High Torrs, Luce Bay

NX15NW 13 141 556.

(NX 141 556) A large number of rough, undressed boulders forming a cairn stood some 200m W of Horse Hill (NX15NW 9). The smallest of the stones required two men to move it, and each of the others weighed about a quarter of a ton. The site was excavated in 1931 by Mann, who showed that the stones covered a deposit of calcined bones, charcoal, burnt stones, iron slag and other artifacts including a small bronze ring, pieces of an iron vessel and other iron fragments, iron nails, fragments of two samian vessels of later 2nd or early 3rd century date, coarse ware pottery, a fragment of a crucible, and an iron finger-ring with an onyx intaglio. These finds are in Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum.

This burial is now interpreted as that of a Roman traveller, perhaps a soldier/sailor, or a merchant, possibly a smith.

The only identifiable bones from the cremation deposit were those of domesticated animals.

Glasgow Herald 20 March 1931; L M Mann 1933; M Henig 1969; A S Robertson 1970; M Henig 1974; D J Breeze and J N G Ritchie 1980.

In 1931 a cairn built of large boulders was discovered on top of an eroding sand-dune about 180m W of the dune known as Horse Hill (NX 144 556). Beneath it there was a deposit of cremated bone accompanied by a number of objects, including an iron finger-ring with an engraved onyx, a fragment of a bronze ring, fragments of an iron dish, a crucible fragment, and sherds of two Samian ware vessels of late 2nd- or early 3rd-century date. The only identifiable bones from the cremation deposit were those of domesticated animals, but it is possible that the deposit also included some human remains.

RCAHMS 1987.