Tulach to tSionnaich
Tulach an tSionnaich ( German "Hill of the Fox" ) is a periodically expanded stone mound at the north end of Loch Calder (lake) in Caithness in Scotland . It was excavated in 1961 and 1963 in advance of the elevation of the lake. Before the excavation, there was a cairn about 60 meters long and twelve meters wide with hardly recognizable structures. The north-west-south-east oriented Cairn had the 1.8 m higher and slightly wider end in the south-east. A later ditch cut the cairn 15 m from the southeast end.
The excavation revealed that the monument was initially a square passage tomb in a round cairn of 10.5 m in diameter. Its 2.1 m long, inclined corridor pointed south. The outer end of the corridor was closed off by the curb that surrounded the cairn. The inner end of the corridor meets the side of the chamber, which is slightly trpezoid (narrower at the back).
After a possibly short existence of the first cairn, which may have already stood on a D- or step-shaped platform, it was built over by a heel-shaped cairn , which has been identified as the oldest on the Scottish mainland. Its small size puts it in an early succession within the monument class. The new facade over the entrance to the Passage Tomb was not interrupted. However, disruptions prevented the full restoration of the basic plan. The plant seems to have been about 15 m wide and about as long. The north end is in the area of the trench where remains of dry stone masonry have been identified.
After some time, the entire structure was built over by a Longcairn, which was surrounded by a low outer wall and the southern end of which went beyond the old facade. This Longcairn was about 38 m long and tapered slightly from its 10.2 m wide pseudo-facade to the 7.8 m wide slightly convex north end. It was located a little to the east of the axis of the heel-shaped cairn, presumably to make better use of a natural ridge and to increase the height, which, except for the southern end, was no more than 0.9 m. Selective cuts in the cairn resulted in box-shaped fixtures, which, however, were part of the cairn structure.
Few finds have been made, but the pottery suggests that the heel-shaped cairn was in use during the unadorned Neolithic pottery phase. It went out of use when the cup cultures arrived, and the Longcairn was already erected before an urn was deposited outside the enclosure.
The south-west side, including the Tulach an tSionnaich chamber, was eroded by the increased level of Loch Calder, but the main part of the cairn has been preserved and is covered with turf.
literature
- James L. Davidson, Audrey S. Henshall : The chambered cairns of Caithness. An inventory of the structures and their contents . Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1991, ISBN 0-7486-0256-9 .
Web links
- Entry on Tulach an tSionnaich in Canmore, the database of Historic Environment Scotland (English)
- Picture after raising the lake level and site plan
- Description and plan
- Description Engl. and sketch
Coordinates: 58 ° 32 '7.7 " N , 3 ° 35' 53.7" W.