In the month of August 1863, when some excavations were being made on the summit of an eminence called the Meikle Heog, at Haroldswick, in the island of Unst, Shetland, for the purpose of planting a flag-staff as a fishing signal, the labourers broke into a place of sepulture formed of upright flagstones, and enclosing a number of skulls and bones. Further examination disclosed another cist similarly formed. Unfortunately there is no record of the dimensions of these cists. In the one last mentioned there were found a human skull, some bones of the ox, and six urns or vessels of chloritic schist or steatite.[[46]] They were of different shapes and sizes, as follows:—
No. 1, a flat-bottomed vessel, with an unsymmetrical four-sided outline, the corners slightly rounded, and the sides bulging from the bottom upwards, about 7 inches high.
No. 2, a tolerably symmetrical four-sided vessel of similar form, but thinner and better made, measuring 5½ inches in length, 5¼ inches in width, and 3½ inches high.
No. 3, a rude thick-sided vessel of the same form, 6½ inches long, 4½ inches high, and 4½ inches wide.
No. 4, a rudely-made and unsymmetrical vessel, oval in outline, flat-bottomed, the sides bulging from the bottom upwards, and slightly contracting towards the rim, about 4 inches in length, 3¾ inches in width, and 4 inches high.
No. 5, a small cup-shaped vessel, oval in shape, 4½ inches long, 3 inches broad, and 2¾ inches high.
No. 6, a rather neatly-made oval vessel, 4½ inches long, and 4 inches wide at the brim, contracting to 2½ inches long, and 2 inches wide at the base. It is the only one in the group which bears any ornament, the ornament consisting of two incised lines scored round the upper part of the vessel, immediately under the rim.
These burials in the Meikle Heog differ from all the others that have been described, inasmuch as they are burials unburnt. The character of the vessels is also different, inasmuch as they are not cinerary urns placed in the grave for the purpose of containing the burned bones of the interment. But the general form of the vessels is similar to that of those which are found in Orkney and the Fair Isle, containing burnt bones, and the character of the ornament and the nature of the material of which they are made is identical.
Fig. 58.—Vessels of Sandstone, found at Aucorn, Caithness (13 inches and 8 inches high).