Unstan Chambered Cairn

The tomb is a particularly well preserved, and somewhat unusual, example of an Orkney–Cromarty chambered cairn. Tombs of this type are often referred to as "stalled" cairns due to their distinctive internal structure. Stalled cairns have a central passageway flanked by a series of paired transverse stones that separate the side spaces into compartments that reminded early investigators of horse stalls. The earliest versions of this tomb type are found in Caithness, they typically consist of no more than four stalled compartments. In Orkney, the tombs became increasingly elaborate; the number of compartments reached a maximum of fourteen at the Knowe of Ramsay on Rousay. Unstan is a more…