Quoyness chambered cairn, Sanday
By Sigurd Towrie
Standing by the shore on Sanday’s south coast, Quoyness is one of the few known, and excavated, Maeshowe-type chambered cairns in Orkney.
The Neolithic structure can be found on the Elsness peninsula, but, to the modern visitor, Quoyness is unlike all but one of Orkney’s accessible cairns. Its stepped, exterior profile is, like the Wideford Hill cairn, is the result of 20th century consolidation work.
Inside, however, Quoyness’ architecture is typical of the Maeshowe-type cairns – in particular Quanterness, which is identical in layout.
A central, rectangular chamber (4m x 1.8m) was accessed by an eight-metre-long passage in its south-eastern side. Sticking to the typological template, the passage is low (c 0.8m) and narrow (0.55-0.65m).
The chamber is four metres high, its inward sloping long walls lending it the appearance of “the interior of chimneys which rise from great medieval fireplaces”. [1]
Six corbelled side cells branch off symmetrically from the central chamber – one at either end and a pair on each side.
Dug into the floor at the south-eastern corner was a shallow, stone-lined pit, 20cm deep and 80cm in diameter, and a short, curving trench cut into the floor between the entrance and the northern end cell.
Unlike the fine, quarried stone used for Maeshowe and Cuween, Quoyness “for all its sophistication, was built of waterworn slabs.” [1]
As you will see from the quote, it is implied that the use of beach stone meant Quoyness was in some way inferior to its Mainland contemporaries. Although it could be that waterworn rock was used because simply because it was a handy resource, as always, there may be much more to it.
Henshall goes on to point out:
There is no evidence that Quoyness’ architecture and construction was in any way inferior, with Henshall stating:
This suggests the use of waterworn slabs was a deliberate choice.
We know from other Neolithic sites that stone selection was clearly important and presumably carried with it many layers of significance and meaning. Within the Ness of Brodgar complex, for example, waterworn beach stone was transported to the site and incorporated into the buildings.
Why? Presumably the stones, or their source, was important. Significant enough to warrant the additional effort of carting them from shore to site. Were they brought from the occupants’ home territory? Did the act of transferring them represent bringing a place to a place?
With Quoyness, perhaps the beach stone not only represented the place but monumentalised it and its significance to the people of Neolithic Sanday. As we will see, the peninsula had a long association with dead.
Excavation
In the mid-19th century, the visiting antiquarian James Farrer was blazing a trail across Orkney, breaking targeting and breaking into mounds throughout the islands.
Six years after Maeshowe and practically obliterating “Plumcake Mound”, Farrer turned his attention to Quoyness in 1867.
Described by Vere Gordon Childe, who re-excavated the site in the 1950s, as “a notorious but sadly unmethodical antiquary”, Farrer thought he was digging into a broch.
And, in typical fashion, was in and out:
Fortunately for us, he was accompanied by the Orcadian antiquarian George Petrie, who recorded elements of the “excavation”.
In his woefully brief account, Farrer explained that he encountered two wall faces, 3.7 metres apart, which “may have been an area, or court, encircling the whole building”. [2]
He pressed on, recording “several [human] skulls in a very decayed state” in the outer passage. As well as a layer of poorly preserved bone, he found this section had been paved and, from his report, it appeared to be still roofed. It was, however, “completely filled up with rubbish”, suggesting the passageway was blocked after the structure went out of use.
The inner passage was unpaved and “only partially blocked up with stones and earthy matter”. [2]
Beyond that, the main chamber also seemed to have been backfilled after the structure went out of use, but the nature of the filling material was not recorded and presumably just dumped.
As well as those in the entrance passage, Farrer encountered human remains in four of the side cells, but his vague report provides no indication of the quantities involved.
While the trench was only “filled with rubbish”, the stone-lined pit contained “some human leg and arm bones in the last stage of decay”. The two eastern side cells “contained skulls and a few other human bones”. [2]
This differs slightly to the situation recorded by George Petrie, who wrote that in addition to the bones and skulls in the entrance passage blocking, there were more in “three or four of the six cells”.
