Detailed review by LovesTravel
Standing stones and chambered cairns. Barrows and cists. Henges and hilltop forts. Cup-and-ring markings. Broches and crannogs: These are more than just the terms used by archeologists to categorize the prehistoric relics of Western Europe. For many among us, such words touch the wellsprings of humanity's youth, speaking to us of an ancient and mysterious past. They fan the embers of our collective unconscious, reviving the sense of wonder and respect that our ancestors felt for the simple magic of changing seasons and the gift of life.
Clava Cairns is one among many prehistoric sites in Scotland where a person can touch--and be touched by--these ancient stones. This group of cairns is located on the Balnuaran Farm, only 5 miles east of Inverness and about a mile from Culloden Battlefield. Getting there requires an excursion into the Scottish countryside along a country lane. The cairns were built during the late Stone Age or early Bronze Age, roughly four thousand years ago, and they are sheltered in a grove of ancient beech trees just across a field beyond the River Nairn.
The Bulnuaran site includes an unusual and well-preserved grouping of three cairns, or burial chambers: Two passage-grave cairns are located to the northeast and southwest of the centrally placed ring-cairn. The entrance to each of the two passage graves aligns astronomically to the midwinter solstice as it would have been four thousand years ago. Each of the three cairns is surrounded by a magnificent outer circle of standing stones. The ring-cairn has three unusual rays of "pavement," each extending outward from the cobbled base of the cairn to one of the standing stones. The site also includes a small stone circle marking a less spectacular burial.
The country lane bringing the visitor to this site passes through the circle of stones surrounding the southernmost of these cairns. It also leads more persistent visitors to other nearby sites of the Clava type that are less accessible and less spectacular, if no less compelling.
The three cairns within their grove of ancient beeches still evoke something of the sense of mysticism that must have inspired their creation. The play of shadow and light lend an otherworldly quality to the grove. Add to that the dramatic Scottish landscape and the Highlands' changeable weather patterns, and it doesn't require a fertile imagination to visualize robed figures conducting solemn ceremonies in this place. Time loses some of its ability to separate past from present.
Thus is one romanced by these venerable stones. By leaving behind this compelling evidence of their own quests for answers to universal questions, our elders have joined us across the ages: Who are we? Why are we here? How do we serve and honor a higher being? What comes next to us, after this life? In my own mind and heart, such evidence indicates that we have much in common with those elders. And the endurance of the stones makes the distance across time largely irrelevant.
- LovesTravel/BawBaw?DAnneC
Balnuaran of Clava8
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