Andy Burnham's Blog, page 11

Sleights Pasture Round Barrow

A possible embanked stone circle or kerb cairn in North Yorkshire. Said to have been opened inabout 1800 and contained a 'stone coffin and an entire human skeleton'. The cairn is approximately 29m diameter , and was formerly 1.6m
high. Most of the centre has been
removed, leaving the base, with a few large kerbstones, intact.

Klockstenarna Skeppssättning

A skeppssättning (stone ship setting) in Sweden, size 16 x 8m with 10 standing stones. A couple of the stones were set in place in recent times.

Fortified hut settlement above Rachub

One of North Wales' lesser forts, on a hill above Rachub near Bethesda. Not even a fort, a settlement, a fortified one though. Here's a nice artists' impression of it.

Myrhøj

A burial mound with a 156m long stone row leading up to it. The mound itself was built in the early Bronze Age (1,700-1,100 BC) as a monument to the burial of an important person. Close to the burial mound, a grave was also built - in the middle of the stone row - dating to the Roman Iron Age (0-500 AD). It is not a coincidence that the person was buried in the middle of the stone row, and the burial shows that the stones still had a certain significance so many years later.

Santa Verna

Petition to Protect Santa Verna Temple Landscape in Xagħra, Gozo from development. This ruined temple probably rivalled the major sites of Ggantija, Tarxien and Hagar Qim in importance. It was first excavated in 1911 when all that was found were the surviving group of 3 uprights, the tallest being over 2.1m (7ft) high, along with 3 horizontal blocks lining the eastern side of the uprights and a beaten earth floor. From this it was possible to make out a typical trefoil or 3-apse temple design.

Hopewell Mound Group

This site originally consisted of a square earthwork attached to an irregularly shaped two-mile long enclosure that contained 29 burial mounds, including Mound 25. The location given is the top of Mound 25 which is the rough center of the site. This mound is to my knowledge the largest known Hopewell culture burial mound still in existence anywhere, although it has been much reduced by plowing. Sadly most Hopewell sites have suffered the ravages of time and are either obliterated or diminished.

Mané-Kerioned Dolmen

A collection of three passage graves, this is Mané Kerioned A. All were once contained within a large oval mound, some of which still remains despite the road cutting right through it. Two of the passages are aligned north south, with the entrances at the south, while the other is situated between these, and aligned east west with its opening to the east.

Vikingeborgen Museum

Just outside Køge rises the Viking Fortress of Borgring, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2023 and now revived as a museum, here you can walk in the footsteps of one of Denmark’s most iconic kings – Harald Bluetooth – and explore Denmark’s transition from Norse paganism to Christianity. In the Royal Hall, you step into one of the most pivotal moments in Danish history.

Stripple Stones

A shaded LiDAR image of the henge, we have photos on our page, below. A ruined 44.8m (147-foot) diameter circle-henge - some estimates say that the circle may have once consisted of as many as 28 standing stones! In 2015 the wall that passed though the site was redirected around the outside of the henge and in 2016 seven stones were re-erected, Meaning there are now 11 upright stones some as much as 2.5m high.

Andong Seoktam-ni

This fine five layered rock-piled square pyramid stands on a small flat area of land in a valley in South Korea. Though it has a linga (*) on its top, this might be a Buddhist proto-pagoda and one of the origins of Kumayama Iseki and other Japanese pyramids.