Blackhammer

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Coordinates: 59 ° 7 '53 "  N , 3 ° 1' 31"  W.

Relief Map: Orkney
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Blackhammer​
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Orkney

The Passage Tomb of Black Hammer is a megalithic type Stalled Cairn south of the Orkney island of Rousay in Scotland .

location

Blackhammer is only a few meters from Taversoe Tuick , on a small terrace on the steep slope above the road on Wyre Sound. Nearby are the Knowe of Ramsay , Knowe of Lairo and the megalithic sites of Midhowe Cairn and Taversoe Tuick. The monument is named after a courtyard that was located above the grave.

construction

Blackhammer with modern concrete cover
Blackhammer

The rectangular system examined by Walter Gordon Grant (1886–1947) in 1936 is 13 m long. The hill is made of dry stone masonry . The stone slab facing on the outside was laid in sloping layers that form patterns of alternating triangles filled with lines. The excavators compare this to the decoration of the Unstan ware . This occurs in a similar form in the gallery grave of Midhowe and the Knowe of Yarso . Access on the narrow sides was blocked when the facility was abandoned. The interior is divided into seven compartments ( stalls ) by means of stone slabs set up in pairs, but four dividing plates are missing.

Since the cap stones were removed and the side walls were only preserved up to a height of 1.0–1.3 m, a modern concrete roof was erected after the restoration. Access to the interior is now via a ladder through a hatch in the roof, which has a few windows to illuminate the interior. The grave was built around 3000 BC. Built in BC.

Finds

The remains of two men were found in the chamber. One skeleton lay in the western compartment, the other in the entrance area. While skeleton 2 was largely complete, apart from the upper part of the skull and a thigh and upper arm each, only the skull and the upper abdominal area (pelvis and tibiae) are preserved of skeleton 1. The fact that the chamber only contained the remains of two people could indicate that it was cleared out regularly or for subsequent uses by other cultural carriers. Bones of mainly cattle and sheep, a few deer, geese, cormorants and boobies were found in the filling of the chamber . The bones were mostly mixed with rubble and were most common in the eastern end of the chamber. Many of the animal bones are calcined, and some flints also show traces of fire,

Tools made of flint or rock were found, including four scratches made of brown, yellow and gray flint, the remains of a bowl of the Unstan Ware and a plano-convex knife made of flint, typical of the British Late Neolithic. Parallels can be found in the Midhowe Cairn , but also in the gallery grave Torrylin on the Isle of Arran and in megalithic systems with a horned forecourt such as Audleystown , County Down and Legland in Fermanagh . In the collection of the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh there is also a bone needle from this site.

literature

  • J. Graham Callander, Walter G. Grant: Long stalled cairn at Blackhammer, Rousay, Orkney. In: Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Vol. 71, ISSN  0081-1564 , 1936/1937, pp. 297-308 .
  • Anna Ritchie: Orkney and Shetland (= Exploring Scotland's Heritage. ). Published for Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland by HMSO, Edinburgh 1985, ISBN 0-11-492458-9 .

Web links

  • [1] Description (English) + pictures

Individual evidence

  1. ^ J. Graham Callander, Walter G. Grant: Long stalled cairn at Blackhammer, Rousay, Orkney. In: Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Vol. 71, 1936/1937, pp. 297-308, here p. 308.
  2. ^ J. Graham Callander, Walter G. Grant: Long stalled cairn at Blackhammer, Rousay, Orkney. In: Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Vol. 71, 1936/1937, pp. 297-308, here p. 298.
  3. ↑ Entry on Blackhammer  in Canmore, the database of Historic Environment Scotland (English)
  4. ↑ https://www.historicenvironment.scot/visit-a-place/places/blackhammer-chambered-cairn/history/
  5. ↑ James T. Morris: Red Deer's Role in Social Expression on the Isles of Scotland. In: Aleksander Pluskowski (Ed.): Just skin and bones? New perspectives on human-animal relations in the historical past (= BAR. International series. 1410). Archaeopress, Oxford 2005, ISBN 1-8417-1853-X , pp. 9-18, here p. 10; Margery I. Platt: Report on the animal bones. In: J. Graham Callander, Walter G. Grant: Long stalled cairn at Blackhammer, Rousay, Orkney. In: Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Vol. 71, 1936/1937, pp. 297-308, here pp. 306-308.
  6. ^ Ronald Hutton: Pagan Britain. Yale University Press, New Haven CT et al. 2013, ISBN 978-0-300-19771-6 , p. 90.
  7. ^ J. Graham Callander, Walter G. Grant: Long stalled cairn at Blackhammer, Rousay, Orkney. In: Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Vol. 71, 1936/1937, pp. 297-308, here p. 303.
  8. ^ National Museum of Scotland, X.EO 608.
  9. ↑ http://www.nms.ac.uk/explore/collection-search-results/?item_id=130240
  10. ^ Edward M. Jope , Henriette M. Jope : Four Recently Discovered Bronze Age Burial Groups. In: Ulster Journal of Archeology. Series 3, Vol. 15, 1952, ISSN  0082-7355 , pp. 61-70, here p. 64, JSTOR 20566648 .
  11. ↑ http://www.nms.ac.uk/explore/collection-search-results/?item_id=130245 , X.EO 612