I don't know where this was, or where it is, but it is so unusual that it surely demands inclusion?
There were two stones, one at each end of a central cist (of three) in a cairn, on the Poltalloch estate. As you can see, one of them had linear markings, which the Reverend Mapleton took to be Ogham (though to the untrained eye they don't look very Oghamish), and the other some shallow carvings in the apparent shape of Bronze Age axes. Someone at the reading of the paper suggested they might be for casting such axes. On another stone were 10 or 11 cupmarks.
The description of the cairn's whereabouts is a bit vague: In the glen that extends from Loch Awe to the Crinan Canal are several sand and gravel banks rising among the moss, in many of which cairns and cists have been found. One such gravel-bank contains a very interesting cist. It is skirted on the east by moss, and on the west by reclaimed pasture-land, which was loose moss about forty or forty-five years ago [ie c1840]; at that time the bank was trenched for the purpose of planting, and it is now occupied by a small plantation. There are remains of the cairn; but as some houses were built on the spot, it is not easy to ascertain the limits or size of the cairn. The situation of the plantation is in the middle of the flat extent of land between Callton Mor, the residence of Mr. Malcolm*, of Poltalloch, and the village of Kilmartin.
*this being the big house at Poltalloch.
from
Note on a Cist with Engraved Stones on the Poltalloch Estate, County of Argyll
R. J. Mapleton
The Journal of the Ethnological Society of London (1869-1870), Vol. 2, No. 3 (1870), pp. 340-342
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Image Credit: The Reverend R J Mapleton
Posted by Rhiannon
2nd July 2008ce
Edited 3rd July 2008ce |
NB: Unless otherwise stated, this image is protected under the copyright of the original poster and may not be re-used without permission.
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