MEGALITHIC MONUMENTS IN SCOTLAND AND IRELAND
The stone circles of Scotland have been divided into three types--the
Western Scottish, consisting of a rather irregular ring or pair of
concentric rings; the Inverness type, in which a chamber entered by a
straight passage is covered by a round tumulus with a retaining wall of
stone, the whole being surrounded by a regular stone circle; and the
Aberdeen type, which is similar to the last, but has a 'recumbent' stone
between two of the uprights of its outer circle.
The first type occurs in the southern counties, in the islands of the
west and north coasts, and also extends into Argyll and Perthshire. The
most famous example is the Callernish Circle in the Isle of Lewis. The
circle is formed by thirteen stones from 12 to 15 feet high, and its
centre is marked by an upright 17 feet high. From the circle extends a
line of four stones to the east and another to the west. To the south
runs a line of five uprights and several fallen stones, and to the
N.N.E. runs a double line, forming as it were an avenue with nine
stones on one side and ten on the other, but having no entrance to the
circle. Inside the circle, between the central stone and the east side
of the ring, is what is described as a cruciform grave with three cells
under a low tumulus. In this tomb were found fragments of human bone
apparently burnt. It has been suggested that the tomb is not part of the
original structure, but was added later.
The native tradition about this circle as repeated by Martin in 1700 was
that it was a druidical place of worship, and that the chief druid stood
near the central stone to address the assembled people. This tradition
seems to have now disappeared.
In the island of Arran, between Brodick and Lamlash, is a damaged circle
21 feet in diameter. At a distance of 60 feet from its circumference in
a direction 35° east of south is a stone 4 feet high. In the centre of
the circle was found a cist cut in the underlying rock containing bluish
earth and pieces of bone. Above were an implement and some fragments of
flint.
On the other side of the island there were still in 1860 remains of
eight circles, five of sandstone and three of granite, quite close to
one another. The diameter of the largest was 63 feet, and the highest
stone reached 18 feet. One of them was a double ring. In four of them
were found cists containing pottery, flint arrow-heads, a piece of a
bronze pin, and some fragments of bone. Others appear to contain no
cists.
In the other islands of the west coast few circles seem to remain; there
are, however, one at Kirkabrost in Skye, and another at Kingarth in
Bute.
At Stromness in Orkney is the famous circle called the Ring of Brogar.
It originally consisted of sixty stones forming a circle 340 feet in
diameter, outside which was a ditch 29 feet wide. In a direction 60°
east of south from the centre, and at a distance of 63 chains, is a
standing stone called the Watchstone, 18 feet high, and 42 or 43 chains
further on in the same line is a second stone, the Barnstone, 15 feet
high. To the left of this line are two stones apparently placed at
random, and to the right are the few remaining blocks of the Ring of
Stenness, somewhere to the north of which was the celebrated pierced
block called the "Stone of Odin," destroyed early in the last century.
At a distance of 42 or 43 chains to the north-east of the Barnstone lies
the tumulus of Maeshowe. This tumulus conceals a long gallery leading
into a rectangular chamber. The walls of this latter are built of
horizontal courses of stones, except at the corners, where there are
tall, vertically-placed slabs. The chamber has three niches or recesses,
one on each of its closed sides. The roof is formed by corbelling the
walls and finishing off with slabs laid across. If one sits within the
chamber and looks in a direct line along the passage one sees the
Barnstone.
A series of measurements and alignments have been taken to connect the
Maeshowe tumulus with the Ring of Brogar. Thus we have already seen that
the distance from the Barnstone to the Watchstone is the same as from
the Barnstone to the tumulus. Moreover, the Watchstone is equidistant
from the ring and from the tumulus. Again, a line from the Barnstone to
the tumulus passes through the point of the midsummer sunrise and also,
on the other horizon, through the point of the setting sun ten days
before the winter solstice; the line from the Watchstone to the Brogar
Ring marks the setting of the sun at the Beltane festival in May and its
rising ten days before the winter solstice, while the line from Maeshowe
to the Watchstone is in the line of the equinoctial rising and setting.
These alignments are the work of Mr. Magnus Spence; readers must choose
what importance they will assign to them.
The Inverness type of circle is entirely different from that of which we
have been speaking. The finest examples were at Clava, seven miles from
Inverness, where fifty years ago there were eight still in existence.
One of these is still partly preserved. It consists of a circle 100 feet
in diameter consisting of twelve stones. Within this is a cairn of
stones with a circular retaining wall of stone blocks 2 or 3 feet high.
