Following the launch of trove.scot in February 2025 we are now planning the retiral of some of our webservices. Canmore will be switched off on 24th June 2025. Information about the closure can be found on the HES website: Retiral of HES web services | Historic Environment Scotland
Balfour
Barrow (Bronze Age)(Possible), Cist (Bronze Age), Cremation (Bronze Age), Cinerary Urn (Steatite)(Bronze Age)
Site Name Balfour
Classification Barrow (Bronze Age)(Possible), Cist (Bronze Age), Cremation (Bronze Age), Cinerary Urn (Steatite)(Bronze Age)
Canmore ID 2419
Site Number HY41NE 9
NGR HY 479 165
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/2419
- Council Orkney Islands
- Parish Shapinsay
- Former Region Orkney Islands Area
- Former District Orkney
- Former County Orkney
HY41NE 9 479 165.
The site of a mound found in 1881, is in the road over a sandy hill, a mile NE of Balfour Village, and then the mound was so slight that it was not observed until a fragment of an urn was turned up. Then a small cist was found with a stone bottom and a cover-stone. The urn, now in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS), was of steatite 6 1/2" diameter and 4" high, and had been broken and mended by piercing holes in both sides of the fractures.
RCAHMS 1946. Visited 1928; Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1882 (Donations).
No further information.
Visited by OS(AA) 30 September 1972
In 1881 workmen making the road across a sandy hilltop, about 1 mile (1.61km) NE of Balfour village, disturbed an insignificant-looking mound and discovered a small slab-formed cist containing a steatite urn (Royal Museum of Scotland accession no. EK8).
RCAHMS 1987; NMAS Catalogue 1892
Note (2020)
Balfour
This burial site in Orkney Islands was a focus for funerary practices in the Bronze Age period, between 1850 BC and 1201 BC.
Prehistoric Grave Goods project site ID: 60190
CANMORE ID: 2419
Total no. graves with grave goods: 1
Total no. people with grave goods: 1
Total no. grave goods: 1
Prehistoric Grave Goods project Grave ID: 60080
Grave type: Cist
Burial type(s): Cremation
Grave good: Vessel (Unknown/Unspecified)
Materials used: Steatite
Current museum location: National Museum of Scotland
Museum accession no.: X.EK 8
Further details, the full project database and downloads of project publications can be found here: https://doi.org/10.5284/1052206
An accessible visualisation of the database can be found here: http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/grave-goods/map/
