Last week I went to Gyre to look at the 'urn' site. Amazingly it is still unenclosed occupying an area several metres in either direction that lies between the section of road above the stackyard and the field boundary walls. There are a few stones that appear to be the top of a short section of walling, but as the late 19th century road cuts through an older arrangement they are probably connected with that rather than the findspot. On my diagram the approximate position of the modern road is shown in orange against the 1820 mapping.
Above the stackyard of Gyre is the findspot (HY34030473)for what A.W. Johnston called 'chambered cinerary urns', which Anne Brundle of the Orkney Museum believes to have been used at the time to describe cists with divisions. It can be no coincidence that in 1974 a double cist HY30SW 12 was found by the stackyard the other side of the road (HY34090464). The archaeologist kind of agrees with me that this could be the remains of a barrow cemetery. If the interpretation of Johnston's term is correct what is the reason for such a number of double cists in one location ?
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Posted by wideford
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