Images (5)
Fieldnotes (1)

Images

Image of Dunteige (Wedge Tomb) by ryaner

Craigy Hill to the north. There are the remains of a court tomb in that direction.

Image credit: ryaner

ryaner Jul 12, 2021

It looks messy from here but it’s relatively complete (looking west).

Image credit: ryaner

ryaner Jul 12, 2021

Looking west over the rear of the tomb. On the right (northern side) is exposed double-walling. The chamber itself is filled with spoil. The southern double-walling seems never to have been exposed and looks relatively complete.

Image credit: ryaner

ryaner Jul 12, 2021

This is the exposed, north side of the tomb.

Image credit: ryaner

ryaner Jul 12, 2021

Looking east at the front of the tomb.

Image credit: ryaner

ryaner Jul 12, 2021

Articles

Dunteige

Wedge Tomb

ryaner Jul 26, 2021

I had only a short time at Dunteige wedge tomb. The field in which it lies was full of sheep and there were hordes of them on the road, coming down from the pass at Linford where we’d parked the car to head over to Ballygilbert. I didn’t think that they were going to come down this far but the sound of thousands of the little wooly feckers started to intrude on my visit after about 10 minutes.

The remains sit on a small rise north of the road. The ground falls away again before continuing to rise northwards up to Craigy Hill on the slopes of which is a court tomb (some other time). Much of the structure of the wedge tomb survives – double walling on the north side, with 10 large boulders on the outside, a narrow gallery/chamber, and double walling on the south side, though this is less visible as there in much cairn rubble in the gap between the chamber wall and the outer wall.

The tomb is aligned north-west/south-east with the top of Slemish just peeping over the horizon directly along the alignment. Though the site is fine it wasn’t great on atmospherics in the scorching sun and it was a mildly frustrating visit given all the sheep. I ended up running back down to the car as the white baaing tsunami come down from the pass in a torrent, escaping their killer clutches just in time.