Entrance Grave

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Entrance Grave from Porth Hellick Down

Entrance Grave ( German  "entrance grave " , also called Scillonian Entrance Grave or West County Tomb ) are megalithic systems with a rectangular chamber in a round hill made of earth or stones, usually with a surrounding curb circle. The term was coined by Hugh O'Neill Hencken in 1932 . The buildings of Cornwall , Eastern Ireland and the Isles of Scilly are summarized as the Scilly-Tramore type.

Occurrence

Entrance Grave from Penannce
Entrance Grave Tregiffian

There are 14 preserved entrance graves in Cornwall (e.g. Bosiliack , Brane , Penannce , Tregiffian ), around 100 in the Isles of Scilly (e.g. Bant's Carn , Innisidgen and Porth Hellick Down on St Mary’s ), some in the Channel Islands (. eg La Varde - the largest of the islands, Le Creux ès Faïes , Les Pourciaux to Alderney (destroyed) and Herm 1 on Herm ) and five in the Irish County Waterford (Carriglong, Carrigaventry, Harristown , Matthew Town and Mumnahoge).

The Isles of Scilly are likely to have many graves below sea level as the land area is only a fraction of its prehistoric extent. The islands only represent the heights of the former habitable area and since entrance graves are found at all heights, it is likely that many island graves are under water.

In Brittany ( Kervihan ) they are known as " V-shaped dolmens ".

location

On the Isles of Scilly, the entrance graves are usually grouped together, often at higher altitudes.

Dating

The absence of early Neolithic material and the frequent discovery of Bronze Age urns in the hills meant that the megalithic complexes were dated to the late Neolithic. Late dates are invariably rare in megalithic sites, and indications that ancient traditions survived longer in the far west of England and the Isle of Anglesey in Wales than in most parts of Britain . In light of the evidence, Entrance Graves appears to have been in the late 3rd to early 2nd millennium BC. BC, with a maximum useful life of about 700 years.

Typology

The earliest reports of entrance tombs are those of the Borlase family, beginning in the mid-18th century. It was not until 1932 that Hugh O'Neill Hencken (1902–1981) defined entrance graves as a monument class.

Terence Powell (1916–1975) classified the listed Irish examples with a V-shaped plan as passage graves and describes them as "late V-shaped passage graves"; Elizabeth Shee Twohig as a wedge digger . Some chambers are covered along their entire length and some have an area open at the top that extends from the curb to the covered chamber. There are also several variants of the floor plan.

Glyn Daniel classified the graves based on the chamber shape:

  • A) two-element chambers; with an outer area that meets the inner at an angle,
  • B) trapezoidal chambers; which increase in width towards the back,
  • C) bulged chambers; in which the portal and rear walls are the same width, but the chamber centers are wider. This class is divided into:
    • C1) bulged chambers with a straight wall and
    • C2) bulbous chambers with odd walls on either side, the latter being the more common, and
  • D) straight chambers.

In Ireland the term “Entrance Grave” has never caught on, neither Shee Twohig nor Jones use the term.

interpretation

Paul Asbee (1918–2009) noted that there is a close connection between entrance graves and field systems on the Isles of Scilly. He assumes that the entrance graves were mainly used to ensure the fertility of the fields. Some of the graves on Scilly, such as Obadiah's Barrow ( Gugh ), Bant's Carn and Knackyboy Cairn ( St. Martin’s ), contained human skeletons, while others were largely empty or contained only black earth. Ashbee sees the latter as sacrificial sites. Obadiah's Barrow is about 300 m east of the Old Man of Gugh menhir . It was excavated in 1901 by George Edward Bonsor Saint-Martin (1855-1930), with bones not in the anatomical association being found.

literature

  • Hugh O'Neill Hencken: The Archeology of Cornwall and Scilly. Methuen, London 1932.
  • Frances Lynch: Megalithic Tombs and Long Barrows in Britain (= Shire Archeology. 73). Shire, Princes Risborough 1997, ISBN 0-7478-0341-2 .
  • Jürgen E. Walkowitz: The megalithic syndrome. European cult sites of the Stone Age (= contributions to the prehistory and early history of Central Europe. Vol. 36). Beier & Beran, Langenweißbach 2003, ISBN 3-930036-70-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Toni-Maree Rowe: Cornwall in Prehistory. Tempus, Stroud 2005, ISBN 0-7524-3440-3 , p. 154.
  2. ↑ Paul Ashbee: Mesolithic Megaliths? The Scillonian Entrance-Graves: A New View. In: Cornish Archeology / Hendhyscans Kernow. 21, 1982, ISSN  0070-024X , pp. 3-22.
  3. ^ Hugh O'Neill Hencken : The Archeology of Cornwall and Scilly. Methuen, London 1932.
  4. ^ Glyn Daniel , Thomas George Eyre Powell : The Distribution and Date of the Passage-Graves of the British Isles. In: Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. New Series 15, 1949, ISSN  2050-2729 , pp. 169-187, here p. 174, doi : 10.1017 / S0079497X00019277 .
  5. ↑ Paul Ashbee: Bant's Carn, St. Mary's, Isles of Scilly: An Entrance Grave restored and reconsidered. In: Cornish Archeology / Hendhyscans Kernow. 15, 1976, pp. 11-26, here p. 22.
  6. ↑ Paul Ashbee: Bant's Carn, St. Mary's, Isles of Scilly: An Entrance Grave restored and reconsidered. In: Cornish Archeology / Hendhyscans Kernow. 15, 1976, pp. 11-26.
  7. ^ Thomas George Eyre Powell : A New Passage Grave Group in South Eastern Ireland. In: Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. New Series 7, 1941, pp. 142-143, doi : 10.1017 / S0079497X00020314 .
  8. ↑ Paul Ashbee: Bant's Carn, St. Mary's, Isles of Scilly: An Entrance Grave restored and reconsidered. In: Cornish Archeology / Hendhyscans Kernow. 15, 1976, pp. 11-26, here p. 19.
  9. ^ Thomas George Eyre Powell: A New Passage Grave Group in South Eastern Ireland. In: Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. New Series 7, 1941, pp. 142-143, doi : 10.1017 / S0079497X00020314 .
  10. ^ Thomas George Eyre Powell: A New Passage Grave Group in South Eastern Ireland. In: Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. New Series 7, 1941, pp. 142-143, doi : 10.1017 / S0079497X00020314 .
  11. ↑ Elizabeth Shee Twohig: Irish Megalithic tombs (= Shire Archeology. 63). Shire, Aylesbury 1990, ISBN 0-7478-0094-4 , p. 53.
  12. ↑ Elizabeth Shee Twohig: Irish Megalithic tombs (= Shire Archeology. 63). Shire, Aylesbury 1990, ISBN 0-7478-0094-4 .
  13. ^ Carleton Jones: Temples of stone. Exploring the megalithic tombs of Ireland. Collins, Cork 2007, ISBN 978-1-905172-05-4 .
  14. ↑ Paul Ashbee: Bant's Carn, St. Mary's, Isles of Scilly: An Entrance Grave restored and reconsidered. In: Cornish Archeology / Hendhyscans Kernow. 15, 1976, pp. 11-26, here pp. 21-22.
  15. ↑ Paul Ashbee: Bant's Carn, St. Mary's, Isles of Scilly: An Entrance Grave restored and reconsidered. In: Cornish Archeology / Hendhyscans Kernow. 15, 1976, pp. 11-26, here p. 21.