Fortingall stone circles
The three stone circles of Fortingall are located in Glen Lyon west of the River Lyon, east of Fortingall near Kenmore in Perth and Kinross in Scotland .
The closest to the west-east running street is a group of four stones (Fortingall NE, ⊙ ) and a group of three stones (Fortingall SW , ⊙ ), while further in the field, closer to the river, lies a group of three stones (Fortingall S, ⊙ ). All are smooth rocks rounded by the water.
In 1970 the two closest to the road (NE & SW ) were excavated by Aubrey Burl (1926-2020). It was found that both four-post stone circles ( English Four-poster stone circle), also "sky stone circles ", consist of four large stones at the corners of a rectangle with four smaller stones between the larger ones. In both cases, the missing fifth stones had been sunk into prepared pits in the 19th century. The date is known because a Victorian beer bottle was found under one of the stones . The excavations showed that the southwest district originally had a filling of small pebbles . Quartz stones were found on the southwest stone. Part of an iron age ring was found southwest of the circle . In the middle of the northeast circle was a plaster with charcoal and burned bones.
- Fortingall stone circles
The southern circle was not completely excavated in 1970, but an investigation showed a shoulder about 4.6 m from the west stone, which indicates a circle about 14.6 m in diameter. The three remaining stones are almost in a line, but considering the hard shoulder it appears to be the remains of a Recumbent Stone Circle (RSC).
Nearby are the Fortingall cross stones .
literature
- Richard Bradley: The Idea of Order: The Circular Archetype in Prehistoric Europe : Oxford University Press (New York) 2012 ISBN 978-0199608096
- Aubrey Burl: A guide to the stone circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany . Yale University Press, London 1995, ISBN 0-300-06331-8 .
- Aubrey Burl: Four-posters: Bronze Age stone circles of Western Europe. BAR, Oxford 1988, pp. 66-67.