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Photo Pages: Callanish X - Stone Circle in Scotland in Isle of Lewis
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Submitted by Gerald_Ponting on Thursday, 02 October 2003 Page Views: 4858
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 Site Name: Callanish X Alternative Name: Druirn nan Eun, Na Dromannan
Country: Scotland County: Isle of Lewis Type: Stone Circle
Nearest Town: Stornoway Nearest Village: Breasclete
Map Ref: NB230336 Landranger Map Number: 8
Latitude: 58.203860N Longitude: 6.716981W
Condition:| 5 | Perfect | | 4 | Almost Perfect | | 3 | Reasonable but with some damage | | 2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site | | 1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks | | 0 | No data. | | -1 | Completely destroyed |
no data
Ambience:| 5 | Superb | | 4 | Good | | 3 | Ordinary | | 2 | Not Good | | 1 | Awful | | 0 | No data. |
no data
Access:| 5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access | | 4 | Short walk on a footpath | | 3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk | | 2 | A long walk | | 1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find | | 0 | No data. |
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Accuracy:| 5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates | | 4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map | | 3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map | | 2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village | | 1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town | | 0 | no data |
no data
Internal Links:    
External Links:               Callanish X submitted by Gerald Ponting
Stone Circle in Lewis. The name Druirn nan Eun (ridge of the birds) originated from the first Ordnance Survey of the area. However, local informants are certain that this resulted from the records of a surveyor who misunderstood the Gaelic name he had collected locally. The correct name. Na Dromannan, literally means "the backs". comparable with the English name for a ridge-shaped hill of "Hogsback".
Eum was a later spelling error.
ACCESS : The half-mile walk to site X traverses wet peaty moorland with deep erosion gullies and is not recommended after wet weather. The site can easily be missed in the trackless moor. Follow these
instructions carefully; better still, use the grid reference given and a large scale map. Leave the main road about 150m east of the access stile to site III.
Climb the small hill to the north of the road, where you will find site XIV. Walk northwards along the ridge, aiming for a low cairn which is visible on the horizon. On reaching a shallow valley, turn right along it, following the tiny stream. Reaching the head o-f the stream, go up onto the next rocky ridge, marked by two conspicuous boulders. The site is just beyond this point.
Site X was first recorded by Callander in the RCAHMS Inventory - still the only "official archaeological opinion" on the site. It was also mentioned by D.D.C.Pochin Mould in a 1953 travel book about the islands, "West-Over-Sea".
None of the stones is erect today and it must be a matter of opinion whether they ever were erect. Ron Curtis wrote; "The existence o-f packing stones concentrated near one end and the existence of one excavated pit strongly argus in favour of initial erection and subsequent collapse when the shallow soil eroded from the packing stones around the base of the monoliths." If erect, the circle must have
been silhouetted on the horizon and as clearly visible from the the lower lying parts of Callanish as the stones at the main site are today.
There are about 19 megaliths at the site, which seem to form a ring of 10, with seven more within the ring and two outliers.
A cliff face, just to the west of site X, is traditionally considered to have been the quarry for the megaliths used to construct the main site at Callanish.
Text taken from "The Stones around Callanish" by Gerald Ponting and Margaret Ponting (now Margaret Curtis).
http://home.clara.net/gponting/
Note: This is the 'newly discovered' stone circle. Colin Richards has kindly sent us some photographs from of the recent excavations.
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 Callanish X submitted by Tom_Bullock
Photo used by kind permission of Tom Bullock. More details of this location are to be found on his Stone Circles and Rows CD-ROM
 Callanish X submitted by Tom_Bullock
 Callanish X submitted by Tom_Bullock
 Callanish XVII submitted by Tom_Bullock
Photo used by kind permission of Tom Bullock. More details of this location are to be found on his Stone Circles and Rows CD-ROM
 Callanish XVII submitted by Tom_Bullock
 Callanish XIV submitted by Tom_Bullock
Photo used by kind permission of Tom Bullock. More details of this location are to be found on his Stone Circles and Rows CD-ROM
 Callanish XII submitted by Tom_Bullock
 Callanish XII submitted by Tom_Bullock
 Callanish X submitted by Colin_Richards
The main trench looking north towards Garynahine. Taken during the recent excavations by Colin Richards.
 Callanish X submitted by Colin_Richards
A stone before excavation. Taken during the recent excavations by Colin Richards.
 Callanish X submitted by Colin_Richards
The socket of one of the circle stones at Na Dromannan. Taken during the recent excavations by Colin Richards.
 Callanish X submitted by Gerald Ponting
Plan of Callanish X from Stones Around Callanish.
