Chealamy stone chest
The short stone chest of Chealamy was found during the road widening of the B871 in February 1981 at Chealamy, south of Bettyhill , in Parish Farr in the Scottish Highlands in County Sutherland . When placing a boundary post, a worker punched a hole in the top plate of the stone box 70 cm below . The box is made up of nine side stones, some of which are very short. Its top plate, the shape of which has been adapted to the box, was lined with several smaller plates.
The roughly D-shaped stone box, a little over three feet long and wide, contained the burial of a man in his mid-twenties. Its positioning in the stone box is uncertain because it only contained the pelvis and leg bones. The body could have been dumped in the advanced stages of decay or the remaining bones were later removed.
A fine beaker from the Bell Beaker Culture from the beginning of the Bronze Age , decorated in three zones and about 15 cm high, was deposited with the body, which presumably contained a kind of fermented, semi-alcoholic gruel for the journey to the afterlife.
After the excavation, the stone box was rebuilt outside the museum, at Farr Church, where the "Farr Stone", a cross-slab , is located. The drinking cup is exhibited in the museum. A second stone box with a drinking cup, of which only one stone has survived, was found in the Strathnaver near “Woody Knowe”.
Nearby lie the fallen remains of the Dun Chealamy Broch .
See also
literature
- Robert B. Gourlay: A Short Cist Beaker Inhumation from Chealamy, Strathnaver, Sutherland . In: Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland . 114, 1984, ISSN 0081-1564 , pp. 567-571, online (PDF; 282 KB) .
Web links
- Description Engl. + Sketches (PDF; 288 kB)
- Description Engl.
- Dun Chealamy
Coordinates: 58 ° 25 '16.2 " N , 4 ° 11' 11.9" W.