Latest Fieldnotes

This once great long barrow is now very low and difficult to see, I assume it’s been ploughed for many years. The current farmer seems to be trying to protect it’s whereabouts by placing a series of marker poles around it, but sadly the damage has been done.
Close by are several round barrows, two of which I have included, a third is just visible in a dense hedge.
One major bonus on this visit to what could have been a disappointing site was the finding of a beautifully crafted discoid flint scraper.It is 4.5cm wide and 5.5cm long with one very sharp edge and a blunt end.

Seeing as there was no photos of the Long Stone, armed with an OS map printout – i set off to find it. I parked up next to the cattle grid and followed the footpath through the woods (this track can get quite boogy, so wellies are a must). The stone is about 50 metres down from the first right hand turn – about 3 metres right from the footpath. It’s a small stone (about 0.5 metres high) and has a cruciform groove carved in about an inch deep. I didn’t have my compass with me today so i can’t show if the grooves are aligned in any way. Overall, a nice little hidden away stone – you’ve got to be a bit eagle-eyed due to its size (i walked past it once) but worth checking out if your in the area.

From Olbia airport, head west and watch out for the sign to Loiri – even though you want to go south and logic says that’s left, it’s a right turn.

Second time lucky, we got on the right road – the SP24 – and turned off at the sports pitch mentioned in TME – the tomba is signposted from here.

We parked in the area probably designed for those visiting Pedres castle, on the hill overlooking the site, having seen the state of the bumpy, sandy track, and walked the last 200 metres. There was a red Renault parked just by the gate in the low wall, and it turned out that it belonged to the site guardian – a lovely man! You can buy a ticket for 5 sites round Olbia for 7,50 – the others being:
Pozzo Sacro “Sa Testa”
Acquedotto e Cisterna “Sa Rughittola”
Nuraghe “Riu Mulimu”
Fattoria Romana di “S’imbalconadu”
but we only had time for this one, so paid 2,50 euros each. They may not get many visitors – the tickets had their prices overstickered for last year, if not the year before’s charges.

This is one of the largest tombas in Sardinia, 28 metres long. As at Li Lolghi and Coddu Vecchiu, it’s thought to be a reworking of an allée couverte.

The esedra is huge; the stele has been broken off and removed, leaving a stump of stone with a ridge down it on the left of the entrance, giving a good view down the funeral corridor.

An unloved tomba not far from Santu Antine. It’s not signposted, but is easily visible from the road running south east from the easterly railway crossing near Torralba. After the crossing, you go over the river on a bend, and when you see a track to the left, stop – the tomba is in the field just after the turning.

We climbed over a wire fence to get access.

The stele, though weathered, is impressive. About 3m high, with relief carving and that pink tinge to the stone we’d seen at several other tombas. The area is quite overgrown, and it’s hard to work out much of the burial chamber.

Yet another (!) nuraghe visible from Santu Antine. Quite ruinous.

Nuraghe less than 1km north west of, and visible from, Santu Antine – partly demolished to use the basalt blocks for building a nearby road.

Yet another nuraghe (11 metres in height) alongside the railway line near Torralba station and Santu Antine. We didn’t get close, but apparently you can get to the first floor and there’s an underground room and nearby springs.

Less than 1.5km east of Santu Antine, though we spotted it from the road running parallel to the railway line rather than from that nuraghe.

This is a single tower structure 8 m high and with a diameter of 11 m. If you get up close (we didn’t!) you can see through the entrance to its interior room.

Another nuraghe clearly visible from Santu Antine. It has a single tower – diameter 12.5 m, height 4.6 m – and some huts surrounding it.

A nuraghe right next to the railway line, about 700 metres from Torralba station – and visible for miles around. Being the wrong side of the tracks, it’s classed as being in Giave though. Apparently it’s possible to visit, but it’s recommended to take care on the railway!

If you only visit one nurahge, make it this one! Just take a look at its aerial view from Google ...

Signposted from Sant’ Andrea Priu and south of Torralba, on the SP121, in the valley of the nuraghes – they are everywhere! We’d taken some binoculars and spotted the nuraghes of Fraigas, Oes, Bonzalzas, Mura Coloras and Cabu Abbas with little difficulty – all under 1.5km away. Fig 29 in Margaret Guido’s book shows the distribution of nuraghe across the island – and here it’s over 0.6 per square km. Crazy!

There’s a fair bit of parking in the layby, a simple cafe, ticket booth (entrance fee 3 euros, ticket also valid for the Valle dei Nuraghi museum in Torralba) with information leaflets and an extra hut selling local produce of all kinds.

