Chambered Cairn
On top of the hill, there is a Neolithic chambered cairn, unusual for its position on top of a hill. Most surviving Neolithic British cairns are sited in prominent places, but not generally on the top of taller hills. According to local farmers, until the construction of Sullom Voe Terminal in the mid-1970s, the cairn contained a variety of "sacrifice" items, such as coins (some "very old") and other items. Prior to that time, Ronas Hill would have been far off the beaten track.
Ronas Hill cairn shows evidence of substantial rebuilding of its upper structure, as evidenced by the lack of lichen on stones above the entry passage and main cyst. The current peak of pink granite stones is clearly visible from the valley below and may have been raised in height to serve as a "mede" or fishing mark in past centuries. The cairn was certainly altered by soldiers during a military exercise in the 1960s, when a wall was built around its entrance to turn it into a foxhole.
Read more about this topic: Ronas Hill
Famous quotes containing the word cairn:
“Much wondering to see upon all hands, of wattles and woodwork made,
Your bell-mounted churches, and guardless the sacred cairn and the rath,
And a small and a feeble populace stooping with mattock and spade,
Or weeding or ploughing with faces a-shining with much-toil wet;
While in this place and that place, with bodies unglorious, their chieftains stood....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)