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The Excavation of Knackyboy Cairn, St. Martin's, Isles of Scilly, 1948

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

B. H. St. J. O'Neil
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Extract

The Isles of Scilly, situated in the Atlantic Ocean twenty-eight miles south-west of Land's End in Cornwall, have long been noted for their number of chambered tombs. Borlase bears witness to this, and has often been quoted by later writers. He dug into some of the tombs with disastrous results and many another must have done the same. For in general appearance the tombs of Scilly are like their fellows in many other parts of Britain; their chambers are completely empty. G. Bonsor was fortunate in finding one partly intact on Gugh which he excavated carefully, as is shown by his drawings, published in these pages by Dr. H. O'Neill Hencken. It should be noted that he found evidence of many cremations, but as secondary burials, following a primary inhumation. There was no direct dating evidence available, but the finds included that which until 1948 was the only piece of bronze recorded as found in an English chambered tomb.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 32 , Issue 1-2 , April 1952 , pp. 21 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1952

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References

page 22 note 1 Borlase, W., Observations on the Ancient and Present State of the Islands of Scilly, 1756, 29–33.Google Scholar

page 22 note 2 Antiq. Journ. xiii, 13 ff.

page 22 note 3 Daniel, , The Prehistoric Chamber Tombs of England and Wales, 1950, 174, note 3.Google Scholar

page 22 note 4 Careful research on the island has shown that the site referred to by Dr. Daniel (ibid. 125) as dug by one of the Gibsons is this very Knackyboy Cairn. It is also practically certain—from one believed to have been its finder—that the ‘bronze dagger’ (now lost) was a small triangular plate off a box.

page 23 note 1 Memo. Survey, Geol, The Geology of the Isles of Scilly, 1911.Google Scholar

page 22 note 2 Publication forthcoming of the writer's excavations.

page 23 note 1 Antiq. Journ. xiii, 25.

page 23 note 2 Hencken, , Arch, of Cornwall and Stilly, 1932, 25.Google Scholar

page 23 note 3 Antiq. Journ. xiii, 22.

page 24 note 1 Three are in small fragments.

page 24 note 2 Archaeologia, lxxxv, 226.

page 25 note 1 The upper one is from Urn XVII, a secondary in the body of the cairn. This is unique, but there are many examples of the type of Urn X.

page 32 note 1 Amongst these the later undecorated urns are more numerous than the decorated vessels.

page 33 note 1 This bead was found in topsoil at the eastern end of the chamber far from all the other beads. (B. H. St. J. O'N.)