The site has been managed by La Pintadera Cooperative since 1992, when the town council assigned Santu Antine to them.

We stopped for a toastie and a drink, while talking to an older couple trying to persuade a small scared white kitten to drink the cup of milk they’d bought for it, and then went past the reconstructed round hut at the gate and to the southerly entrance.

There’s a settlement surrounding the nuraghe and it’s possible to make out maybe 10 huts, with some later Roman building too.

The nuraghe itself is built on a triangular plan out of basalt blocks. As you go in, there’s a guard post or sentry box to the left – this area now houses the visitors’ book – and then the courtyard. It might make more sense if you have a look at the plan .... but ....

The furthest left is the entrance to the west tower (B), then a passage which joins the passage which runs from the west to the north tower (D). There’s a flight of stairs up to the second level with a well just in front of it, then an entrance to the central tower. The pattern repeats itself with another staircase, a passage to the passage that runs from D to C, and entrance to the east tower (C).

We checked out the ground level first of all, amazed at the illuminated corridors, and saw the second well in the north tower, which also has a secondary – now barred – entrance to the nuraghe. Then we took the left hand stairs which lead to a walkway round the perimeter wall and then back down the right hand stairs.

The central tower or keep used to be about 25 metres tall, but is only about 17.5 now. Entering this from the east-west courtyard, there’s a corridor that rings the chamber to the right and a staircase to the left. The ground floor chamber has an impressive tholos and is 5.25m wide and almost 8m tall. Following the winding staircase up to the second level, there’s another tholos chamber on top of the first one and this room has several storage niches visible and a low bench seat along its walls. Up again to the third level – this room is now open to the air, hence the reduced height of the tower – with superb views over the surrounding settlement and across the valley and the numerous other nuraghe in the vicinity.

The light had changed in the ground floor corridors by the time we came back down again, from the initial warm orange to a beautiful cool blue grey.

A stunning place!

From Bonorva, follow the signs towards Bono (also signposted for the site) on the SP126 and then the SP43. About 6.5km from Bonorva take the right fork and proceed carefully – we hit the bottom of the hire car on a ridge and pothole combo and though fortunately nothing fell off, and no leakage occurred, it made some very nasty noises for the rest of the holiday and didn’t do much for my nerves! – for another 2.5km. Park on the road by the big tree opposite the site.

Open 10:00 – 13:00 and 15:00 – 19:00 (all day in July and August, I think), entrance 3½ euros per person including guided tour of the main tomb – in Italian!

From the ticket hut, follow the path up the slope and double back on yourself past the steps and tombs to the “tomb of the head” which is locked when the site is closed. This tomb is deep and made up of several different rooms: the vestibule area has cists cut in the floor on the left and cupels the other side of a central rainwater channel. The two rooms behind each have two pillars and numerous side chambers, and on the ceiling you can see the original red paint, and later murals as the tomb was used through Roman times, and then used as a church, and was still in use in the Middle Ages. There are numerous friezes from its Christian period on the walls. There’s also a light well, and the floor in the central chamber has been carved to collect the rainwater that this also lets in, probably used for baptisms.

You are free to wander around the rest of the site – to the right is tomb VIII with its carved roof, meant to resemble the rafters of a hut, and right from there in tomb IX someone’s added graffiti “Ciao Lucy” in red paint.

The steps to the right lead to a small gate, and then a rock cut path to the hilltop, where you find more tombs / dwellings cut into the rock, and the rock cut dolmen, described as being known locally as “the Elephant” in TME, but also listed as a Taurus in my research.

1.4 km east of Mores, on the 128bis, turn south onto the SP47. After 6.3 km turn right, and then after another 3.15km turn right again past the farm to the dolmen. All turns are signposted!

Just before the final junction, we were held up for a while by, but then inched forward through, a flock of sheep and barking dogs, actually herding a few stragglers with the car when we turned to the farm.

The first gate is 730 metres further on – we drove through and parked, walking the last couple of hundred metres.

It’s huge! My notes say 2.7 metres tall, 5 metres long, and the capstone used to be 6 metres by 3 metres by 60 cm, weighing in at 27 tonnes.

The rear wall is missing; the front has a small portal as though belonging to the stele of a tomba di gigante, and inside there’s a niche carved into the side wall.

Whoever had visited the dolmens such as Ladas around the village or Luras had been here, or maybe it’s a local custom, but yet again a potted plant had been left recently.

Free and open access – but watch out for livestock on the approach road!

