Interior view NW of the underground oval chamber & entrance passage of Rennibister Iron Age earth house (souterrain), Mainland, Orkney, Scotland, UK.
Interior view NW of the chamber & entrance passage of Rennibister Iron Age earth house, Mainland, Orkney, Scotland, UK. The oval chamber originally had a corbelled stone roof supported on four free-standing stone pillars; it has five small recesses or 'keeping-places' built into the walls. These underground structures (earth houses, suterrains or weems) are usually considered to be storage vaults or cool stores, but this chamber contained the disarticlate bones of six adults & 12 children, presumably deposited after burial or exposure/excarnation elsewhere. The first few metres of the low, narrow passage with a lintelled roof was deliberately blocked with domestic rubbish & shells. The earth house, which lies below a modern farmyard, was discovered in 1926 when a threshing-machine passing overhead caused the chamber roof to collapse.
Size: 4961px × 3893px
Location: Rennibister Earth House, Kirkwall, Mainland, Orkney, Scotland, UK
Photo credit: © Mick Sharp / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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