Dun Ardifuir I

Dun Ardifuir I is situated on the left bank of the Ardifuir-Burn near the farm and the cup-and-ring markings of Ardifuir , with little support from the natural terrain . It is a well-preserved dun located near the coast, southwest of Kilmartin in the county of Argyll and Bute , Scotland , and was excavated in 1904.

description

The round dun has an inner diameter of approximately 19 m and consists of a dry stone wall with a maximum thickness of 3.5 m. Almost the entire circle is intact on both the inside and the outside. Both sides of the wall consist of selected blocks of uniform shape. The wall has its maximum height in the northwest, where it is about three meters high on the outside. Inside, it rises 2.6 m above the level of the interior. At an average height of 1.8 m, the wall forms a ledge that is best preserved in the northeast, where it is 0.3 m wide.

The passage

The entrance in the southwest has a ledge about 1.8 m from the outer edge. The aisle is 2.0 m wide on the outside and widens to 2.8 m behind the ledge. There is no trace of a post hole or door lock through wooden beams. The passage has a massive threshold stone at the inner end that rises approximately 0.3 m above the paved floor.

Niche, stairs

A 0.8 m wide and 0.75 m high opening, which is 0.6 m above the pavement, allows access to an oval cell in the inner area, in the south wall of the corridor. Four steps lead down to the 1.0 × 0.8 m cell. It may have been 2.0 m high. Its walls run vertically up to a height of about 1.0 m before they protrude and form the lower part of a cantilever vault .

To the north of the entrance to Dun is an entrance to the inside of the wall, which bends to the right and leads to a staircase with 13 steps that lead to the top of the wall.

The interior

Eccentric to the outer wall is a second, low round wall made of plates inside the dun, which serves as the edge for a platform made of earth and stones that fills the outer part of the interior up to the wall. The free height of the panels is 0.8 m. They define a circle about 15 m in diameter. The purpose of this increase is unclear.

The finds

The excavation consisted mainly of removing the debris from the interior. There is no record of the stratifications. However, no structures such as stoves or post holes seem to have been noticed. The small finds consisted of a bronze ring , perforated discs, a sandstone object , four grindstones , a piece of a crucible, a polished stone ax , a stone shape and a fragment of terra sigillata (probably from the 2nd century AD). A grayish-white edge shard that was considered part of a Roman plate has been identified as a fragment of continental e-goods . The finds are now in the Royal Museum of Scotland, in Edinburgh .

Dun Ardifuir II is nearby and is a badly damaged dun.

literature

• The Royal Commission on the Ancient and historical Monuments of Scotland: Kilmartin Prehistoric and Early Historic Monuments. An Inventory of the Monuments Extracted from "Argyll, Volume 6". The Royal Commission on the Ancient and historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), Edinburgh 2008, ISBN 978-1-902419-03-9 , pp. 52-53

Coordinates: 56 ° 7 ′  N , 5 ° 33 ′  W