Tumulus (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NT 090 993
Also Known as:
Archaeology & History
A prehistoric tomb of unknown size was opened and robbed of its contents shortly before its total destruction sometime in the middle of the 19th century. There were no remains seen of the site when Ordnance Survey came here in 1854, and it is unlikely to have been confused with the large Thorn Knowe tumulus a half-mile to the northwest. A certain Prof. Duns (1876) described in an early article that the only remaining artefact from this tomb was an elaborate early Bronze Age spear-head, found in 1855, which he described at some length in the PSAS journal of the time. Neither he nor any other colleagues told us anything further about the tumulus.
References:
- Duns, J., “Notes on some articles exhibited to the meeting: A bronze spear-head, a small unlooped socketed celt, a sword-shaped stone from Shetland, and a tripod bronze pot,” in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland, volume 11, 1876.
- Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments, Scotland, Inventory of Monuments and Constructions in the Counties of Fife, Kinross and Clackmannan, HMSO: Edinburgh 1933.
© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian