Barningham Moor

The Bronze Age rock carvings and the " How Tallon Stone Circle " are located on Barningham Moor south of Barnard Castle , southwest of Durham in County Durham in north-east England .

How Tallon Stone Circle

Central zone

This zone lies on an elevated plateau of the Wash Beck. The most conspicuous stone was discovered in 2006 by Richard Stroud in the east of the zone and shows a complex arrangement of cup-and-ring markings . Many of the bowls ( English cups ) are surrounded by concentric rings and many motifs are connected by grooves, some of which connect and enclose several bowls. Because this monument was covered for so long, the scratches were protected from the weather and it is even possible to see individual pick marks.
20 m to the north-west is a stone marked with similar motifs, but clearly more economical.
The third, heavily eroded stone is located near a north-south path across the moor. Its flat incision shows a small bowl that is surrounded by three hardly recognizable rings. There are two more bowls next to the rings.
The fourth stone is on the western side of the Wash Beck. The clearest motif is a bowl with three rings on the underside of the stone. A bowl with a pair of rings and four more bowls with individual rings, together with some scattered bowls, are at the top. Three of the motifs are connected by grooves.
On another stone there are 30-40 bowls, some of which can be natural.

Northwest area

This upright stone stands near the Knoll Gill. A deeper bowl, from which a groove runs over the rock, is surrounded by four eroded rings. A row of five bowls runs along the edge, two of which also have grooves.
A small pyramid-shaped stone has four distinct bowls, each surrounded by a ring. Three rings have grooves that run down to the floor.
A flat rock on the western edge of the moor is known as "The Stang". Hard-to-see grooves that frame the zones lie next to the central area, which consists of seven bowls, while a section under the turf shows several bowls and a well-preserved bowl-ring design.
The visible area of the fourth stone shows an accumulation of bowls. The green area shows a channel that runs through five bowls. A sixth is not achieved.

Southern area

The stones in this area hardly protrude from the ground and show almost exclusively bowls (four to 17), many of which are connected by grooves.

Southwest area

A small bowl with three rings can be seen on the large boulder on the steep eastern slope of Osmaril Gill.
The large and very deep bowl of the second stone appears to be artificial and is very similar to the depressions found in bullauns . It could have been designed to absorb liquids. Next to it is a bowl with a concentric pair of rings, while a staggered row of three bowls is surrounded by individual rings.
The third stone is about 100 m south of How Tallon Circle and is covered on one side with more eroded bowls, rings and gutters.

How Tallon

The circle is around 13 m in diameter and consists of seven eroded sandstone blocks . Some are about half a meter tall, while others barely reach out of the short grass. Some stones could be significantly larger, but because of the subsidence of the limestone , they have sunk. The position of the circle, at the end of Osmaril Gill (gorge), cannot be a coincidence given the large number of rock carvings on the moor. It could be that the circle formed a burnt mound that formed the entrance to the moor.

literature

Stan Beckensall, Tim Laurie: Prehistoric Rock Art of County Durham, Swaledale and Wensleydale. County Durham Books, Durham 1998, ISBN 1-897585-45-4 .

Web links

54.660480347191 -1.8387510613058Coordinates: 54 ° 39 ′ 37.7 " N , 1 ° 50 ′ 19.5" W.