In one of the cells Petrie noted that the “skull and largest bones in doorway as if shoved in feet foremost” – suggesting the deposition of an articulated corpse. The cist in the chamber floor, he added, was “full of bones . . . apparently human thigh bones and leg bones but no trace of skulls”. [3]
According to “craniologist” Dr Thurnam, to whom Farrer had sent the recovered skull fragments, they represented 12 or 15 skulls belonging to men, women and children. [2]
The other bones were dumped back in the chamber when the diggers departed.
Other finds included fragments of animal bone, pottery, bone and stone tools, along with two worked stone objects, similar to examples found at Skara Brae.
Farrer left Sanday still thinking his team had found an Iron Age broch, but one that had subsequently been converted into a burial place. He did, however, concede that:
He concluded his report by explaining that before leaving he:
Consolidation
Eighty-four years passed until Childe was tasked with (partially) re-excavating Quoyness ahead of an operation to consolidate and conserve it. [4]
From 1927 to 1930, Childe was excavating Skara Brae. In 1929, he made his way to Sanday and found the Quoyness cairn to be partially open but “choked with rubbish”. It was in poor condition, as much the result of Farrer’s investigations as the stone robbing and disturbance that had occurred over the previous eight decades.
Inside, for example, Farrer’s diggers had inserted timber supports – an operation Childe felt was unnecessary and which had further disturbed the floor, and the human remains they had “unceremoniously dumped” back on it. [4]
This led to the monument being taken into state care in 1932.
Re-excavation began in July 1951 and not only confirmed the layout but what appeared to be two later episodes of modification.
The first was an encircling casing wall added to the exterior of the original structure. It was clear to the excavators that this would have blocked the outer end of the entrance passage, something pondered by George Petre back in 1867.
Although this implies the chamber had gone out of use, and access no longer required, Childe felt the addition of the casing wall did not preclude further burial, “since it is notoriously possible for the initiated to remove the blocking from the entrances to chamber tombs.” [4]
If the wall did not seal off the entrance, the construction of a low, irregular platform almost certainly did. To Childe, “the construction of the platform and wall B doubtless mark a new stage of building and ritual activity.” [4]
Roughly oval, with a diameter between 16.8 and 17.7 metres, the platform was defined by a series of kerbstones, up to 60cm in height, placed against a bank of boulders.
Childe wrote:
In the excavated sections, the platform was made up of three layers – a base of horizontal stone slabs covered by stones, earth and midden and capped by another stony layer, including flat slabs. According to Henshall, “there can be no real doubt that it was only 1.2m high”. [1]
As well as two antler tines and pottery sherds, the platform core contained quantities of broken animal bone. While these could have been deposited in the midden used within the platform, two stood out – a sheep skull against the chamber’s outer wall and a cow mandible.
The bone, suggested Childe suggested, represented “either ritual deposits or remains of repasts consumed in the course of piling up the platform or on occasions after its completion.” [4]
The Quoyness platform brings to mind the one added to Rousay’s Taversoe Tuick. While this was suggested to be a Bronze Age modification [1], the presence of Grooved Ware pottery at Quoyness suggests an earlier, Late Neolithic, date.
Radiocarbon dates from the surviving human bone from Quoyness produced dates from between 3300-2900BC [5][6] This tells us that the chamber was still accessible, and presumably in use, until at least c2900BC, after which it was blocked off. It also puts suggests the chamber was contemporary with the early phases of settlement at Toftsness and Pool.
The Quoyness platform, however, was more structured than that at the Taversoe Tuick, which “consisted of a loose spread of flat stones which probably covered the entrance to the lower chamber.” [1]
Outside the Quoyness platform Childe encountered a “horn” – section of wall – projecting from the south-eastern edge and proposed that another existed at the northern end. Outside the encircling kerb were three “cist-like” constructions. If these were remnants of later funerary activity there contents had not survived and they were found to be empty. [1]
But their presence comes as no surprise when we consider the other archaeology present on the Elsness peninsula.
A tower-like structure?
