Cairn of Skail
The Cairn of Skail (locally called "the Temple") is the remainder of a circular cairns (round hill) in the hamlet of Skail, near the road between Strathnaver and Farr in the Scottish Highlands in County Sutherland . It is one of the few round Cairns (like Bigland Round on Rousay ) of the Orkney – Cromarthy Passage tombs type that was not built over with a long hill. The name Skaill (also Skaill) occurs three times in Orkney .
The material of the cairn, which once had a diameter of around 20 m and lies between birch trees on a flat ground, has almost been eroded. The corridor is also no longer there. However, most of the large-format stone material of the two chambers exists. The walls of the polygonal inner chamber consist of five upright panels about 1.8 m high, with wide gaps of the former drywall between them. Portal stones mark the transition to the outer chamber, only half of which has been preserved.
An undocumented excavation took place before 1909.
literature
- Audrey S. Henshall, JN Graham Ritchie: The Chambered Cairns of Sutherland. An inventory of the structures and their contents . Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1995, ISBN 0-7486-0609-2 .
- Robert Gourlay, Sutherland - a historical guide , Birlinn, Edinburgh, 1996 ISBN 1-874744-44-0 pp. 25-26
Web links
- Scheduled Monument - entry . In: Historic Scotland .
- Entry on Cairn by Skail in Canmore, Historic Environment Scotland database
Coordinates: 58 ° 23 '29.3 " N , 4 ° 12' 11.6" W.