The cairn originally covered a circular stone chamber 12-1/2 feet in
diameter entered by a straight passage on its south-west side. In other
words, the Inverness monuments are simply chamber-tombs covered with a
cairn and surrounded by a circle.
Around Aberdeen we find the third type of circle. It consists of a
cist-tomb covered by a low mound, often with a retaining wall of small
blocks, but there is no entrance passage leading into the cist. Outside
the whole is a circle of large upright blocks with this peculiarity,
that between the two highest--generally to the south or slightly east of
south--lies a long block on its side, occupying the whole interval
between them. The uprights nearest this 'recumbent' block are the
tallest in the circle, and the size of the rest decreases towards the
north. Of thirty circles known near Aberdeen twenty-six still possess
the 'recumbent' stone, and in others it may originally have existed.
Passing now to monuments of more definitely sepulchral type we find that
the dolmen is not frequent in Scotland, though several are known in the
lowlands and in part of Argyllshire.
To the long barrows of England answer in part at least the chambered
cairns of Caithness and the Orkneys. The best known type is a long
rectangular horned cairn (Fig. 4), of which there are two fine examples
near Yarhouse. The largest is 240 feet in length. The chamber is
circular, and roofed partly by corbelling and partly by a large slab. In
the cairn of Get we have a shorter and wider example of the horned type.
Another type is circular or elliptical. In a cairn of this sort at
Canister an iron knife was found. On the Holm of Papa-Westra in the
Orkneys there is an elliptical cairn of this kind containing a long
rectangular chamber running along its major axis with seven small
circular niches opening off it. The entrance passage lies on the minor
axis of the barrow.
[Illustration: FIG. 4. Horned tumulus at Garrywhin, Caithness.
(After Montelius.)]
The megalithic monuments of Ireland are extremely numerous, and are
found in almost every part of the country. They offer a particular
interest from the fact that though they are of few different types they
display all the stages by which the more complex were developed from the
more simple. It must be remembered that most if not all the monuments we
shall describe were originally covered by mounds of earth, though in
most cases these have disappeared.
The simple dolmen is found in almost all parts of the country. Its
single cover-slab is supported by a varying number of uprights,
sometimes as few as three, oftener four or more. It is of great
importance to notice the fact that here in Ireland, as elsewhere in the
megalithic area, e.g. Sardinia, we have the round and rectangular
dolmens in juxtaposition (Fig. 5, _a_ and _c_).
[Illustration: FIG. 5. Type-plans of _(a)_ the round dolmen;
_(b)_ the dolmen with portico;
_(c)_ the rectangular dolmen.]
Occasionally one of the end-blocks of the dolmen instead of just
closing up the space between the two nearest side-blocks is pushed back
between them so as to form with them a small three-sided portico outside
the chamber, but still under the shelter of the cover-slab (Fig. 5,
_b_). A good example of this exists at Gaulstown, Waterford, where a
table-stone weighing 6 tons rests on six uprights, three of which form
the little portico just described. The famous dolmen of Carrickglass,
Sligo, is a still more developed example of this type. Here the chamber
is an accurate rectangle, and the portico is formed by adding two
side-slabs outside one of the end-slabs, but still under the cover. This
last is a remarkable block of limestone weighing about 70 tons. This
form of tomb is without doubt a link between the simple dolmen and the
corridor-tomb. The portico was at first built under the slab by pushing
an end-stone inwards. Then external side-stones formed the portico,
though still under the slab. The next move was to construct the portico
outside the slab. The portico then needed a roof, and the addition of a
second cover to provide it completed the transition to the simpler
corridor-tomb. In many cases the Irish simple dolmens were surrounded by
a circle of upright stones. At Carrowmore, Sligo, there seems to have
been a veritable cemetery of dolmen-tombs, each of which has one or more
circles around it, the outermost being 120 feet in diameter. The tombs
in these Carrowmore circles were not always simple dolmens, but often
corridor-tombs of more or less complicated types. Their excavation has
not given very definite results. In many cases human bones have been
found in considerable quantities, sometimes in a calcined condition; but
there is no real evidence to show that cremation was the burial rite
practised. The calcination of human bones may well have been caused by
the lighting of fires in the tomb, either at some funeral ceremony, or
in even later days, when the place was used as a shelter for peasants. A
few poor flints were found and a little pottery, together with many
bones of animals and some pins and borers of bone. The most important
find made, however, was a small conical button made of bone with two
holes pierced in its flat side and meeting in the middle. It is a type
which occurs in Europe only at the period of transition from the age of
stone to that of bronze, and usually in connection with megalithic
monuments.
