|
Craw (as in Craw Stone) refers to an enclosure, other spellings crew/crue/creugh [and probably sometimes degraded into roo].
|
|
Geometric designs have been found on several stones round about including one sticking out of the ground near the fifth chamber. Source this week's "The Orcadian". Hopefully Sigurd will be updating Orkneyjar soon [he is now busy as news editor].
|
|
"The Orcadian" of 11/10/2001 says a geomagnetic survey that year found a concentric ditch survived around 70% of the base.
|
|
Andrew Appleby (once an excavator of cists) found a possible circle of stones between the Grimeston and Stoneyhill roads.This sparked my interest in the 'Vola' mound, but this year I attended an Orkney Archaeological Society talk by an Orkney College student [name escapes me] on a site called Henge, 80m diameter and cut across one end by the road. Described as little known it rings no bells. Unfortunately I could not identify the place from either image shown as this site does not show up well even in person or photograph other than badly. One of these was of a putative entrance, though without scale the devil's advocate saw a passage into a field across a ditch. If I remember correctly geophysics had located several other interesting features round about. Dave Lynn [ex-Director of the CSA] came to see me and had visited the site, which is where the legend Staney Hill is shown on the 1:25,000 - he said it is by Henge Cottage. When he went water inside clearly defined the ditch, but as to the possible entrance he was of the opinion that this is due to one of the two tracks shown here on the first O.S. [when the present road did not exist].
|
|
Recovered during this exploration were the remains of at least eight folk, and it is hoped to carry out a fuller excavation this summer [funds possibly an issue].
|
|
This site was discovered in September 2010 by Hamish Mowatt of the Skeriies Bistro (hence early confusion over its whereabouts in South Ronaldsay) during work on his holiday homes at Banks. He found that one large flagstone to which no attention had been paid before covered a space in which a skull could be seen. It was soon realised that this was part of a chambered tomb that had suffered water ingress. Later reports added that this lay under a slight mound or ridge, partly removed by a JCB, that though much lower than that of the nearby Tomb of The Eagles would probably also have been seen from the sea. Not only had the tomb been built into the natural but it also started out as a rock-cut. Because this site is one of few found undisturbed in recent decades and it was feared material remains would deteriorate further under the standing water an emergency excavation was decided upon. This took place over two weeks October into November, though time was been lost to bad weather and nothing is yet known of the last few days [?abandoned as weather had worsened still further]. As a tomb entry lay through the short N/S leg of an L-shaped passage (a tee if you add the east chamber). There were five chambers altogether; one small cell off the north side, two small cells off the south side and two larger ones at either end of the long E/W section of the passage. The chambers used corbelled vaulting above courses of single stones. Many skeletal remains were found, chiefly skulls and fragments, but these as far as is known are all part of a final sealing of the tomb. This de-commissioning took place staccato over an extended period of time - basically slabs were placed over the cells, the human remains over these, and then further silty gray material completed the process.
|
|
On the 1st 25" O.S. several slopes are shown. On it the site aligns NE/SW, with at the eastern side a rectilinear half (having a sub-rectangular pit [or perhaps stone] at right angles to the longer side half-way along), at the western side an arc of the same length, and at the northern side two arcs of almost similar sizes (the west one less curved) with a gap between them due north. The RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY41NW 6 describes a broch tower of internal diameter nearly 30' having a 19'6" long section of inner wall-face visible on the west side to a height of some 4'6" with an opening of over 2'6" blocked up in modern times. Inside the east ditch it mentions faint traces of the outer broch wall. The rectilnear half makes me wonder if it hasn't been re-used by the Vikings, like Castle Howe in Holm.
|
|
With there being a possible boundary ditch south of the Tomb of the Eagles it is worth noting that an orthostatic slab south of the Banks Tomb is probably a boundary marker (RCAHMS NMRS record no. ND48SE 8 at ND459833, down as post-mediaeval though how they can be certain of one and not the other...). Also in the area Ronald Simison explored two out of six mounds at ND46128326 (ND48SE 4) both with kerbs and one apparently connected by a causeway to one of the others. He also found a kerb cairn at ND46338323 (ND48SE 3).
