Balnuaran of Clava

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The Clava Cairns from Balnuaran of Clava, view from the northeast

Balnuaran of Clava is the site of several late Neolithic megalithic complexes in Strathnairn , Scotland , eight kilometers southeast of Inverness and only two kilometers from the Culloden battlefield . This type of cairn occurs only in northeastern Scotland in an area south and west of the Moray Firth and was named Clava Cairns after Balnuaran of Clava .

The hills are around 4000 years old and were used in two different phases. After a first, rather short period of use around 2300 to 2000 BC They were reused about 1000 years later. Examined in detail for the first time in the 19th century, they were - after a "repair" by the then owner in the 1870s - protected on August 18, 1882 as a Scheduled Monument . The area is now in the care of Historic Environment Scotland and is a popular tourist attraction in the Eastern Highlands .

history

The location of the Cairns was already settled and cultivated in the Neolithic , before the first hills around 2300 to 2000 BC. BC, i.e. at the turn of the late Neolithic to the early Bronze Age . The Cairns replaced the previously existing settlement there. However, they were only in use for a relatively short time and were only used for a few burials - if not only for one. When a burial mound was no longer in use, it was surrounded by a platform made of rubble that prevented access to the cairn and a stone circle was built on the outer edge . About 1000 years later, the Cairns found a reuse as a burial site. At that time, new tombs were built nearby, including a Kerb Cairn .

In the 19th century, three of the mounds of Balnuaran of Clava were first examined in more detail, with some bones being said to have been found in the northeastern hill in 1828. An excavation in the southwest of Cairn in 1858 revealed the fragments of two urns and - albeit few - finds of calcined bones . In 1870/1871 the landowner at the time decided to secure the four best-preserved Cairns by surrounding them with a wall and cutting back the vegetation. Apparently, stones from the hills were also used in the construction of the enclosing wall. In addition, the owner laid the current access road on the southeast side of the area, for which two of the monoliths of the southwest stone circle were relocated. Since the Cairns were considered to be Druidic places of worship at that time , today's trees were planted on the area to create a "druid grove ".

At the beginning of the 1930s, new repairs were carried out on the initiative of the Office of Works , because at that time a lot of rock had fallen from the hills and lay loose in the area. At the same time, (partial) excavations took place under Kathleen Kennedy. However, their results have never been published and were only rediscovered in the late 1980s. It was not until the 1950s that scientifically documented excavations under Stuart Piggott took place in Balnuaran of Clava, but they brought only a few new findings. In the chamber of the central Ring Cairns , the archaeologists found signs of a fire and some cremated remains of bones.

Several excavation campaigns and field investigations between 1994 and 1997 under Professor Richard Bradley of Reading University once again delved into the Clava Cairns of Balnuaran of Clava. The above-ground structures of the best-preserved systems were also documented again.

description

Schematic site plan

In Balnuaran of Clava there are three cairns that lie one behind the other on a non-straight line running from northeast to southwest. They date from the late Neolithic or the early Bronze Age and are each surrounded by a stone circle. There is also a curb cairn that is about 1000 years younger .

The three Clava Cairns consist of a central, roughly circular stone mound, two of which are passage graves and the middle one is a ring cairn . The two passage graves used to have stone roofs using corbel technology, but these have been lost over time. All three hills are surrounded by a platform made of rubble that holds the outer curbs of the hills in position. These outer stones are arranged according to their height: the highest are found in the southwest of each hill, the lowest in the northeast. The same applies to the curbs of the inner chambers.

White and red stones were used on all of the cairns. They consist of red sandstone , red conglomerate or pink pegmatite as well as light granite , gneiss and mica schist . But there are also very few black stones. At the time of their construction the Cairns must have looked very colorful and rich in contrast. Analogous to their size, the stones were also arranged according to their color, so that certain areas appeared completely white or red at the time.

Northeast hill

The northeast hill, view from the southeast

The mound in the northeastern part of the area is a passage grave, the material of which is piled up to a height of almost 10  feet (approx. Three meters). Its winter solstice corridor, however, was quite low so that one could not stand upright in it. Even so, the rays of the setting sun reached the inner chamber on the day of the winter solstice. This has a diameter of 12 to 13 feet (about 3.7 to 4 meters) and is formed by 2.5 to 3.9 feet (about 0.8 to 1.2 meters) high curbs. The outside diameter of the northeast hill is 55 feet (about 16.8 meters). Its outer edge is formed by stones between 1.6 and 3 feet (49 and 91 centimeters) high. One of them has cup markings .

The cairn is surrounded by a stone circle consisting of eleven stones, which - because it is not completely circular - is between 24 and 37 feet (around 7.3 and 11.3 meters) from the outer edge of the stone hill. Its diameter is between 110 and 177 feet (approximately 33.5 and 54 meters). The irregular shape could result from a repositioning of three fallen stones in the 19th century.

Middle hill

The middle hill, a ring cairn

The middle hill is a ring cairn , that is, a closed, approximately circular ring of stones with a central inner chamber that cannot be reached via a corridor. This chamber is 18 to 21 feet (about 5.5 to 6.4 meters) in diameter larger than the two neighboring mounds and, because of its dimensions, may never have had a roof. The other features of the Cairn are similar to those of its two neighbors. It has an outside diameter of 52 to 60 feet (about 15.8 to 18.3 meters) and is up to four feet (about 1.20 meters) high. Many of its outer curbs have been lost. Some of them have cup markings. The most striking exterior stone that has been preserved is a 4.3 foot (approximately 1.30 meter) high monolith stump. After the hill was no longer used as a grave, the inner chamber was filled with rubble, but this was removed again during the repair work in the 1930s.

