Gask Hill

NO21SE 14 2884 1309.

(NO 2884 1309) Gask Hill (NAT) Cairn (NR)

OS 6" map, (1959)

Gask Hill, a very large cairn about 120' in diameter and 14' high, stood in good agricultural land beside the public road SE of Collessie. It was partly excavated 1876-7 and the primary structure seems to have been a cairn, about 60' in diameter, with a kerb of sandstone slabs, 3-4' high, traced for about one-third of the circumference. Within the kerb the ground was covered by clay, with burnt patches in which 'the black ashes and charcoal of wood might be taken up in handfuls'. Roughly in the centre of this cairn was a cist built on ground level, 4'6" long, 3' wide, and 1'3" high. In the cist were the last remains of an inhumation and a beaker - type N2. About 8' from the cist, but at a depth of 6' below ground surface, a beaker - type N1/D was found, in pieces, 'imbedded among gravel discoloured by ashes and charcoal'.

About 23' from the cist, and roughly in the line of the kerb which was not found in this part of the cairn, there were 'three or four stones of large size placed against each other on the ground level'. Beneath these, at a depth of 4' was a deposit of burnt bones covering an area 3' by 4' and about 1" deep, and among the bones was a rivetted dagger and a gold pommel-mount.

The cairn was enlarged so that the kerb lay eccentrically within it, probably when this last burial was made.

An iron sword, 18" long, found in the cairn a few years before 1863, is now in Kinloch House.

A S Henshall 1968; J Anderson 1878; D L Clarke 1970; D Wilson 1863.

When visited in 1956 the cairn was described as grass-covered, and measured about 23m in diameter with a maximum height of 2.0m on the SW. It has since been destroyed by cultivation.

Resurveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (D J S) 31 October 1956 and (W D J) 12 May 1970.

(Bronze dagger of Masterton type) Flat dagger with damaged butt, traces of three rivet-holes (or two rivet-holes and rivet-notch); omega-shaped hilt-mark; bevelled edges; tip damaged; remains of wooden sheath with leather cover on blade; pommel-mount of ribbed sheet-gold; present L.15.3 cm. present W.5.3 cm. Mus, Edinburgh (EQ52).

S Gerloff 1975.