diameter, has been heavily robbed, so much so that bedrock is exposed around its perimeter, where a fallen peristalith of thirteen large slabs can be seen. Within this line there are a number of other large slabs, those on the E possibly displaced capstones from the chamber, but those on the NNE and NW possibly form a second, inner, peristalith; an upright stone on the S edge of the cairn material also falls on this line, as may a broken and fallen pillar stone on the E. The peristaliths are not concentric and little cairn material survives between them. The entrance to the chamber is on the E, marked by two transversely set stones little more than 0.5m apart, and the chamber itself appears to have been divided into three compartments. The easternmost and central compartments are both narrow and their sides are formed by roughly parallel rows of upright slabs, while all that can be seen of the westernmost is two upright stones splaying out to the W; the W end of the compartment, and perhaps the chamber itself, are no longer visible.

Visited by RCAHMS (ARG,SPH) 2 March 2010