Aikey Brae

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The stone circle of Aikey Brae
The ensemble with the "lying stone"

That of Richard Bradley excavated 2,001 stone circle of Aikey Brae is on the edge of Bridgend Wood, between Maud and Old Deer , south of the B9029 at the top of Park House Hill in the north of Aberdeenshire in Scotland . It is an almost complete stone circle of the Recumbent Stone Circle (RSC) type.

The oval circle consists of ten stones and is about 16.5 by 15.0 m in diameter. The "lying stone" is about 4.6 m long, 1.7 m high and weighs about 21.5 tons and, like its flank stones (one fell over), is made of basalt on the sides , which is not found nearby. The remaining stones are made of local granite and are arranged according to their size, with the largest next to the flank stones and the smallest opposite the "lying one".

Like the other stone circles of the type in Aberdeen and Kincardineshire, Aikey Brae was made about 2000 BC. Built in BC. Usually these circles went out of use after a few centuries and later generations used them for cremations under a stone mound built for this purpose in the center of the circle . It is unclear whether this also happened in the case of Aikey Brae, because although the circle is relatively undisturbed, its mid-19th century was examined by "Charles Elphinstone-Dalrymple" (1817-1891), who probably removed any evidence.

The stone circles on the River Dee

The Deeside Stone Circles form a unique group of Recumbent Stone Circle (RSC). About 100 of them were born between 2500 and 1500 BC. Erected ( Eslie the Greater , Loudon Wood , Tomnaverie etc.)

literature

  • Anna Ritchie, Graham Ritchie: Scotland. To Oxford Archaeological Guide . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1998, ISBN 0-19-288002-0 , ( Oxford archaeological guides )
  • Richard Bradley, C. Ball: Aikey Brae, Aberdeenshire (Old Deer parish), recumbent stone circle , Discovery Excav Scot, Vol. 2, 2001.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A characteristic of the RSC is a "lying stone" accompanied by two standing, high, often tapering "flank stones" that are located within the stone circle or near the circle.

Web links

Coordinates: 57 ° 30 ′ 50.3 "  N , 2 ° 4 ′ 13.4"  W.