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| Quoyness
lies quite close to the shore on a long, flat promontory
known as Els Ness on the island of Sanday. It was
excavated in the 1860’s by James Farrer and
the results recorded by George Petrie. Subsequently
much of the superstructure was removed by stone
robbing until the site was taken into state care
in the 1930’s. It was re-investigated by Gordon
Childe from 1951-52 and much of the damage was restored,
giving the tomb the odd appearance it has today.
The tomb has two inner wall faces and is surrounded
by a low platform. |
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Quoyness.
Plan and Section of the Cairn |
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| The
cairn is set within an irregularly shaped platform
about 60 cm high and measuring approximately 41
x 32 metres. It was originally held in place by
kerbstones but many of these have disappeared in
the last century or so. The outer edge is formed
by a bank of boulders and within this are three
layers. The lowest is made up of horizontal slabs,
above this is a layer of stone mixed with earth
and midden material, and on top is a layer of stones. |
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View
of the Cairn from the Northeast |
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| The
whole structure measures 20.5 x 17 metres
overall but this includes the outermost casing,
which was added later. The core is roughly
oval (11 x 9.8 metres) to accommodate the
layout of the burial chamber. The facing wall
has a pronounced inward slope, especially
towards the top, and can now be seen, partly
restored, sticking up above the rest of the
stonework. The inner casing of the cairn was
approximately 17 metres in diameter and was
faced by a near vertical wall, which survives
to a height of about 2.7 metres (where it
is reasonably well preserved). The outer casing
is low and was built partly on top of the
surrounding platform. According to Petrie
the wall face was built right across the door
of the entrance passage, so it must have been
added after the tomb had ceased to be used.
The successive casings can |
Exterior
and Tomb Entrance |
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be seen clearly in the photo of the entrance passage. |
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Entrance
Passage from the interior of the tomb. |
The
entrance passage is on the southeast side,
at right angles to the axis of the chamber.
It is a little over half a metre wide, about
80 cm high and 7.35 metres long. Apart from
a few paving stones at the outer end, the
floor was clay subsoil. The chamber measures
4 x 1.8 metres with walls about 4 metres high,
made out of water-worn stones, some of considerable
size. After about one metre the walls were
corbelled, reducing the area of the ceiling
to 3.3 x 0.9 metres. The original roof was
missing but Childe identified four roof slabs—not
in situ. There are six cells, symmetrically
arranged with two on each of the long sides
and one at either end. They are somewhat irregular
in shape, measuring roughly a metre and a
half by one and a half to two metres. Again,
the floor was clay for the most part with
a circular stone-lined pit about 80 cm. in
diameter in the southeast corner. According
to Petrie it originally had a stone |
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| cover.
There is also a shallow trench about 50 cm. wide
and 20 cm. deep at the north end. Petrie recorded
that it was “filled with rubbish”. |
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North
end of the Chamber |
Southwest
corner of the Chamber |
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| The
remains of about 15 individuals were recovered in
the cells and in one of two pits in the floor, along
with some pot sherds, flint knives, a bone pin and
two carved stone objects similar to examples found
at Skara Brae. Unfortunately, owing to the haphazard
nature of the original excavations, we do not know
the exact find spots of many of the objects. |
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Stone
Objects |
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| The
ground stone objects (above) include a T-shaped
item with conical projections and three ridges running
across the top (length= 147 mm), as well as a cylindrical
piece with two points at one end and two ridges
at the other(length= 122 mm). Their most obvious
parallel is with some of the objects found at Skara
Brae. |
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Bone
Pin |
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| The
bone pin is a rather nice piece about 18 cm. long
with a roundd head and a projecting knob on one
side. |
