Bosporthennis is a

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

south of Treen in the civil parish of

Zennor Zennor is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The parish includes the villages of Zennor, Boswednack and Porthmeor and the hamlet of Treen (Zennor), Treen. Zennor lies on the north coast, ...

on the

Penwith Penwith (; kw, Pennwydh) is an area of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, located on the peninsula of the same name. It is also the name of a former Non-metropolitan district, local government district, whose council was based in Penzance. ...

peninsula in west

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

, England, United Kingdom.Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 203 ''Land's End''

Antiquities

There is a scattered settlement of at least three

courtyard house A courtyard house is a type of house—often a large house—where the main part of the building is disposed around a central courtyard. Many houses that have courtyards are not courtyard houses of the type covered by this article. For example, l ...

s dating from the

Late Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

at the eastern foot of Hannibal's Carn. The best preserved has walls up to 1.5 metres high, with an adjoining paddock. Another has a late medieval cowhouse built inside its walls. Within the settlement there is a feature called the Bosporthennis Beehive Hut (), which has been identified as an above ground

fogou A fogou or fougou (pronounced "foo-goo") is an underground, dry-stone structure found on Iron Age or Romano-British-defended settlement sites in Cornwall. The original purpose of a fogou is uncertain today. Colloquially called , , , giant holts ...

, similar to the round, subterranean chamber at

Carn Euny , alternate_name = , image = CarnEuny1.jpg , alt = Fragments of stone round-houses , caption = Carn Euny ancient village , map_type = Southwest Cornwall , map_alt = , map_size = , location = Brane, Cornwall , region = , coord ...

. This identification is considered doubtful, Clark discussed the structure and concluded that it does not possess enough of the usual features of a fogou for it to be regarded as such.MONUMENT NO. 423621
, Pastscape, retrieved 11 November 2013 The Bosporthennis chamber, made of

corbelled In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the st ...

stone, is 4 metres across and is connected to a smaller oblong chamber, originally the entrance, 3.3 metres by 2.1 metres, both are now roofless. Bosporthennis Quoit () is a

portal dolmen A dolmen () or portal tomb is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more upright megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the early Neolithic (40003000 BCE) and were somet ...

laying within a mound 6 metres across and 0.8 metres high. Three of the original four upright stones survive, of which one is 1.5 metres high, and the chamber is 1.5 by 1.3 metres. The

capstone CAPSTONE (Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment) is a lunar orbiter that will test and verify the calculated orbital stability planned for the Lunar Gateway space station. The spacecraft is a 12- ...

currently has a diameter of 1.6 metres, and is very round as it had been trimmed for use as a

millstone Millstones or mill stones are stones used in gristmills, for grinding wheat or other grains. They are sometimes referred to as grindstones or grinding stones. Millstones come in pairs: a convex stationary base known as the ''bedstone'' and ...

. When excavated in 1872

sherds This page is a glossary of archaeology, the study of the human past from material remains. A B C D E F ...

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...

were found alongside

calcined Calcination refers to thermal treatment of a solid chemical compound (e.g. mixed carbonate ores) whereby the compound is raised to high temperature without melting under restricted supply of ambient oxygen (i.e. gaseous O2 fraction of air), genera ...

bones.

References

External links

{{Cornwall, state=collapsed Hamlets in Cornwall Cornish courtyard houses Fogous Zennor