Page:Rude Stone Monuments.djvu/292

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266
SCOTLAND.
Chap. VI.

still be distinguished, though the whole of the little valley or depression in which they are situated seems strewn with blocks which may have belonged to others, but which the advancing tide of cultivation has swept away.

Rude Stone Monuments 0292a.png

91.
Plan of Clava Mounds. From Ordnance Survey.
25 inch scale.

The most perfect of those now remaining are three at the western end of the valley, the two outer and larger cairns stand about 100 yards apart. They are of stone, about 70 feet in diameter, surrounded by a circle of upright stones measuring 100 feet across. The intermediate one is smaller, being only 50 feet, with a circle 80 feet in diameter.[1] The two extreme ones have been opened, and found to contain circular chambers about 12 feet in diameter, and 9 in height, with passages leading to them about 15 feet long and 2 feet wide; and in two or three instances the stones in them were adorned with cup-marking, though it does not appear that they were otherwise sculptured.[2] In that to the west two sepulchral urns were found, just below the level of the original soil. They were broken, however, in extracting them; and they do not appear to have been put together again or drawn, so that no conclusions can be deduced from them as to the age of the cairns.

Rude Stone Monuments 0292b.png

92.
View of Clava Mounds. From a drawing by Mr. Innes.

Meagre as this information is, it is sufficient to show that Clava


  1. These dimensions are taken partly from the Ordnance Survey Sheet, 25-inch scale, and partly from Mr. Innes's paper in 'Proceedings Soc. Ant.' iii. p. 49 et seqq.
  2. Ibid. Appendix, vi. pl. x.