|
|
In 1880 there is a reference to the close proximty to Mine Howe of "Lang Howe, Round Howe, Stoney Howe, Stem Howe and Chapel", from which I take Stoney Howe to be the burnt mound near Breck
|
|
Having noticed photographically that a line from the Barnhouse Stone through Maeshowe passes on to the Setter tumuli below Sordon (NMRS record no.HY31NW 14 at HY34581544 & 34631543, to whit two Bronze Age burial mounds) I wondered about the relative position of the Ke(i)thesgeo stone (HY31SW 41 at HY30351136). Pencilling in the position of the stake showing its former position onto a 1:25,000 map a line passes from it through Maeshowe to the Setter barrows, though missing out the Barnhouse Stone rather. Makes a useful backstop up on the Clouston hillside.
|
|
RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY31SW 3 at HY39731260. This site came to light on a Friday afternoon when a steam threshing mill broke through the surface and became stuck. John Mooney and WilliamTraill came the same day for a look over and on the next Traill and Dr.Marwick gave "a more thorough examination". Its walls are a mix of large ?natural boulders and small quarried stones. The corbelled roof sits on four stones a yard apart, slightly over a foot from the walls and and roughly foursquare [that they are unequal in height suggests to me a possible origin as standing stones]. This oval gallery chamber is 15'3" NW/SE by 8'6", with a 27"x30" passage running approximately 10' from the NW end that is lintelled by oversized untooled slabs. In the walls there are several rectangular niches [including a slot near the floor on the RH side] all of which were empty except for a skull in that opposite the entrance [I assume the one behind the ladder]. More skulls were found about the inner side of the "south pillar". A mass of other bones were also found. At the outer end of the passage was shell midden material [ritual sealing ?]. All of this from report in "The Orkney Herald" of November 17th 1926. Viewed from the new entrance running clockwise the stones are southerly [LH near], westerly [LH far], northerly [RH far], easterly [RH near].
|
|
this season's dig has begun and they now have 30 ox skulls in the foundations for which they can find nothing similar in Scotland [though J.W. Cursiter mentions the 1901 uncovering by storm near Skara Brae of a 3' deep ox midden 100' long, beneath which another storm two years later disclosed a building].
|
"This site has more than 420 stones is considered one of the most important of Central Brittany. Its construction dates back to more than 1,500 years. In 1989, after excavations, the majority of the standing at half-buried in the Heath there was discovered. The site extends over 7 hectares. Some stones weighing over 35 tons and can measure up to 5 meters"
Aubrey Burl has 22 schist stones (with three still standing) in two intersecting rows 55m N/S and 78m WSW/ENE [rather ragged on his plan]
|
|
Low had a little excavate but found nothing
|
|
Brand 1703 "the Minister of Sandwick's Manse is said to have been the residence of one of the kings of Picts... to this day called Koningsgar or the King's House... tho now kept in some repair... The figure thereof and the contrivance of its two Rooms or Chambers one above and one below, of narrow dimensions, and antick, and the Building hath been but coarse."
|
|
In 1849 the Stone of Odin, smashed in 1814, is reported as having been 150 yards to the N of the Stones of Stenness. Trouble is Pococke has it 124 yards E of a stone that was 18 yards to the SE of the circle and William Aberdeen's perspective drawing slightly later depicts it to the E and south of the circle too. Pococke's drawing of the the lesser circle from the north shows other stones to its E and perhaps a block between it and the henge but no holed stone.
|
Low ~1774 "[Stones of Stenness] not ditched about like ... [Ring of Brodgar]..but surrounded with a raised mound partly raised on the live earth, as the other was cut from it"
Wilson 1842 " the completer... circle of the... Stones of Stennis... as you approach them you pass here and there a solitary stone or broken remnant, as if there had been... a connecting range or approach, all the way from the bridge to the great circle. The latter is encompassed by a still entire mound, surrounded by a foss [sic], and there is a filling up of the foss and a lowering of the mound, just at two entrance places, opposite each other, north and south."
|
1760 Pococke's drawing shows a second stone on the opposite side of the road a little further away from the roadside. This is longer than it is tall and resembles a recumbent [though I suppose it could be a very large natural boulder like the Savile Stone]. The 'companion' stone is actually a diamond shape which if to the same scale as the Watch Stone would come oot as some 14' high and wide ! As far as I can tell from Pococke's drawing it would have been about grid ref HY30671275.
Wilson 1842 "Close to either side of the southern end of the bridge... stands a great sentinel stone...
