Bachwen
The Tomb of Bachwen (also called Bach Wen, Clynnog Dolmen or Clynnog Fawr) is located near the sea (200 m) west of the hamlet of Clynnog-fawr, about 18 km northwest of Criccieth , at the beginning of the Lleyn Peninsula in Gwynedd in Wales . Megalithic systems on the British Isles are called Portal Tombs , in which two equally high, upright stones with a door stone in between form the front of a chamber, which is mostly covered with a partly huge capstone.
The Dolmen of Bachwen consists of four tall, narrow on one meter upright supporting blocks, which carry a large, flat bottom, top wedge-shaped endstone of 2.5 x 1.6 m, with the bowl ( English cups ) is covered. There are said to be more than 100 on the surface and another eight on the east side of the stone. The complex was excavated in the 19th century and the southern orthostat was restored in the 20th century. Pavement and black material that could be the remains of a fire were found on the floor of the chamber.
There is speculation about what the Portal Tomb looked like when it was built. It is not one of the closely related tripod dolmens , which have only three bearing stones, but as with these, the gaps between the supporting posts are said to have been filled with dry masonry . It is believed that most of the megalithic complexes were covered with earth or rock and only access was left free.
literature
- Vicki Cummings, Alasdair Whittle: Places of special virtue. Megaliths in the Neolithic landscapes of Wales. Oxbow, Oxford 2004, ISBN 1-84217-108-9 , p. 120.
- Tatjana Kytmannow: Portal Tombs in the Landscape: The Chronology, Morphology and Landscape Setting of the Portal Tombs of Ireland, Wales and Cornwall 2008
Web links
Coordinates: 53 ° 1 ′ 8.1 ″ N , 4 ° 22 ′ 31 ″ W.