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726m S 202° Callanish XIV* Standing Stones (NB228329)
1.0km SW 222° Callanish 3* Stone Circle (NB225327)
1.2km W 250° Druim Nan Eum Stone Circle (NB220330)
1.3km SW 233° Callanish 2* Stone Circle (NB222326)
1.3km W 255° Callanish 19* Stone Circle (NB218331)
1.4km SW 230° Loch Roag Timber Circle (NB222325)
1.6km W 278° Callanish XIII Stone Circle (NB215341)
1.7km NW 294° Olcote Kerbed Cairn Cairn (NB21803475)
1.7km W 271° Callanish XVI* Standing Stone (Menhir) (NB213338)
1.7km SE 135° Callanish XVII* Stone Circle (NB237320)
1.8km W 257° Callanish* Stone Circle (NB213330)
2.0km NW 293° Callanish XII* Standing Stone (Menhir) (NB215350)
2.1km NW 317° Callanish XI* Standing Stone (Menhir) (NB222356)
2.7km NW 294° Cnoc a Phrionnsa* Chambered Cairn (NB211355)
3.2km S 172° Callanish 4* Stone Circle (NB230304)
3.4km S 166° Callanish VII* Ancient Village or Settlement (NB232302)
3.7km SE 131° Callanish VI* Stone Circle (NB247303)
3.7km S 161° Callanish V* Stone Row / Alignment (NB234299)
3.9km S 164° Callanish 9* Standing Stones (NB233297)
4.6km SE 143° Callanish XVIII Standing Stone (Menhir) (NB244292)
5.4km W 273° Callanish XV Standing Stone (Menhir) (NB177346)
6.5km W 270° Callanish VIIIA Standing Stone (Menhir) (NB165340)
6.6km W 271° Callanish VIII* Stone Circle (NB164342)
8.6km NW 310° Dun Carloway* Broch (NB1900441224)
9.7km NW 326° Clach An Tursa* Stone Row / Alignment (NB20414295)
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Re: Callanish X (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Thursday, 28 August 2003 | See also Canmore:
http://www.rcahms.gov.uk/canmore/details_gis?inumlink=4172
A destroyed stone circle, consisting of at least eleven large pillar stones which have all been over-thrown, lies on the summit of the rocky ridge, Druim nan Eum (NB 229 339). Several of the stones are 10' in length and 4' in breadth. It is impossible to define the original situations of the stones, but their present position seems to indicate that there had been an outer ring of not less than seven pillars and an inner ring of four.
The west side of the ridge shows a roughly vertical face, so weathered that fine slabs of large size could easily be split off by wedges. This is considered by local people to be the quarry which provided the stones for the Callanish and adjoining circles (see NB23SW 1-4).
RCAHMS 1928, visited 1914.
At NB 2293 3360, on the W side of Druim nan Eum, there is a rock face, about 140m in length, from which stone has evidently been quaarried, and several loose slabs remain.
On the rocky knoll to the E, at NB 2297 3362, are the 'pillar stones' described as a destroyed stone circle by RCAHMS, but there is no evidence that these stones have ever been set up. The level out-crop here has obviously had slabs prised from it and as some of the stones appear to be propped up ready for removal, it is more likely that they were prepared here for setting up elsewhere (e.g. Callanish). Some of them exhibit the typical trimmed top of many standing stones.
This site may therefore be similar to Vestra Fiold, Orkney, which is considered to be the quarry for the Ring of Brogar, Maeshowe, etc. (cf HY22SW 7)
Visited by OS (R L) 26 June 1969. | [ Reply to This ]
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Current excavations at Na Dromannan stone circle (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Friday, 16 January 2004 | by Dr Colin Richards, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at University of Manchester
The late Neolithic stone circles of northwest Britain date to around 3000 BC and represent some of the most spectacular prehistoric monuments standing today. They are also the most visited prehistoric monument in Britain. But what do we actually know about their role and purpose? In order to try and examine these monuments in a different way a new archaeological project, based at the University of Manchester began in 2002. It is focussed on four areas of northwest Britain, Orkney, Lewis, Arran and the English Lake District. In each of these areas lie some of the finest stone circles, the Ring of Brodgar and Stones of Stenness, Orkney; Calanais, Lewis; Macrie Moor, Arran; Long Meg, Swineside and Castlerigg, Cumbria. Rather than taking the traditional view of the circles as ceremonial centres, heavenly observatories, etc., we are more concerned with their construction. In particular, what geological types of stones are present within each circle, were they quarried or glacial erratics and if the former from where were they derived. We are also examining the layout of the circles to see whether they were ever 'completed' or lie as abandoned projects. The underlying assumption of this research is that it may have been the construction of the huge circles that was of particular importance as opposed to the finished entity, particularly, the quarrying and dragging of the massive monoliths. It should not be forgotten that in constructing these circles people in late Neolithic Britain were quarrying and transporting the largest stones that had ever been moved before. Here the geographical location of the quarries is important as are questions of whether the stones themselves and the places they came from were 'sacred' in some way.
For the Lewis component of this project, the Calanais complex of circles was selected for examination. Geologically, the stones comprising the circles tend to be of Lewissian Gneiss. However, closer examination revealed the stones to have been quarried, with one face being rounded and abraded by glacial movement and the other face showing signs of breakage where it had been prised from the outcrop. The next stage was to attempt to locate possible quarry sites. One such site, actually identified in 1928 as a possible quarry, was Na Dromannan which lies up on moorland approximately 1.5km east of the main Calanais circle. There was also a probable 'destroyed stone circle' identified adjacent to the supposed quarry. Brief archaeological survey in September 2002 of the Na Dromannan ridge showed that there may be several places acting as quarries, indeed, at one location a quarried monolith was found to be propped up on its side in the process of transportation. The destroyed stone circle was represented by the ends of the stones projecting through the peat. There seemed no certainty that it actually was a circle and could just as easily be interpreted as a series of quarried monoliths propped up awaiting removal. It was decided to investigate further in 2003.
From late July - September this year excavation centred on the supposed stone circle. Within a few days of removing the peat it became clear that this was indeed a stone circle. The stones had all fallen down in antiquity and had been covered by peat which began forming over 3000 years ago. The reason they had all collapsed was particularly interesting. The circle had been positioned on the rolling bedrock at the southern end of the ridge. Because of the toughness of the bedrock it had been impossible to dig pits or sockets in which to stand the bases of the stones. In order to support the standing stones a ring of substantial boulders had been packed around their bases, unfortunately, while this was adequate to hold them in a vertical position for a while it was less successful in the long term. At present it is difficult to know how long they stood, in all probability they remained upright for several hundred years and then fe
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