Giant's Hills
The Giant's Hills are protected non-megalithic monuments southeast of the hamlet of Ulceby, near the old Roman road Bluestone Heath Road, now Skegness Road or (A1028) north of Skendleby in Lincolnshire in England .
Here are the remains of three burial mounds .
Giants Hills 1 is 70 m above sea level on the south side of the valley. It is oriented southeast-northwest and follows the slope contours. With a length of around 64.0 m and a width of 23.0 meters, it is the shortest of the three burial mounds, but by far the best preserved of the group. It was excavated by CW Phillips between 1933 and 1934. He found a large wooden enclosure that contained a small platform made of chalk blocks. The remains of seven adults and one child lay on the blocks. At the northwest end of the hill was a row of eight posts that could indicate the number of burials. Like many barrows without stone fixtures, the burial mound had a facade made of split beams that formed a crescent-shaped exedra in the southeast . It has been suggested that the beams were sculpted or painted. From the exedra, two rows of posts ran almost the entire length of the hill. The hill was surrounded by a circumferential ditch with a narrow dam at the northwest end.
Giant's Hills 2 is lower on the slope, 55 m above sea level. Due to over-plowing, it only survives as a slight bump. It was originally about 77.0 meters long and 19 meters wide. It is also oriented southeast-northwest. Results of the Evans and Simpson excavations published in 1991 show that the mound was trapezoidal in shape with a completely enclosing outer moat.
The third hill only survives as the earth discolored . It was 75 m above sea level and measured about 76.0 × 23 meters.
The burial mounds date from the Neolithic Age and form a counterpart to the better preserved Deadmen's Graves about 1.6 km northeast.
literature
- JG Evans, DDA Simpson: Giants' Hills 2 Long Barrow, Skendleby, Lincolnshire In: The Antiquaries Journal Archaeologia, Vol. 109, 1991, pp. 1-45
Web links
Coordinates: 53 ° 13 ′ 3.9 ″ N , 0 ° 8 ′ 17.8 ″ E