Well worth a visit if you are in the Winchester area, these are off the Alresford road in a nature reserve for butterflies opposite St Swithun’s School and next door to the masons’ lodge. You can easily walk there from town (well, you do have to puff up a hill of course). Wonderful view across the hills and over the Chilcomb valley. Believe it or not these were the first barrows I ever encountered, so they are in part to blame for my interest! I still like coming up here early in the morning to reset the brain. It’s not exactly a secluded spot but it’s very peaceful. MAGIC gives lots of details, including archaeological finds. There are five barrows here though you are likely only to count the easternmost three as the others are a shadow of their former selves. There is also a further barrow at the east end of the down.

From the dolmen, follow the wide path away from the farm. There’s a single tree, and then a clump of trees to the right – just before the clump, veer to the right (up a slope heading NNWish), and on the right after 50 metres, the menhir can be found fallen behind some bushes.

can not find any evidence to support the fact that this is a cairn but...sitting on the eastern slope of Tolborough Tor is what looks like a natural rock formation. I only went over to it because I had seen a fox emerge from within it. Standing on top I noticed three stones running around the back of it that looked like ones I have seen at other cairns. (see photo)
Seeing that the cairn on top of the tor is built into a natural feature this could possibly be the same..but smaller.

Tolborough Tor sits high overlooking the A30 and Jamaica Inn. Bit of a climb from the road (see my directions for Tolborough Menhir) but the views north to Brown Willy are superb.
It is a cairn built into the natural rock of the tor and it is difficult to make out what is natural and what is man-made. Simmerly I can not decide if the cairn was at one time much higher or if it just had a covering. A ‘ramp’ enters the central plateau from the south east and then you have the large flat slabs sitting on the surface, were they originally covered? and was the ramp the entrance Sabine Gould talked about in his novel ?(see Rhiannons Folklore posting).

Catshole Tor is one of those bits of Bodmin Moor that very few people visit...which is a shame. The hillside is littered with rocks and the views cross to Brown Willy are superb.
I had not expected to find anything man made up there so was only snapping pictures of the landscape. However when I got home and started reading up on Tolborough Tor I came across a piece in ‘Romance of the Stones’ talking about a chambered tomb on Catshole Tor.
Looking through the photos I realised I had taken several shots of it whilst trying to get some foreground into my Brown Willy photos.
Looks like I will have to go back up there and take a closer look...

Described by EH as a bowl barrow, I though it was just a barrow that had been dug into. It measures about 35 metres across at its widest but is not that high. Although it now has a hedge behind it and a row of trees a little down slope of it I would guess that when it was built it had a commanding view down the valley to the Truro River.

Access is by a footpath from St Clement village or from Malpas village (where there is a very nice pub).

Just to the east of St. Catherine’s Hill (SU 492277 and surroundings) are what remains of the Dongas, the ancient trackways leading down off the South Downs into the valley of the River Itchen and either to ford the river at what became Winchester or to the main entrance to the hillfort on St Catherine’s Hill. I’ve posted a few photos of that area on this site, though they could deserve one of their own. Thankfully a strip of nature reserve is preserving this landscape, though the western end of them was chopped off in the infamous Twyford Down motorway cutting. Easily found (he says – I only recently discovered the main part of them after walking past them oblivious for many years). At the top of Plague Pits Valley, cross the footbridge over the motorway, pausing to make out the faded 1990s Donga Tribe graffiti. The noise pollution here is terrible! You can also come up a path from Garnier Road opposite the St. Catherine’s park & ride car park, which is more direct but less interesting. On the other side of the M3 chasm, go through a gate on your right and then look out for gaps in the bushes to your left, before you reach the top of the slope and another gate. The dongas are waiting for you through there! You get a real sense of the land opening up into a dry plateau, real Thomas Hardy stuff, with a big sky where you can get caught by rain clouds sweeping in off the Channel. Whenever walking about here with my mother, she often commiserates with the ancient folk who did their daily grind up here “without any Long Johns”!

This long barrow is all but invisible at the moment, being as it is in woodland, and heavily covered in undergrowth. I could make it out with some difficulty, and it is surprisingly substsantial. It is about 150 feet long and 40 feet wide, at the moment the ditches are too full of nettles and brambles to see well, but they are still in existance.
I will definitely re-visit this site in the winter when it will be much easier to see and photograph.

