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Sanday, 'lambaness'
Burial (Viking)
Site Name Sanday, 'lambaness'
Classification Burial (Viking)
Alternative Name(s) Lamba Ness
Canmore ID 3424
Site Number HY63NW 19
NGR HY 61 37
NGR Description HY c. 61 37
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/3424
- Council Orkney Islands
- Parish Cross And Burness
- Former Region Orkney Islands Area
- Former District Orkney
- Former County Orkney
HY63NW 19 c. 61 37
See also HY63NW 12, HY63NW 18, HY63NW 20.
Viking finds suggestive of a 10thc man's grave were included among articles all found in digging at Lamaness (PSAS Donations 1878) and donated to the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS) in 1878 by Col Balfour of Balfour and Trenabie.
NMAS 1892; S Grieg 1940.
NMAS catalogue describes the finds, part of a double-edged sword, an iron spear-head and an iron axehead (though the last is not mentioned by Grieg) as being found in digging in the ruins of ancient structure at Lamaness (NMAS Catalogue 1892). This might refer to HY63NW 18.
(See also HY63NW 20)
NMAS 1892; H Shetelig 1954.
It is believed locally that an old man who lived in the croft house at HY 6148 3770 found this sword in a grave on his croft not far from the house.
Visited by OS (AA) 13 July 1970.
'The Orkney Herald' reported the discovery of a burial with a skeleton and grave goods at Lamaness in february 1878. It may well relate to this site.
Note (1980)
'Lambaness', Sanday HY c. 61 37 HY63NW 19
Iron sword and spearhead, now in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS IL 179-81 ), suggest a male Viking burial.
RCAHMS 1980
(PSAS, xii, 1876-8, 599; Greig 1940, 86-8; RCAHMS 1946, ii, p. 44, No. 191;
Shetelig 1954, 70; Wainwright 1962, 148; OR 337)
Orkney Smr Note
Listed as a grave find in Vik Ants. Double-edged iron sword
and iron spear-head. [Vik Ants does not mention an iron axe
listed in the two above sources]. Reported to have been found
in 1878 at the digging out of a building at Lamaness in Sanday.
To judge from the association, however, the objects must
presumably have belonged to a grave.
[R3] + [R4]
Information from Orkney SMR [n.d.]
