Groundwater Mound 200m NNW of, Loch of Kirbister Orphir, Scotland
Scheduled Monument Data
Groundwater Mound 200m NNW of, Loch of Kirbister has been designated a scheduled monument in Scotland with the following information. Please note that not all available data may be shown here, minor errors and/or formatting may have occurred during transcription, and some information may have become outdated since scheduling.
- Historic Scotland ID
- SM0
- Name
- Groundwater, mound 200m NNW of, Loch of Kirbister
- Parish
- Orphir
- County
- Orkney Islands
- Easting
- 336962
- Northing
- 1008780
- Categories
- Prehistoric ritual and funerary: mound (ritual or funerary)
- Date Listed
- 25 March 1940
- Date Amended
- 17 December 2014
- Date Updated
- 17 December 2014
Scheduled Monument Description
Text courtesy of Historic Environment Scotland. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.
The monument is the remains of a burial mound dating probably to the Bronze Age (between around 2000 to 800 BC). The monument is visible as an upstanding, circular, grass-covered earthen mound. The mound measures up to 8.5m in diameter and stands approximately 0.75m high. It is located on the shoulder of a low-lying hill at around 45m above sea level, with views overlooking the Loch of Kirbister some 400m to the S. The monument was first scheduled in 1940, but the documentation did not meet modern standards: the present amendment rectifies this.
The scheduled area is circular on plan and measures 30m in diameter, centred on the centre of the mound. It includes the remains described above and an area around them within which evidence relating to the monument's construction, use and abandonment is expected to survive, as shown in red on the accompanying map.
Scheduled Monument Statement of Significance
Text courtesy of Historic Environment Scotland. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.
The monument is of national importance because of its potential to make a significant addition to our understanding of funerary and burial practice in the Bronze Age. Burial mounds and earthen barrows form an important and relatively widespread element of Orkney's Bronze Age landscape, and provide evidence for the major social and economic changes which took place during this period. This mound retains its field characteristics to a marked degree and is a good example of its type. Excavation of similar sites elsewhere in Orkney demonstrates that this site has potential to contain one or more burials and associated features, including perhaps the remains of funeral pyres or mortuary structures. Its significance is enhanced by its proximity to and possible association with a notable barrow cemetery 500m to the E: together these sites form a group of Bronze Age burial monuments on marginal ground N of the Loch of Kirbister. Our understanding of the dating, form, function and distribution of Bronze Age barrows would be diminished if this monument was to be lost or damaged.
Scheduled Monument References
Text courtesy of Historic Environment Scotland. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.
Other Information
RCAHMS records the monument as HY30NE2.
References
Downes J 1994, 'Linga Fold (Sandwick parish): Bronze Age burial mounds', Discovery Excav Scot, 91-2, fig 36.
Downes, J 1995, 'Linga Fold', Current Archaeology 142, 396-399.
Downes, J 1997, The Orkney Barrows Project survey results and management strategy. Unpublished report to Historic Scotland. ARCUS, University of Sheffield.
Marwick, H 1929, 'Some cist-burials in Orkney', Proc Soc Antiq Scot 63, 377-83.
RCAHMS 1946, The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. Twelfth report with an inventory of the ancient monuments of Orkney and Shetland, 3v, Edinburgh, 176, no 490.
Towrie, S 2013, The Knowes o' Trotty, http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/knowestrotty/ [accessed August 2013].
