The Clava cairn is a type of

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

circular

chamber tomb A chamber tomb is a tomb for burial used in many different cultures. In the case of individual burials, the chamber is thought to signify a higher status for the interred than a simple grave. Built from rock or sometimes wood, the chambers could ...

cairn A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehi ...

, named after the group of three cairns at Balnuaran of Clava, to the east of

Inverness Inverness (; from the gd, Inbhir Nis , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness"; sco, Innerness) is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands. Histor ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

. There are about 50 cairns of this type in an area round about Inverness. They fall into two sub-types, one typically consisting of a

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the s ...

led passage grave with a single burial chamber linked to the entrance by a short passage and covered with a cairn of stones, with the entrances oriented south west towards midwinter sunset. In the other sub-type an annular ring cairn encloses an apparently unroofed area with no formal means of access from the outside. In both sub-types a

stone circle A stone circle is a ring of standing stones. Most are found in Northwestern Europe – especially in Britain, Ireland, and Brittany – and typically date from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, with most being built from 3000 BC. The ...

surrounds the whole tomb and a

kerb A curb (North American English), or kerb (Commonwealth English except Canada; see spelling differences), is the edge where a raised sidewalk or road median/central reservation meets a street or other roadway. History Although curbs have ...

often runs around the cairn. The heights of the standing stones vary in height so that the tallest fringe the entrance (oriented south west) and the shortest are directly opposite it. When Clava-type tombs still contained burial remains, only one or two bodies appear to have been buried in each, and the lack of access to the second sub-type suggests that there was no intention of re-visiting the dead or communally adding future burials as had been the case with

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several pa ...

cairn tombs.

Balnuaran of Clava

At Balnuaran of Clava itself there is a group of three

cairns which lie close together in a line running north east to south west. The tombs at either end are of the passage grave sub-type. The central cairn is of the ring cairn sub-type, and uniquely has stone paths or causeways forming "''rays''" radiating out from the platform round the kerbs to three of the standing stones. The cairns incorporate cup and ring mark stones, carved before they were built into the structures. The kerb stones are graded in size and selected for colour, so that the stones are larger and redder to the south west, and smaller and whiter to the north east. All these elements seem to have been constructed as one operation and indicate a complex design rather than ''ad hoc'' additions. The ring round the northern ''Balnuaran of Clava'' cairn was measured and analysed by Professor

Alexander Thom Alexander Thom (26 March 1894 – 7 November 1985) was a Scottish engineer most famous for his theory of the Megalithic yard, categorisation of stone circles and his studies of Stonehenge and other archaeological sites. Life and work Early ...

. He found that the ring was slightly egg-shaped with a complex geometry of circles and ellipses which could be set out around a central triangle, using sizes which are close to whole multiples of what he called the Megalithic yard. While the geometry of the shape is generally accepted, the ''Megalithic Yard'' is more controversial. *

References

* Scotland Before History - Stuart Piggott, Birlinn Limited (1995), * Scotland's Hidden History - Ian Armit, Tempus (in association with Historic Scotland) 1998, * Sun, Moon and Standing Stones - John Edwin Wood, Oxford University Press 1978, {{coord, 57.47367, N, 4.07435, W, region:GB_source:enwiki-osgb36(NH757445), display=title 3rd-millennium BC architecture in Scotland Chambered cairns in Scotland Archaeological sites in Highland (council area) Archaeology of death Bronze Age Scotland Historic Environment Scotland properties