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Tulach An T'Sionnaich
Tulach an t'Sionnaich ("Mountain of the Fox"), is a cairn at the northern end of Loch Calder in Caithness, Scotland that has been expanded over time. It was partially excavated in 1961 and 1963. Before the excavations there was just a long and wide cairn with no recognizable structures. The cairn is oriented from northwest to southeast; the southeastern end being higher () and somewhat wider. Subsequently a ditch was cut some from this end of the cairn. The excavations revealed that the monument was initially a square passage tomb within a round cairn of diameter. Its long passage faced south. The external passage entrance was sealed by the circular stone wall that enclosed the cairn. The first cairn may have had a D-shaped or heel-shaped platform already, but after probably only a short time, a heel-shaped cairn was built over it; this has been identified as the oldest of its type on the Scottish mainland. Its small size places it typologically into an early period within i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cairn
A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehistoric times, they were raised as markers, as memorials and as burial monuments (some of which contained chambers). In modern times, cairns are often raised as landmarks, especially to mark the summits of mountains. Cairns are also used as trail markers. They vary in size from small stone markers to entire artificial hills, and in complexity from loose conical rock piles to elaborate megalithic structures. Cairns may be painted or otherwise decorated, whether for increased visibility or for religious reasons. A variant is the inuksuk (plural inuksuit), used by the Inuit and other peoples of the Arctic region of North America. History Europe The building of cairns for various purposes goes back into prehistory in Eurasia, ranging in s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Loch Calder
Loch Calder is a lowland freshwater loch lying approximately south west of Thurso in the Scottish Highlands. The loch is large with an irregular shape and has perimeter of . It is approximately long, has an average depth of and is at its deepest. The loch was surveyed on 6 October 1902 by John Parsons and T.R.H. Garrett and later charted as part of Sir John Murray's ''Bathymetrical Survey of Fresh-Water Lochs of Scotland 1897-1909''. Around the loch are several archaeological remains. At the northern end of the loch is Tulach an t'Sionnaich, a well preserved chambered cairn, one of two cairns known as the Tullochs of Assery. On the eastern shore, near Achavarn, lies the site of a broch, although much of the structure has been removed. It is thought that there was an artificial island or crannog near the western shore dating from the 17th century. The island, known as ''Big Island'', may have contained a dwelling which was said to be that of a robber. A short distance to the w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caithness
Caithness ( gd, Gallaibh ; sco, Caitnes; non, Katanes) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. Caithness has a land boundary with the historic county of Sutherland to the west and is otherwise bounded by sea. The land boundary follows a watershed and is crossed by two roads (the A9 and the A836) and by one railway (the Far North Line). Across the Pentland Firth, ferries link Caithness with Orkney, and Caithness also has an airport at Wick. The Pentland Firth island of Stroma is within Caithness. The name was also used for the earldom of Caithness ( 1334 onwards) and for the Caithness constituency of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (1708 to 1918). Boundaries are not identical in all contexts, but the Caithness area lies entirely within the Highland council area. Toponymy The ''Caith'' element of the name ''Caithness'' comes from the name of a Pictish tribe known as the ''Cat'' or ''Catt'' people, or ''Catti'' (see Kingdom of Ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, the North Sea to the northeast and east, and the Irish Sea to the south. It also contains more than 790 islands, principally in the archipelagos of the Hebrides and the Northern Isles. Most of the population, including the capital Edinburgh, is concentrated in the Central Belt—the plain between the Scottish Highlands and the Southern Uplands—in the Scottish Lowlands. Scotland is divided into 32 administrative subdivisions or local authorities, known as council areas. Glasgow City is the largest council area in terms of population, with Highland being the largest in terms of area. Limited self-governing power, covering matters such as education, social services and roads and transportation, is devolved from the Scott ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Passage Tomb
A passage grave or passage tomb consists of one or more burial chambers covered in earth or with stone, and having a narrow access passage made of large stones. These structures usually date from the Neolithic Age, and are found largely in Western Europe. When covered in earth, a passage grave is a type of burial mound which are found in various forms all over the world. When a passage grave is covered in stone, it is a type of cairn. Construction and design The building of passage graves was normally carried out with megaliths along with smaller stones. The earliest passage tombs seem to take the form of small dolmens, although not all dolmens are passage graves. The passage itself, in a number of notable instances, is aligned in such a way that the sun shines through the passage, into the chamber, at a significant point in the year, often at sunrise on the winter solstice or at sunset on the equinox. Many later passage tombs were constructed at the tops of hills or mountains, in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heel-shaped Cairn
