Camas Luinie

Date Fieldwork Started: 19/04/2019

Compiled by: Callander

Location Notes: This stone is situated at the mouth of Glen Elchaig almost 1km before the small settlement of Camas Luinie which is at the end of at 10km dead end, which runs from Ardelve on Loch Duich, NE along the N shore of Loch Long to its terminus at Camas Luinie. It is to the W of the road a small distance up the hillside on a small flatter section of a roughly oval deer-fenced area of about 250m x 150m. There is an obvious line of telegraph poles traversing across this area, which is largely heather moorland with some scattered small boulders. A path leads from a gate at the roadside up the gentle rise through the woods and a rather indistinct then path peels of this to the right the short distance up the heather slope to a flatter area where the stone is immediately seen. The location commands superb views of the lower glen to the N and SE, but especially E up Glen Elchaig towards the satellite hills of Sgurr nan Ceathreamhnan.

Panel Notes: The stone is a rounded slab of well-weathered mica schist, which was covered in dry moss prior to gentle cleaning. The boulder is likely to be a glacial erratic as the schist is a foreign rock in this locality. The boulder is orientated W to E on its longer axis and is extensively covered in cupmarks over its S facing side, which slopes gently at first from the top about 10 degrees and then increasingly until it is over 70 degrees at its S end. It then shelves, and slopes inwards to the ground for about 35cm where, unusually, about 5-6 cups are also found. In all 91 cup marks were counted in the field, although these grade from very obvious to barely discernible and thus increasingly dubious. The cups range from the largest at about 8cm x 2cm to the smallest at about 3.5cm x

The top of the stone is smoother and flatter that the rest of it and about 6 very shallow cupmarks can be made out on the E half of this area. This may be because the topmost area is more exposed to the effects of weathering and the cups here represent a residue of many more original marks. The S side below this, in contrast, is heavily covered with a dense cluster of cupmarks. This runs into another smoother area lacking in cupmarks within the SE quadrant of the stone's surface. Here, the cup marked area terminates abruptly at a distinct edge which appears to mark the point beyond which the surface of The SE quadrant has gradually spalled off. This weathered edge cuts though several distinct cupmarks. It appears as though the entire stone may well have been originally covered in densely packed cupmarks and those now clustering on the S and W end of the rock represent the survivors after many centuries of weathering and exfoliation.

NG 94410 29098 A prominent boulder 1.5m high and 90m W of NG92NW1 bears two cup marks both 50 x 18mm. This probably the same boulder mentioned by N Macrae in 1923.