Easter Monday 2006

The last time I drove to Hagar Qim was three years ago and I found myself driving through a labyrinth of narrow, dusty, potholed lanes that ran between a series of small firework factories, this time I was determined stay focused and not get lost. Guess what? I managed to get myself to Qrendi, the nearest town to the temples, and then ended up in the self same maze of farm tracks and firework factories. What the hell, I knew I was only a couple of miles from the temples and traveling in the right direction.

The Temples open at nine o’clock, I arrived at the Heritage parks car park at about ten to nine which was just enough time to grab my kit and give the ancient tatty capped car park custodian a ‘voluntary contribution’ to look after my car. My plan was simple and selfish. I wanted to be the first person of the morning at either Hagar Qim or Mnajdra or both. I was having a Verruca Salt moment ‘I want a temple to myself and I want it now!’ As it turned out I ended up having both sites to myself, the first guided tour did not turn up at Hagar Qim until I was out of the gates.

You approach the temple from roughly the south east and the façade is stunning, its asymmetry is puzzling but very appealing. The beautifully quarried orthostats that surround the entrance seem to degenerate into large irregular rotting monoliths looking for all the world like a gobful of rotten teeth. It makes you wonder what was going through the architects mind here. These large blocks draw the eye away from the temple entrance and towards the sea where your gaze finally settles on the beautiful rocky isle of Filfla in the distance. The huge irregular orthostats appear almost like temple guardians looking out to sea and protecting the faithful from what? The primitive folk who lived beyond the horizon? As the temple is located on the top of a hill it would be interesting to see it from the sea. Would these megaliths appear like giants looking out over the sea? Their wild weathered nature also contrasts with the regular smooth blocks of the entrance. Perhaps the architects and stone masons knew that the blocks that faced seaward would eventually become gnarly and weathered and erected them as a gesture to whatever deity controlled the elements. All the winds still have names in Malta.

There are a corresponding set of huge irregular monoliths on the opposite corner of the temple and it is the largest of these that you can see looming over the temple as you approach it, another guardian perhaps. One of the unusual things about Hagar Qim is its’ hilltop location, the large orthostats are visible from all around the monument including the nearby Mnajdra temples. I have read so much about these temples that walking into Hagar Qim is a very comfortable feeling for me. I feel warm and happy and I have the place to myself.

The temples can be quite confusing in their layout, there is some debate as to whether this temple is a four or five apsed structure, it’s nice to know that there are some things that we still cannot define or label. I’m not here to study the floor plans, I’ve done plenty of that at home, I’m here to be happy and spend some time amongst these big old stones and I’m getting that in spades.

A few of the carved stones are replicas but don’t let this spoil your appreciation of their beauty. I have seen the originals in the Museum in Valletta are there is no difference.

A few yards north of the temple is a second five apsed temple which if anywhere else would get a great deal of attention, unfortunately here it is totally eclipsed by it’s beautiful exotic neighbour. I wandered over to this substantial but forgotten neighbour and sat a while within its walls and tried to soak up a little of it’s flavour. It almost felt like an act of condolence. Between this temple and the large temple is another structure which again is quite substantial but formless. No one is quite sure as to what the purpose of this building was. It is sometimes called ‘the priests quarters’. A prehistoric parochial house, that notion really appeals to me.

It was now time to move on. I walked the few yards to the perimeter fence and the path that leads down the hillside and look out upon one of my favourite views in the world, the Mnajdra temples nestled in a hollow in the cliff below.

Visited the site in May 07 and found it quite easily between the flat sandy beach and a rocky outcrop behind the stones. There is a little cave at the foot of the hill, off to one side, and when both stones were standing they would have been side by side when facing inland. They could have appeared as a gateway to the hill, or to the sea.

Access to this wonderful site is by prior arrangement only, please contact Furness house for details: furness-house.com/index.htm

This wonderful bit of rock art was found buried in a field that had been ploughed many times, the bottom edge of the remaining stone is heavily scarred with plough marks.

Apparently it had become a bit of a nuisance so it was dug up in the early 1970’s and much to their surprise these wonderful carvings came to light. The owner of the land at that time was a Mr. Synnott who was also a member of the local archaeological society, he immediately recognised this was an important find and it was moved to the gable end of the medieval church where it still rests. It was described and illustrated by Elizabeth Shee Twohig in 1975 or 1976 in the Journal of the Kildare Archaeological Society Vol. 15 No. 5.
JKAS 1975-76.

The top part of the stone seems to have been shattered off as there is half a circular motif filled with small cup marks. The other markings bear resemblance to the Kilwarden stone also found in Kildare but now located in the National Museum in Dublin.

Access to this stone is only by prior arrangement with Furness house. furness-house.com/index.htm