Scotland - Corrimony's Chambered Cairn

 June 24, 2024

Four thousand years ago (Bronze Age) river cobbles were pile in a circular mound and surrounded by
eleven standing stone as a burial site with a central chamber. 

The kind of thing I find fascinating.

For 4,000 years, Glen Urquhart has held the remains of an ancient burial site. Archeologist believe it to be the resting place of a woman. A circular pile of rounded stones surround a hollow, central chamber where a bone pin and phosphorous-rich stain (decayed human skeletal material) was found during a 1952 archaeologic investigation. The secrets of the past rest off a single-carriage road in an unassuming pasture that I reason must have been fertile agricultural ground for four millennia. My imagination grows a bit giddy at the thought of time, cultures and events unknown that have passed this way before me.

One of 11 Standing Stones ringing the chambered burial cairn

Inga investigates the burial chamber.
Who can resist such an adventure? Not I.

Inga and Sue stand amazed at the original caprock that sealed the tomb below

We circle the ancient grave in respect and awe. Who was laid within this cairn? What was their role in the ancient community that existed here?

Questions never to be answered - worth pondering, me thinks.

Legend says that a Danish Prince died near this location over a thousand years ago after his Norse raiding party was repulsed by locals in a battle in Glen Urquhart. 

Such doings. 

And, to tie my visit even closer to the ancient mysteries of this place; a short distance up the lane from this Chambered Cairn is the old village (the term village is used loosely in 2024) from whence came my ancestor, William Grant, to Virginia in 1690.

Again, my imagination grows a bit giddy at the thought of time, cultures, familial ancestors and events unknown that have passed this way before me. 

I press onward to Corrimony and into the Old World mystery of what and who was before me. The narrative is ill-defined, but I love a mystery and I can imagine a few good stories to fit nicely into the yaw of historical recollection. Let's have a wander and a look, shall we?