Where is Quanterness?

Quanterness is in Scottish Islands, in the United Kingdom — coordinates 58.9920°, -3.0203°.

Memorials & monuments · Scottish Islands

Quanterness

Quanterness in Orkney + Shetland, United Kingdom.

Mast, Wideford Hill - geograph.org.uk - 7681490 — N Chadwick — CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons licence

Plan your visit

Typical visit: 15 min–45 min

Quanterness is a place of interest in Orkney + Shetland, United Kingdom — drawn from open-data sources for visitor reference. See the linked Wikipedia article for the full description.

Photo gallery

From the Wikipedia article

Quanterness chambered cairn is a Neolithic burial monument located on Mainland, Orkney in Scotland. An Iron Age roundhouse built into the cairn was discovered during excavation in the early 1970s. The dwelling was constructed around 700 BC. Also found during excavation, were the remains of 157 people, pottery remnants and other artefacts. Historic Environment Scotland established the site as a scheduled monument in 1929.

Excerpt from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 4.0. See the source article linked in Sources below.

Background

History

The Rev George Barry excavated the burial monument sometime around 1796 by entering through the roof of the monument. The mound at that time had the shape of a truncated cone, with a height of 4.27 m. The tomb consisted of a main chamber and several smaller chambers. There was an attempt to dig through the rubble filled long entrance passage, but that was discontinued after 4.27 m. The floor of the main chamber was covered with a layer of human, animal and bird skeletal remains mixed with soil and rocks. Near the opening of the entrance passage, and built into the mound, a circular structure was uncovered that was later determined to be an Iron Age roundhouse. The roundhouse dates to…

Sourced from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 4.0.