As mentioned, Quoyness’ present appearance is the result of Childe’s consolidation work. Despite the profile now visible, Childe believed the cairn was originally rounded – covered by a “domical cairn of stone, resembling in profile Maeshowe, rather than a ‘stepped pyramid’…” [4]
This was the form proposed by Henshall, who wrote that:
But this vision was not shared by all. Following his excavation of another Maeshowe-type cairn in the neighbouring island of Westray, Niall Sharples proposed the Pierowall structure was a “tower-like structure” rather than a simple, formless mound. [8]
He cited the Quoyness excavation as supporting his interpretation, Childe himself stating that the Sanday structure would have been “an imposing but very unstable tower” [4]
To Sharples, the majority of Maeshowe-type cairns stood as stone towers:
He added:
Like Quoyness and Quanterness, Sharples found that Pierowall had two revetment walls. There, however, the outer wall was constructed differently, prompting him to propose it was “primarily a façade for display.” [8]
To Sharples, the rubble against Pierowall’s outer revetment was the result of structural collapse.
He suggested a similar sequence for Quoyness.
Whatever its original appearance, there seems little doubt that the Quoyness chamber was blocked off and enclosed by a wall and platform at the end of its “working life”. This not only prevented further access but also contained the site – keeping what was inside from getting out.
The use of midden – domestic refuse – within the body of the platform is interesting. Generally, with funerary monuments midden, arguably a symbol of life, was not incorporated into their construction. Given the nature of the later additions to Quoyness, perhaps that midden had a role that went beyond just construction material.
Decorating the houses of the dead
Back inside the chamber, both excavations missed two examples of incised motifs on the stonework.
Both were noted by Richard Bradley during a site visit in 1997. [9]
That they escaped previous notice is not surprising – the lightly incised, geometrical motifs were weathered and, like many examples from the Ness of Brodgar, only visible in certain light.
One was over the entrance lintel to the southern side cell, the other on the same wall but higher up.
Their discovery, together with examples at Cuween Hill, prompted a wider survey that confirmed a third at Quoyness and incised markings in Maeshowe and others at Cuween, Wideford and the Holm of Papay South. [10]
The positions of the incised decoration, it was proposed, “do seem to mark important thresholds within the structure of the tombs.” [10]
Notes
- [1] Davidson, J. L. & Henshall, A. S. (1989). The Chambered Cairns of Orkney. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
- [2] Farrer, J. (1868) Note of Excavations in Sanday, one of the North Isles of Orkney. In Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Volume 7 (1866-68).
- [3] Henshall, A S. (1963a) The Chambered Tombs of Scotland, Vol. 1. Edinburgh.
- [4] Childe, V. G. (1954) Re-excavation of the Chambered Cairn of Quoyness, Sanday, on behalf of the Ministry of Works, 1951-2. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (Vol 86, pp 121-139).
- [5] MacSween, A., J. Hunter, A. Sheridan, J. Bond, C. Bronk Ramsey, P.J. Reimer, A. Bayliss, S. Griffiths & A. Whittle. 2015. Refining the chronology of the Neolithic settlement at Pool, Sanday, Orkney. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 81: 283–310.
- [6] Olalde, I., Brace, S., Allentoft, M. et al. (2018) The Beaker phenomenon and the genomic transformation of northwest Europe. Nature 555, 190–196.
- [7] Henshall, A. (1985) The Chambered Cairns. In The Prehistory of Orkney, ed Renfrew, C. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
- [8] Sharples, N.M., Barlow, A., Birkett, D.A., Clarke, A., Clarke, A.S., MacCormick, F., Stenhouse, M.J., Swinney, G., Wickham-Jones, C.R., Yarrington, C.H. and O’Neil, M. (1985) Excavations at Pierowall Quarry, Westray, Orkney. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (Vol. 114, pp. 75-125).
- [9] Bradley, R. (1998) Incised motifs in the passage-graves at Quoyness and Cuween, Orkney. Antiquity, 72(276), pp.387-390.
- [10] Bradley, R., Phillips, T., Richards, C. and Webb, M. (2001) Decorating the houses of the dead: incised and pecked motifs in Orkney chambered tombs. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 11(1), pp.45-67.
