Blowes
Cist (Early Bronze Age), Cremation(S) (Early Bronze Age), Cinerary Urn(S) (Pottery)(Early Bronze Age), Cinerary Urn (Steatite)(Early Bronze Age)
Site Name Blowes
Classification Cist (Early Bronze Age), Cremation(S) (Early Bronze Age), Cinerary Urn(S) (Pottery)(Early Bronze Age), Cinerary Urn (Steatite)(Early Bronze Age)
Alternative Name(s) Howan Blo'
Canmore ID 2962
Site Number HY50NE 5
NGR HY 571 060
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/2962
- Council Orkney Islands
- Parish St Andrews And Deerness
- Former Region Orkney Islands Area
- Former District Orkney
- Former County Orkney
HY50NE 5 571 060.
A short cist containing calcined bones and a steatite urn, 8ins. high was ploughed up in 1929 near the crest of a mound known as Howan Blo (near which another cist had been found some years before) on the farm of Blowes, about 100 yds. S of the former Free Church of Deerness.
In 1933, a few feet away, a Bronze Age cinerary urn containing bone-ash and potsherds was found (not of an incense cup) and, 5ft. away a third cremation burial with out either urn or cist.
The pottery and the steatite urn are in Kirkwall Museum.
H Marwick and A Low 1929; H Marwick 1929; W G Grant 1933; RCAHMS 1946.
'Howan Blo' is a natural hillock centred in an arable field at HY 571 060. No trace of any burials or excavations are evident. The pottery and steatite urn were not seen: the contents of Kirkwall Museum are at present in store.
Visited by OS (RD) 1 September 1964.
There is nothing to mark the exact spot where three Bronze Age burials were found close together in 1929 and 1933. The initial discovery, made during ploughing, was of a small cist containing a pottery cinerary urn, two-thirds full of burned bones, and containing sherds of a small urn, was discovered. In the course of its removal, the excavators came across a third cremation, in this case in an urn-shaped hole, but without an actual urn. The cist and bones were re-buried, the urns are in Tankerness House Museum.
H Marwick 1929; W G Grant 1933; RCAHMS 1946; RCAHMS 1987.
Note (2020)
Blowes
This burial site in Orkney Islands was a focus for funerary practices in the Bronze Age period, between 2200 BC and 1501 BC.
Prehistoric Grave Goods project site ID: 60130
CANMORE ID: 2962
Total no. graves with grave goods: 2
Total no. people with grave goods: 2
Total no. grave goods: 4
Prehistoric Grave Goods project Grave ID: 72351
Grave type: Cist
Burial type(s): Cremation
Grave good: Vessel (Unknown/Unspecified); Materials used: Steatite; Current museum location: Orkney Museum (Kirkwall)
Prehistoric Grave Goods project Grave ID: 72352
Grave type: Pit
Burial type(s): Cremation
Grave good: Pot (Unknown/Unspecified); Materials used: Pottery; Current museum location: Orkney Museum (Kirkwall)
Grave good: Pot; Materials used: Pottery; Current museum location: Unknown
Grave good: Lid; Materials used: Stone (Uncertain/Unspecified); Current museum location: Unknown
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/
