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A cairn marking a mountain summit in Graubünden, Switzerland. The biggest cairn in Ireland, Maeve's Cairn on Knocknarea. A cairn is a human-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word cairn comes from the Scottish Gaelic: càrn [ˈkʰaːrˠn̪ˠ] (plural càirn [ˈkʰaːrˠɲ]). [1]
The largest of three is the north-east cairn, which was partially reconstructed in the 19th century and the central cairn may have been used as a funeral pyre. [ 52 ] [ 53 ] [ 54 ] Glebe cairn in Kilmartin Glen in Argyll dates from 1700 BC and has two stone cists inside one of which a jet necklace was found during 19th century excavations.
Stone carry or the stone walk is a traditional Scottish athletic event involving the carrying of large stones down the field of competition; the competitors pick up two heavy stones with iron handles, and carry the pair as far as they can. The sport may have grown out of the act of clearing stones from fields to create pastures and arable land.
The cairn was constructed by two dry stone master 'dykers', Norman Haddow and William Crooks Cassidy, and was a gift to the Queen from her Scottish Warrant Holders and current and former employees of Balmoral. [5] The cairn is marked with an etched slate plaque with the Queen's initials and the date, made by carver Gillian Forbes. [5]
The recumbent stone and flankers, as they are called, together form the recumbent setting. Around the ring the orthostats get progressively lower in height and more closely spaced until they reach the opposite side from the setting. These stone circles contain a low central ring cairn surrounded by comparatively small kerb stones. [1] [2]
The court cairn or court tomb is a megalithic type of chambered cairn or gallery grave. During the period, 3900–3500 BC, more than 390 court cairns were built in Ireland and over 100 in southwest Scotland. The Neolithic (New Stone Age) monuments are identified by an uncovered courtyard connected to one or more roofed and partitioned burial ...
The Bridestones is a chambered cairn, near Congleton, Cheshire, England, that was constructed in the Neolithic period about 3500–2400 BC. [1] It was described in 1764 as being 120 yards (110 m) long and 12 yards (11 m) wide, containing three separate compartments, of which only one remains today.
The replacement of the wooden circles by stone ones is a feature shared with some other monuments and may represent the replacement of concern for the living (and the Sun) by devotion to the dead (and the Moon or Sunset). [4] A second circle and ring cairn was excavated not far away at grid reference 5]