Pettigarths Field Cairns facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Pettigarths Field Cairns |
|
|---|---|
| Lua error in Module:Location_map at line 420: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). | |
| Location | Shetland, Scotland |
| Built | Neolithic age |
The Pettigarths Field Cairns are ancient stone structures in Shetland, Scotland. They are found on the island of Whalsay, in an area called Nesting. These amazing sites were built a very long time ago, during the Neolithic age. This was the New Stone Age, when people first started farming.
The Cairns are about 140 meters (about 460 feet) northwest of another old site called Benie Hoose. At Pettigarths Field, you can see upright stones and old stone walls. There are two main stone mounds, called cairns. The south cairn is about 6 meters (20 feet) square. It has an entrance on the east side and a round room inside, about 2 meters (6.5 feet) wide. Just 4 meters (13 feet) north of it is a round cairn. This one is 4.5 meters (15 feet) across and has a rectangular stone box inside. Both cairns sit on a small hill.
Archaeologists first explored these sites in 1936 and 1938. They believed these were tombs from the Late Stone Age and early Bronze Age. Later, in 1963, C. S. T. Calder led more digging.
Exploring the Large Cairn
The bigger cairn has a paved floor in its main room and passage. The room inside is small and shaped like a "heel." This is a special shape for ancient tombs. It's different from three other cairns found in Shetland.
To get into this cairn, you walk through a passage. This passage is made of two tall standing stones. The passage gets wider as you go deeper inside. Some parts of the entrance are described as "jambs," which are like doorposts. Small pieces of pottery were found here. However, they were too broken to tell exactly what they were.
The Smaller Round Cairn
The smaller, round cairn was also dug up by archaeologists. They found a large stone slab covering a space inside. It looked like people might have tried to rob the tomb long ago.
Under the slab, there was a stone box called a cist. A cist is like a small coffin made of stone slabs. This one was about 1.2 meters (4 feet) long and had a paved bottom. The cist was partly lined with rubble stones. The round cairn itself is about 4.5 meters (15 feet) across. Because of some large boulders found nearby, experts think there might have been a circular wall around the outside of this cairn a long time ago.
