The Tregiffian Burial Chamber ( kw, Hirvedh Treguhyon) is a

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

or early

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

chambered tomb. It is near

Lamorna Lamorna ( kw, Nansmornow) is a village, valley and cove in west Cornwall, England, UK. It is on the Penwith peninsula approximately south of Penzance. Lamorna became popular with the artists of the Newlyn School, including Alfred Munnings, Lau ...

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 ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

(). It is a rare form of a passage grave, known as an ''

Entrance grave Entrance grave is a type of Neolithic and early Bronze Age chamber tomb found primarily in Great Britain. The burial monument typically consisted of a circular mound bordered by a stone curb, erected over a rectangular burial chamber and access ...

''. It has an entrance passage, lined with stone slabs, which leads into a central chamber. This type of tomb is also found in the neighbouring

Isles of Scilly The Isles of Scilly (; kw, Syllan, ', or ) is an archipelago off the southwestern tip of Cornwall, England. One of the islands, St Agnes, is the most southerly point in Britain, being over further south than the most southerly point of the ...

Location

Tregiffian is in southwest Cornwall in the District of

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. ...

south of

Penzance Penzance ( ; kw, Pennsans) is a town, civil parish and port in the Penwith district of Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is about west-southwest of Plymouth and west-southwest of London. Situated ...

between St Buryan and

. It lies close to

The Merry Maidens The Merry Maidens (), also known as Dawn's Men (a likely corruption of the Cornish ''Dons Men'' "Stone Dance") is a late neolithic stone circle located 2 miles (3 km) to the south of the village of St Buryan, in Cornwall, United Kingdom. ...

stone circle. The site is managed by the

Cornwall Heritage Trust The Cornwall Heritage Trust (CHT) is an organisation which owns and manages historic sites in Cornwall, UK. It was founded in 1985. List of managed sites The Trust owns and manages a number of sites:English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

Construction

The large stone grave, half of which was covered by a road in 1846, was, unlike Cornish

quoits Quoits ( or ) is a traditional game which involves the throwing of metal, rope or rubber rings over a set distance, usually to land over or near a spike (sometimes called a hob, mott or pin). The game of quoits encompasses several distinct vari ...

, for the most part covered with soil, with only the entrance exposed. From the edge of the site a passage, covered by four 3 m long stones, led to the 4-metre deep grave chamber. In front of the chamber, a cross-lying ornate stone, with cup-and-ring markings, formed a barrier. The original stone is in Truro, in the Royal Cornwall Museum, the local stone is a replica. Inside the tomb there was the chamber grave, which consisted of upright stones and a cover slab. Tregiffian probably formed a holy place with the Merry Maidens and other sites.

Excavations

In 1871

William Copeland Borlase William Copeland Borlase (5 April 1848 – 31 March 1899) was a British antiquarian and Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1880 until 1887 when he was ruined by bankruptcy and scandal. Early life Borlase was born at Castl ...

carried out the first excavations on the grave. He first discovered the stone edge of the cover and found flints, bones and ashes. During deeper excavations Borlase discovered pits with bone remains, which suggested cremation. In 1932 Hencken noted for the first time that it was probably a variant of a Megalithic grave and placed this grave type temporally between the

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 ...

and the cist type. Newer research recognized passage tombs as a variant of the dolmen type, notable particularly by the entrance to the interior.Glyn Edmund Daniel: ''The Megalith Builders of Western Europe'', Harmondsworth, Penguin 1963 Urns were discovered in comprehensive excavations in the years 1968 and 1972, and the contents were dated to roughly 1900 BC. The occurrence of these two forms of burial is typical of an ''

'' and suggests its use as a community grave for a long period of time.

References

External links

Tregiffian page at English Heritage
{{Cornwall, state=collapsed History of Cornwall Bronze Age sites in Cornwall English Heritage sites in Cornwall Buildings and structures in Cornwall