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Latitude: 56.2913 / 56°17'28"N
Longitude: -6.223 / 6°13'22"W
OS Eastings: 138788
OS Northings: 718999
OS Grid: NM387189
Mapcode National: GBR CD02.Y2X
Mapcode Global: WGYDJ.C4XC
Entry Name: Dun a' Chiabhaig, dun, Uisken, Mull
Scheduled Date: 20 March 2003
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
Source ID: SM7762
Schedule Class: Cultural
Category: Prehistoric domestic and defensive: dun
Location: Kilfinichen and Kilvickeon
County: Argyll and Bute
Electoral Ward: Oban South and the Isles
Traditional County: Argyllshire
The monument comprises a dun, a fortified settlement of Iron Age date (about 500 BC to AD 500), visible as upstanding remains.
The monument is situated on a prominent rocky knoll immediately NE of the public road leading from Bunessan to Uisken, at about 30m OD. Steep rock-studded slopes or vertical rock-faces up to 12m high on the N, S and E sides afford strong natural protection. On the W side, however, the dun may be approached up a gentle grassy slope. The dun is roughly oval on plan and measures some 30m from N to S by 22m transversely, within a single stone wall.
The wall has been reduced to a low bank or scarp of stony debris, in which a number of outer facing-stones can still be seen. No stones of the inner face have survived in position, but, if the elongated depression that appears in the wall-debris on the NW represents, as seems likely, the trench left by stone-robbers following the inner line of the wall, the original thickness at that point would be about 4.5m.
The position of the entrance may be indicated by a pronounced dip in the core-material near the middle of the W side, but in that case the lowest courses of the outer face must have been continued across its mouth. The interior is divided into two unequal portions by a sinuous rocky scarp.
The area proposed for scheduling comprises the remains described and an area around them within which related material is likely to survive. It is irregular in plan, with maximum dimensions of 50m NE-SW by 41m transversely, as marked in red on the accompanying map. The field boundary to the SW defines the south-western limit of the scheduled area, but is itself excluded from the scheduling.
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
This monument is of national importance because it is a well-preserved example of a later prehistoric enclosed settlement, of a type common in western Scotland, which has the potential to increase considerably our understanding of later prehistoric domestic life and defensive architecture.
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
Bibliography
RCAHMS records the monument as NM31NE 3.
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
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