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Dell Farm,burial mounds 350m north east of

A Scheduled Monument in Aird and Loch Ness, Highland

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Coordinates

Latitude: 57.2205 / 57°13'13"N

Longitude: -4.4975 / 4°29'50"W

OS Eastings: 249294

OS Northings: 817177

OS Grid: NH492171

Mapcode National: GBR H98M.W1R

Mapcode Global: WH3GC.WSJ2

Entry Name: Dell Farm,burial mounds 350m NE of

Scheduled Date: 7 July 1988

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Source ID: SM4536

Schedule Class: Cultural

Category: Prehistoric ritual and funerary: barrow

Location: Boleskine and Abertarff

County: Highland

Electoral Ward: Aird and Loch Ness

Traditional County: Inverness-shire

Description

The monument comprises at least 3 round and 4 oblong or trapezoidal burial mounds, and probably also burial cists, all of the first millennium AD. In the same area are at very least 5 small round cairns, and small enclosures and low banks. The oblong or trapezoidal mounds vary from about 4.5m square up to 7m by 8m; their heights range from 0.2m to 1m.

They are each surrounded by a shallow ditch about 1m broad outwith which is a small bank with gaps at the corners of ditch or bank or both. Two well preserved near circular burial mounds are visible, one 6m and one up to 9m in diameter, each inside a shallow ditch and bank; their heights are 0.2 and 0.4m. An oval cairn to their south measures about 9m by 12m but has no perceptible bank or ditch. The 5 small cairns vary in diameter from about 4.5 to 6m and are up to 0.7m high.

The area also contains small areas defined by low banks, with maximum dimensions 8.5m and shapes varying from round to trapezoidal, which may be remains of later houses and domestic structures. There are however numerous vague mounds in the immediate vicinity and the cemetery, like others of the Pictish period, probably contains numerous burials in long cists.

The area to be scheduled includes the structures described above and an area within which cists and remains of activities associated with construction and use of the mounds will survive measuring up to 120m NS by up 150m EW with its E edge marked by but excluding a fence as delineated in red on the attached map.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Statement of Scheduling

The monument is a cemetery of the first millennium AD and a variant of a Pictish type; it is one of the few such barrow and cairn cemeteries known in Scotland. It is of national importance because it is a fine and distinctive field monument with the potential to increase understanding of burial customs in the first millennium AD.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Sources

Bibliography
No Bibliography entries for this designation

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

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