The cairn is surrounded by a stone circle made up of nine monoliths that are between 21 and 25 feet (about 6.4 and 7.6 meters) high. The tallest of them is in the southwest of the circle, which is 100 feet in diameter. As a special feature compared to the other two Cairns, the hill is connected by six to eight feet (about 1.8 to 2.4 meters) wide stone dams with four of the stone circle monoliths.

Southwest hill

The southwest hill, view from the southwest

The southwest hill in Balnuaran of Clava is a passage grave and is very similar to the northeast cairn. It is located about 80 feet from the middle hill and has an outer diameter of 52.6 feet (about 16 meters). Its passage is 19.9 feet (just over six meters) long and 2 feet (about 0.6 meters) wide. Like the corridor of the north-east hill, it is oriented towards the winter solstice and begins in the south-west of the Cairns. The inner chamber is not entirely circular and is between 11.6 and 13 feet (about 6.5 to 4 meters) in diameter. Its curbs, some of which - just like one of the stone circle monoliths - show cup markings, are up to 6.9 feet (about 2.10 meters) high.

The stone circle surrounding the hill is made up of ten monoliths that stand between 24 and 28 feet (about 7.3 to 8.5 meters) from the edge of the hill. Three of them fell over in the 19th century and were raised again in 1876. Two stones had to be moved because of the construction of today's access road and are no longer in their original position.

Curb Cairn

The Curb Cairn

The Bronze Age Curb Cairn is a small burial site surrounded by a ring of 15 stones, located southwest of the central cairn and north of the southwest hill. It probably dates from around 1000 BC. Chr. And is badly damaged. It was only uncovered during the excavations in the 1950s. This cairn is also made up of red and white stones, one of which has cup-and-ring markings.

literature

  • A Visitor’s Guide to Balnuaran of Clava, a prehestoric cemetery. Historic Scotland, Edinburgh n.d. ( PDF ; 1.9 MB).
  • Richard Bradley (Ed.): The Good Stones. A New Investigation of the Clava Cairns (= Monograph Series of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Volume 17). Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Edinburgh 2000, ISBN 0-903903-17-2 ( excerpts ).
  • Joanna Close-Brooks: Exploring Scotland’s Heritage. The highlands. 2nd Edition. HMSO, Edinburgh 1995, ISBN 0-11-495293-0 , p. 158.
  • William Jolly: On cup-marked stones in the neighborhood of Inverness. With an appendix on cup-marked stones in the Western Islands. In: Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Vol. 16, 1881–1882, pp. 300–418, here: 302–313 and 319–322 ( PDF ; 5.2 MB).
  • David Trevarthen: Illuminating the Monuments. Observation and Speculation on the Structure and Function of the Cairns at Balnuaran of Clava. In: Cambridge Archaeological Journal. Vol. 10, No. 2, April 2000, ISSN  0959-7743 , pp. 295-315 ( PDF ; 1.9 MB).

Web links

Commons : Balnuaran of Clava  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Scheduled Monument - Entry . In: Historic Scotland .
  2. ↑ a b c David Trevarthen: Illuminating the Monuments. Observation and Speculation on the Structure and Function of the Cairns at Balnuaran of Clava. 2000, p. 297.
  3. ↑ a b A Visitor's Guide to Balnuaran of Clava, a prehestoric cemetery. Historic Scotland, Edinburgh undated, PDF page 2.
  4. ↑ A Guide to Visitor's Balnuaran of Clava, a prehestoric cemetery. Historic Scotland, Edinburgh n.d., PDF pages 3 and 5.
  5. ↑ Information according to the information board on site
  6. ↑ a b Balnuaran of Clava on stonepages.com , accessed September 11, 2017.
  7. ↑ a b c Entry on Southwest Hill  in Canmore, Historic Environment Scotland database, accessed September 11, 2017.
  8. ^ Richard Bradley (Ed.): The Good Stones. A New Investigation of the Clava Cairns. 2000, p. 15.
  9. ↑ A Guide to Visitor's Balnuaran of Clava, a prehestoric cemetery. Historic Scotland, Edinburgh undated, PDF page 5.
  10. ↑ David Trevarthen: Illuminating the monument. Observation and Speculation on the Structure and Function of the Cairns at Balnuaran of Clava. 2000, p. 302.
  11. ↑ a b David Trevarthen: Illuminating the monument. Observation and Speculation on the Structure and Function of the Cairns at Balnuaran of Clava. 2000, p. 295.
  12. ↑ David Trevarthen: Illuminating the monument. Observation and Speculation on the Structure and Function of the Cairns at Balnuaran of Clava. 2000, p. 296.
  13. ↑ a b c d e Entry on the northeast hill  in Canmore, the database of Historic Environment Scotland (English), accessed September 11, 2017.
  14. ↑ a b A Visitor's Guide to Balnuaran of Clava, a prehestoric cemetery. Historic Scotland, Edinburgh undated, PDF page 3.
  15. ↑ a b c d e Entry on the middle hill  in Canmore, the database of Historic Environment Scotland (English), accessed September 11, 2017.
  16. ↑ a b A Visitor's Guide to Balnuaran of Clava, a prehestoric cemetery. Historic Scotland, Edinburgh n.d., PDF page 4.
  17. ^ A b Richard Bradley (Ed.): The Good Stones. A New Investigation of the Clava Cairns. 2000, p. 38.

Coordinates: 57 ° 28 '21.4 "  N , 4 ° 4' 27.8"  W.