[Illustration: FIG. 6. Type-plan of the simple rectangular corridor-tomb
or _allée couverte_.]
We pass on now to consider the simplest form of corridor-tomb, that in
which there are several cover-slabs, but no separate chamber (Fig. 6).
These tombs occur in most parts of Ireland. At Carrick-a-Dhirra, County
Waterford, there is a perfect example of the most simple type. The tomb
is exactly rectangular and lies east and west, with a length of 19 feet
and a breadth of 7-1/2. At each end is a single upright, and each long
side consists of seven. The chamber thus formed is roofed by five slabs.
The whole was surrounded by a circle of about twenty-six stones, and no
doubt the chamber was originally covered by a mound. In a somewhat
similar example at Coolback, Fermanagh, the remains of the elliptical
cairn are still visible.
But in most cases the plan of the corridor-tomb is complicated by a kind
of outer lining of blocks which was added to it. Most of the monuments
are so damaged that it is difficult to see what the exact form of this
lining was. Whether it merely consisted of a line of upright blocks
close around the sides of the chamber or whether these supported some
further structure which covered up the whole chamber it is difficult to
say. In some cases the roof-slab actually covers the outer line of
blocks, and here it seems certain that this outer line served simply to
reinforce the chamber walls, the space between being filled with earth
or rubble. However, at Labbamologa, County Cork, is a tomb called Leaba
Callighe, in which this was certainly not the case. The length of the
whole monument is about 42 feet. The slabs cover the inner walls of the
chamber, but not the outer lining: this last forms a kind of outer shell
to the whole monument. It is shaped roughly like a ship, and runs to a
point at the east end, thus representing the bow. The west end is
damaged, but may have been pointed like the east. The whole reminds one
very forcibly of the _naus_ of the Balearic Isles and the Giants' Graves
of Sardinia. Occasionally the corridor-tomb has a kind of portico at its
west end.
[Illustration: FIG. 7. Type-plan of wedge-shaped tomb. The roof slabs
are two or more in number.]
In Munster the corridor-tomb takes a peculiar form (Fig. 7). It lies
roughly east and west, and its two long sides are placed at a slight
angle to one another in such a way that the west end is broader than the
east. In a good example of this at Keamcorravooly, County Cork, there
are two large capstones and the walls consist of double rows of slabs,
the outer being still beneath the cover-slabs. On the upper surface of
the covers are several small cup-shaped hollows, some of which at least
have been produced artificially.
These wedge-shaped structures are of remarkable interest, for exactly
the same broadening of the west end is found in Scandinavia, in the
_Hünenbetter_ of Holland, in the corridor-tombs of Portugal, and in the
dolmens of the Deccan in India.
In some Irish tombs the corridor leads to a well-defined chamber. In a
curious tomb at Carrickard, Sligo, the chamber was rectangular and lay
across the end of the corridor in such a way as to form a T. The whole
seems to have been covered with an oval mound. In another at Highwood in
the same county a long corridor joins two small circular chambers, the
total length being 44 feet. The corridor was once divided into four
sections by cross-slabs. The cairn which covered this tomb was
triangular in form.
In the county of Meath, in the parish of Lough Crew, is a remarkable
series of stone cairns extending for three miles along the
Slieve-na-Callighe Hills. These cairns conceal chamber-tombs. The cairns
themselves are roughly circular, and the largest have a circle of
upright blocks round the base. The chambers are built of upright slabs
and are roofed by corbelling. Cairn H covered a corridor leading to a
chamber and opening off on each side into a side-chamber, the whole
group thus being cruciform. In these chambers were found human remains
and objects of flint, bone, earthenware, amber, glass, bronze, and iron.
Cairn L had a central corridor from which opened off seven chambers in a
very irregular fashion. Cairn T consisted of a corridor leading to a
fine octagonal chamber with small chambers off it on three sides.
The chief interest of these tombs lies in the remarkable designs
engraved on some of the stones of the passages and chambers. They are
fairly deeply cut with a rather sharp implement, probably a metal
chisel. They are arranged in the most arbitrary way on the stones and
are often crowded together in masses. There is no attempt to depict
scenes of any kind, nor is there, indeed, any example of animal life. In
fact, the designs seem to be purely ornamental. The most frequent
elements of design are cup-shaped hollows, concentric circles or ovals,
star-shaped figures, circles with emanating rays, spirals, chevrons,
reticulated figures, parallel straight or curved lines. There seems to
be no clue as to the meaning of these designs. They may have been merely
ornamental, though this is hardly likely.
