Sunday, September 12, 2010

Islay: a Standing Stone!

And here is another Standing Stone, north of Loch Finlaggan, beside the road to the Finlaggan Visitor Centre, in a field. Apparently, it was one of two standing stones, observed back in 1695 by Marin Martin (an early tourist who wrote a book of his travels through darkest Scotland). Two large boulders to the east may be the missing second stone. Caldwell thinks these stones may have once been a part of a neolithic monument, now buried. There is a mound behind the visiting centre, which was excavated in 1994/95. A burial chamber (or underground store associated with Iron Age houses) was found here, lined with boulders. (That holding up that stone is me!)

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