The Modern Antiquarian. Stone Circles, Ancient Sites, Neolithic Monuments, Ancient Monuments, Prehistoric Sites, Megalithic MysteriesThe Modern Antiquarian

Seefin Hill

Chambered Cairn

Fieldnotes

I guess I had a sort of coming of age today 5/9/06 on Seefin. The fragility of the tomb had never been clearer. Standing at the back of the tomb in a full force gale, I realised the slow erosion that the wind alone could cause to the rocks over thousands of year. Add to that rain, snow, frost, hail and occasional strong sunshine and it's a wonder that so much of it has survived. For how much longer?
Well, the passage seems to have deteriorated further since I was last here 2 months ago. Maybe I hadn't noticed it before, but there is a gaping hole about a metre and a half deep and the same in height in the eastern wall about 5 metres from the entrance. Cairn material is falling into the passage from this. There's another, less serious, in the wall opposite. Rain is seeping into the passage itself and puddles are collecting on the floor.
The hole above the chamber shows major human interference. Some clown has used cairn material to bulid a wall around the lip of the hole. They've used the covering rocks of the cairn and dug down about a metre into the cairn itself, exposing the underneath.
The western recess shows signs of someone having performed some sort of ritual, with a lot of the roof rubble removed, and some of the 'newer' quartz stone from the exposed cairn formed into some sort of 'altar'.
The slight remains of the firepack on the rock beside the sill/entrance stone that I saw 2 months ago should be well gone by now, but alas no: there's even more ashes there now.
I headed down off the hill more depressed than angry.
ryaner Posted by ryaner
6th September 2006ce

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