At New Grange, near Drogheda, there is a similar series of tumuli, one
of which has become famous (Fig. 8). It consists of a huge mound of
stones 280 feet in diameter surrounded by a circle of upright blocks.
Access to the corridor is gained from the south-east side. This corridor
leads to a chamber with three divisions, so that corridor and chambers
together form a cross with a long shaft. The walls are formed of rough
slabs set upright. In the passage the roof is of slabs laid right
across, but the roof of the chamber is formed by corbelling. On the
floor of each division of the chamber was found a stone basin.
[Illustration: Figure 8. Corridor-tomb at New Grange, Ireland (Coffey,
_Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy_, 1892.)]
Around the edge of the mound runs an enclosure wall of stones lying on
the ground edge to edge. A few of these are sculptured. The finest is a
great stone which lies in front of the entrance and shows a
well-arranged design of spirals and lozenges. There are also engravings
on one of the stones of the chambers. These designs are in general more
skilful than those of Lough Crew. They consist mainly of chevrons,
lozenges, spirals, and triangles.
The monuments we have so far described are all tombs. Ireland also
possesses several stone circles. The largest are situated round Lough
Gur, 10 or 12 miles south of Limerick. There was at one time a fine
circle west of Lough Gur at Rockbarton, but it is now destroyed. On the
eastern edge of the lough is a double concentric ring of stones, the
diameter of the inner circle being about 100 feet. The rings are 6 feet
apart, and the space between them is filled up with earth. In 1869 an
excavation was made within the circle and revealed some human remains,
mostly those of children from six to eight years old.
Further north is a remarkable group of monuments known as the
Carrigalla circles. The first is a plain circle (L) 33 or 34 feet in
diameter, composed of twenty-eight stones. The space within them is
filled up with earth to form a raised platform. At a distance of 75 feet
are two concentric circles, diameters 155 and 184 feet respectively,
made of stones 5 or 6 feet high. The space between the two circles is
filled with earth. Within these is a third concentric circle about 48
feet in diameter made of stones of the same size. This group of three
concentric circles we will call M. The line joining the centres of L and
M runs in a direction of 29° or 30° west of north and passes through a
stone (N) 8 feet high standing on the top of a ridge 2500 feet away.
There are two other stones more to the west (O and P) in such a position
that the line joining them (41° west of north) passes through the centre
of M, from which they are distant 860 and 1450 feet respectively.
Further, a line through the centre of L and a great standing stone (Q)
2480 feet from it in a direction 10° east of south passes through the
highest point in the district, 1615 feet away and 492 feet in height.
Mr. Lewis compares this group of monuments with that of Stanton Drew in
Somersetshire. In both a line joining the centre of two circles passes
through a single stone in a northerly direction, and there is in both a
fixed line from the centre of the larger circle. Captain Boyle
Somerville, R.N., finds that the line 29° or 30° west of north would
mark the setting of Capella in B.C. 1600, or Arcturus 500 B.C.; he adds
that the direction 41° west of north would suit Capella in 2500 B.C. or
Castor in 2000 B.C.
On the west side of Lough Gur is another group of monuments. There is in
the first place a circle 55 feet in diameter. On a line 35° east of
north from this is a stone 10 feet high, and the same line produced
strikes a prominent hill-top. Somewhere to the south-west of this
circle, perhaps with its centre in the line just described, lay a second
circle between 150 and 170 feet in diameter, destroyed in 1870. Three
other stones mentioned by early writers as being near the circles have
now disappeared. The direction 35° east of north is the same as that of
the King-stone with regard to the Rollright Circle in Oxfordshire. This
line, allowing a height of 3° for the horizon, would, according to Sir
Norman Lockyer, have struck the rising points of Capella in 1700 B.C.
and Arcturus in 500 B.C.
To the south of the destroyed circle is another about 150 to 155 feet in
diameter, with stones of over 5 feet in height set close together. Earth
is piled up outside them to form a bank 30 feet wide. There is an
entrance 3 feet wide in a direction 59° east of north from the centre of
the circle. There is said to have been at one time a cromlech 100 feet
wide due south of the circle and connected with it by a paved way. Sir
Norman Lockyer thinks that the position of the doorway is connected with
observation of the sun's rising in May. Moreover, the tallest stone of
the circle, 9 feet high, is 30° east of north from the centre, a
direction which according to him points to the rising of Capella in 1950
B.C. and Arcturus in 280 B.C.