The heel-shaped cairn, with its usually cruciform chamber, is a type of megalithic monument that is found in Scotland, especially in Caithness and Sutherland and in the Shetland Islands. In Orkney, the Isbister Cairn is the only site that is similar in shape. The chambers usually lie in a round cairn made of broken rocks, which either contemporaneously or later were surrounded by the eponymous platform, up to 20 metres wide at the front and from 1.0 to 1.5 metres high, and were partly enclosed by large kerbstones. A gentle concave exedra is characteristic of the front face. The often cruciform chambers, accessed via a short passage, have a large recess at the head and two smaller recesses to the side. They were covered with corbelled vaults, of which however usually only remnants survive. The best-known sites of this type in Shetland are: Gillaburn, Hill of Caldback, Hill of Dale, Mangaster, Muckle Heog, Pettigarth's Field, Punds Water, Turdale Water, Vementr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dry Stone Walling
Dry stone, sometimes called drystack or, in Scotland, drystane, is a building method by which structures are constructed from stones without any mortar to bind them together. Dry stone structures are stable because of their construction method, which is characterized by the presence of a load-bearing façade of carefully selected interlocking stones. Dry stone construction is best known in the context of stone walls, traditionally used for the boundaries of fields and churchyards, or as retaining walls for terracing, but dry stone sculptures, buildings, bridges, and other structures also exist. The term tends not to be used for the many historic styles which used precisely-shaped stone, but did not use mortar, for example the Greek temple and Inca architecture. The art of dry stone walling was inscribed in 2018 on the UNESCO representative list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity, for dry stone walls in countries such as France, Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Cro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beaker Culture
The Bell Beaker culture, also known as the Bell Beaker complex or Bell Beaker phenomenon, is an archaeological culture named after the Inverted bell, inverted-bell beaker (archaeology), beaker drinking vessel used at the very beginning of the European Bronze Age. Arising from around 2800 BC, it lasted in Bronze Age Britain, Britain until as late as 1800 BC but in continental Europe only until 2300 BC, when it was succeeded by the Unetice culture. The culture was widely dispersed throughout Western Europe, being present in many regions of Iberia and stretching eastward to the Danube, Danubian plains, and northward to the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, and was also present in the islands of Sicily and Sardinia and some small coastal areas in North Africa, north-western Africa. The Bell Beaker phenomenon shows substantial regional variation, and a study from 2018 found that it was associated with genetically diverse populations. The Bell Beaker culture was partly preceded b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Megalith Architecture
British megalith architecture is the study of those ancient cultures that built megalithic sites on the British Isles, including the research and documentation of these sites. The classification sometimes used of these cultures based on geological criteria is problematic. The neolithic sites of Britain are amongst the most varied in the prehistory of Europe. Although (geologically) different from "megalithic" sites, the earthen long barrows in East England are grouped with them from a cultural historical perspective. The Medway tombs and the Derbyshire chamber tombs ( Five Wells) occupy a special position as examples of megalithic sites in East England. The north–south boundary between earthen sites and stone sites in England and Scotland is crossed at three points to the east by the seven different types of megalith site types (in the so-called mixed regions). The activities of megalithic cultures in the region dates back to prehistoric times. There are many parallels betwe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Audrey S
Audrey () is an English feminine given name. It is the Anglo-Norman form of the Anglo-Saxon name ''Æðelþryð'', composed of the elements '' æðel'' "noble" and ''þryð'' "strength". The Anglo-Norman form of the name was applied to Saint Audrey (d. 679), also known by the historical form of her name as Saint Æthelthryth. The same name also survived into the modern period in its Anglo-Saxon form, as ''Etheldred'', e.g. Etheldred Benett (1776–1845). In the 17th century, the name of ''Saint Audrey'' gave rise to the adjective ''tawdry'' "cheap and pretentious; cheaply adorned". The lace necklaces sold to pilgrims to Saint Audrey fell out of fashion in the 17th century, and so tawdry was reinterpreted as meaning cheap or vulgar. As a consequence, use of the name declined, but it was revived in the 19th century. Popularity of the name in the United States peaked in the interbellum period, but it fell below rank 100 in popularity by 1940 and was not frequently given in the later ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