...as you approach [the Ring of Brodgar] you pass here and there a solitary stone or broken remnant, as if there had been... a connecting range or approach, all the way from the bridge to the great circle"
|
There were once more stones than those in the circle
1760 "There are two standing to the South, one is wanting, and there are two stones standing, a third lying down, then three are wanting, there being a space of 27 yards so that there were eight in all : Eighteen yards South East from the circle is a single stone, and 124 yards to the East of that is another [Odin Stone] with a hole in one side towards the bottom, from which going to the circle is another [stone] 73 yards from the fossee [sic], the outer part of which fossee is 16 yards from the circle" and as this was summertime I guess stumps lay hidden in the grass.
Low ~1774 ""[Stones of Stenness] The drawing shows the stones in their present state, which is four entire and one broken [??recumbent]. It is not ditched about like ... [Ring of Brodgar]..but surrounded with a raised mound partly raised on the live earth, as the other was cut from it... near the circle are several stones set on end without any regular order, or several of them so much broken, hinder us as to the design of them.""
It seems that sometime between 1760 and 1842 several were nudged and then between 1842 and Thomas visit several were destroyed as described. His disbelief arises because he only knew of the circle itself. One of the external stones was a companion to the Watchstone on the other side of the road and further from it, a fat ?recumbent still there in 1842.
1842 "Stones of Stennis... in one case in a vast circle surrounded by a mount, in the other in insulated groups of two or three together, either forming parts of an approach to the circle, or themselves the sole remnants of other corresponding circles...
none of them is very thick in proportion to its height and breadth... The summits are generally diagonal... and they seem also in many cases to be imbedded in the earth by a corresponding sloping corner. Their original position was no doubt perpendicular although others are leaning to their fall, and not a few are lying flat upon the ground...
Although the gigantic remnants near the Kirkwall road are too few in number to indicate the circular form, yet that... is sufficiently manifested by the distinct traces of a large green mound in which they are enclosed... almost continuous semicircle... the other segment having been ploughrd up... One of the largest of these stones now lies flat... having been loosened it is said... by the plough, and soon after blown over by a gale"
|
Pococke 1760
"[from the Ring of Brodgar] There is a single pillar about 50 yards to the North East, and a barrow to the North and South, one to the South West and another to the North East...
another circle of stones [Stones of Stenness] which are 15 feet high, 6 feet broad, the circle is about 30 yards in diameter, and the stones are about 8 yards apart. There are two standing to the South, one is wanting, and there are two stones standing, a third lying down, then three are wanting, there being a space of 27 yards so that there were eight in all : Eighteen yards South East from the circle is a single stone, and 124 yards to the East of that is another [Odin Stone] with a hole in one side towards the bottom, from which going to the circle is another [stone] 73 yards from the fossee [sic], the outer part of which fossee is 16 yards from the circle : there are several small barrows chiefly to the East [Clovy Knowes]." His map shows a large squat stone close to the shore E of the S end of the bridge - this and the possible causeway perhaps a reminder of when the main road went along the driveway to Stenness Kirk.
Low ~1774 unpublished ms "History of the Orkneys" quoted in 1879 edition published by William Peace [referring to a lost drawing, that published being one by William Aberdeen from the1760's]
"[Stones of Stenness] The drawing shows the stones in their present state, which is four entire and one broken [??recumbent]. It is not ditched about like ... [Ring of Brodgar]..but surrounded with a raised mound partly raised on the live earth, as the other was cut from it... near the circle are several stones set on end without any regular order, or several of them so much broken, hinder us as to the design of them."
William Aberdeen's annotated map [donated to Royal Society of London 1784] is the source of observations attributed later to Hibbert
"When Oliver Cromwell's men were in this county they dug tolerably deep in the top [of Maeshowe] , but found nothing but earth" also that site used for archery + "[E of Ring of Brodgar] a small mount... still retains the name of Watch Hill or Tower [Plumcake Mound rather than Fresh Knowe I think]."
|
|
Unemployed and so plenty of spare time for researching contributors' questions and queries and for making corrections. Antiquarian and naturalist. Mode of transport shanks's pony. Talent unnecessary endurance. I love brochs.
|
Log in |
Register
Previous 20 | Showing 61-80 of 372 miscellaneous posts. Most recent first | Next 20 
Top of page