Knowe of Lairo

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Scheme of the passage Tombs

The Knowe of Lairo is a megalithic tomb in Hullion on the Orkney island of Rousay in Scotland . The Passage Tomb is located in a cairn with a horned forecourt ( English long horned cairn ), also known as the Chambered Cairn . It was made around 2900 BC. Built in BC. Knowe refers to a small hill and is documented on Rousay as a nickname for other megalithic systems.

location

Passage Tomb is located above the Frotoft Valley, north of the coastal road that runs along Wyre Sound, on the edge of a small terrace. Nearby are the Tombs of Blackhammer , Knowe of Ramsay , Knowe of Yarso , the Midhowe Cairn and Taversoe Tuick . Gabriel Cooney sees the Lairo, Ramsey and Yarso knowes lying together as a burial ground.

Research history

In 1929 Vere Gordon Childe visited the facility and identified it as a long horned Caithness-type grave. The northern horn, however, had been destroyed by agriculture. In 1936 the grave of Walter Grant was excavated. It has been a listed building since 1993 .

Excavations

The hill in which the Knowe of Lairo lies is unusually long at around 45.7 m. The curiously winding chamber of the megalithic complex is of the maeshowe type , although real side chambers are missing and only a number of niches are formed instead. The entire complex consists of dry stone masonry made of flat sandstone. A low corridor about 5.8 meters long leads into the 4.1 m high, 3.3 m long and very narrow chamber, the side walls of which protrude inward. The shape of the complex is similar to Quoyness on Sanday , but it is much smaller.

Bones and a stone ax were found in the complex . The finds are kept in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh .

literature

  • Gordon Childe : The Chambered Cairns of Rousay. In: The Antiquaries Journal. Vol. 22, No. 2, 1942, ISSN  0003-5815 , pp. 139-142, no.28 , doi : 10.1017 / S0003581500003851 .
  • James L. Davidson, Audrey S. Henshall: The chambered cairns of Orkney. An inventory of the structures and their contents. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1989, ISBN 0-85224-547-5 , pp. 132-134.
  • Walter G. Grant: The Knowe of Lairo, Rousay, Orkney . Proceeding of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Vol. 77, 1942/1943, pp. 17-26 .
  • 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

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gabriel Cooney: The place of megalithic tomb cemeteries in Ireland. In: Antiquity. Vol. 64, No. 245, 1990, ISSN  0003-598X , pp. 741-753, doi : 10.1017 / S0003598X00078844 .
  2. ^ Walter G. Grant: The Knowe of Lairo, Rousay, Orkney . Proceeding of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Vol. 77, 1942/1943, pp. 17-26.
  3. ↑ Entry on Knowe of Lairo  in Canmore, the database of Historic Environment Scotland (English)
  4. ↑ http://www.nms.ac.uk/explore/collection-search-results/?item_id=66734 , the finds include six scratches and transverse and leaf-shaped arrowheads made of translucent gray and yellow flint

Coordinates: 59 ° 8 '3.2 "  N , 3 ° 3' 7.8"  W.