- A mysterious prehistoric tomb on the
island of Orkney has a special "light box" cut into its roof,
archaeologists have discovered. It allowed a shaft of light to herald the
start and end of winter.
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- This has only been seen once before and
it may literally cast new light on the lives and beliefs of primitive Neolithic
man.
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- The Crantit tomb was discovered last
year when a tractor disturbed a series of flat stones just below the surface.
These turned out to be the roof slabs of an underground tomb, hidden below
a hillside for over 5,000 years.
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- The Glasgow University archaeological
field unit directed by Dr Beverley Ballin Smith and Dr Colin Richards were
called in and soon realised the importance of the important find.
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- The small tomb consists of three chambers
in a "clover-leaf" formation and was almost invisible from above
ground.
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- It is highly unusual as most chambered
cairns in Orkney and elsewhere were built on the surface as prominent mounds.
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- "It was a totally unexpected find,"
Dr Ballin Smith told BBC News Online.
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- During the excavation one of the archaeologists,
a skilled stonemason, noticed something unusual about the slabs of stone
that formed the roof.
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- "What we found was truly remarkable,"
said Dr Ballin Smith.
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- A notch had been cut in the roof to allow
a ray of sunlight to penetrate the tomb, but only at certain times of the
year.
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- In October and again in February, at
the beginning and the end of what was no doubt a harsh winter, the Sun
would have thrown a shaft of light along the length of the tomb.
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- It is the first tomb found in the UK
that has a light shaft. The only other one known is at Newgrange in Ireland.
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- Mysterious patterns
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- Strange carvings were found on the upright
stone pillar that holds up the roof.
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- "If you look closely you can see
geometric patterns and symbols carved into the rock," Dr Ballin Smith
said. "We think that they may even have been coloured with primitive
paints and pigments."
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- No human remains were found in the tomb's
central chamber but bones from four individuals were found in side chambers:
a mature woman, a girl, a child and one too degraded to identify. Fragments
of pottery were also found but no ornaments.
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- Neolithic tombs were frequently used
over and over again, but entrance to the Crantit tomb was heavily blocked
up, both inside and out, suggesting reuse was not wanted.
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- "Perhaps it tells us something about
a cultural change in the treatment of death and burial five thousand years
ago," speculated Dr Ballin Smith.
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- "It may be significant that the
tomb took the human remains back to the Earth," she added. "But
perhaps we will never know the real meaning of Crantit."
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