<< Our Photo Pages >> Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment - Standing Stone (Menhir) in Scotland in Argyll

Submitted by Enki on Monday, 29 June 2020  Page Views: 14109

Neolithic and Bronze AgeSite Name: Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment
Country: Scotland County: Argyll Type: Standing Stone (Menhir)
Nearest Town: Inverary  Nearest Village: Minard
Map Ref: NR9759595075  Landranger Map Number: 55
Latitude: 56.105429N  Longitude: 5.256358W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
 5 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
 4 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
 4 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
 5

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hidebasket visited on 25th Feb 2023 - their rating: Cond: 4 Amb: 5 Access: 2

SandyG visited on 15th Mar 2017 - their rating: Cond: 2 Amb: 5 Access: 3 Car parking is available at NR 96974 95054. Take care to ensure that you do not block access. From here follow the track north eastward to NR 97354 95222. At this point take the track leading downhill to the right. Follow this to NR 97310 95031. From here follow the fence east to NR 97534 95056. The stone row is visible below you from this point.

Enki have visited here

Average ratings for this site from all visit loggers: Condition: 3 Ambience: 5 Access: 2.5

Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment
Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment submitted by Postman : Summer solstice 2020 from Brainport Bay. The only time the sun put in an appearance was well after it had risen. (Vote or comment on this photo)
Standing Stones with possible alignment overlooking Brainport Bay. Two sighting stones and viewing platform, with additional sites on the beach and at the top of the nearby hill. Researched and published by the late Scottish astronomer and archaeoastronomer Archie Roy.

The main axis is midsummer sunrise, but midwinter sunrise is also indicated from beach site (not visited as tide was in!). A cup-marked rock nearby in woods. Not marked on OS maps but easy access and signed off coastal walk from Minard. A lovely little site, and in my opinion impossible to say that it is anything other than an astronomical alignment!

Update January 2018: For more information on this site, including a plan, see Canmore ID 40011 which tells us that in 1994, "two standing stones on the easternmost, shoreside platform of the main alignment were vandalised during June. Both stones which act as pointer stones for observing the sunrise at the summer solstice, were knocked out of their sockets and one of the stones smashed beyond repair. The broken stone has been replaced with a stone of similar dimensions and the intact fallen stone re-erected in its former position. Both stones have been embedded in concrete into their sockets and their packing stones reinstated." Canmore adds that excavations carried out at the site produced information about the chronological span of the site along with material for radiocarbon dating.

Further update October 2019: This site is now featured on the Stone Rows of Great Britain website - see their entry for Brainport Bay, which includes a description, photographs of the alignment and the individual stones, plans of the alignment from a recent survey in March 2017, access information and links to other online resources for more information.

The Stone Rows of Great Britain concludes this is indeed a stone row, and gives a link to the excavation site report with dating information from the WoSAS website - click on the SRoGB entry and scroll down to 'Online Resources'. The SRoGB notes: "This row is very different in form and character to others in the region. The two boulders are probably natural glacial erratics which seem to have been incorporated to create an alignment on the mid-summer sun rise".

Note: Summer solstice 2020 from Brainport Bay. The only time the sun put in an appearance was well after it had risen but surely a lovely experience and photo nonetheless. Find out more about this intriguing site on our page
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Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment
Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment submitted by Bladup : Another of the Brainport Bay Standing stones with the bay itself behind. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment
Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment submitted by Enki : Midsummer sunrise alignment of two stones and viewing platforms, recently discovered. (1 comment - Vote or comment on this photo)

Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment
Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment submitted by Postman : Brainport Bay, the alignment is in the greenery just right of centre, just above the light coloured rocks. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment
Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment submitted by Bladup : The thought provoking Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment
Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment submitted by Postman : Looking over the two stones, hard to tell but it's summer solstice sunrise. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment
Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment submitted by Bladup : A Brainport Bay Standing stone.

Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment
Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment submitted by Postman : The pointer stone and Loch Fyne

Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment
Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment submitted by Postman : Looking down on the two stones

Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment
Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment submitted by Postman : Looking back through the gap to the rear stone, behind that is the boulder setting and up the hill in the ferns the upper platform

Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment
Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment submitted by Postman : Looking back at the stones

Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment
Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment submitted by Postman : The pointer stone

Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment
Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment submitted by Postman : The two stones and the gap

Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment
Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment submitted by Postman : The lower platform and the little standing stone by the gap

Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment
Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment submitted by Postman : The boulder setting

Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment
Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment submitted by Postman : The alignment viewed from the upper platform

Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment
Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment submitted by Postman : The upper platform, for standing upon to view the sun and stones in alignment.

Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment
Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment submitted by SandyG : Simplified plan of the Brainport Bay stone row (Source: GPS survey by Sandy Gerrard).

Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment
Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment submitted by SandyG : The two upright stones. The near stone stands 0.92m high. View from south.

Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment
Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment submitted by SandyG : The northern stone stands 1m high. View from west (Scale 1m).

Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment
Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment submitted by SandyG : The two upright stones. They appear to have been placed to take advantage of the natural notch in the outcrop.

Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment
Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment submitted by SandyG : The boulders forming thre south western end of the alignment. View from south east (Scale 1m).

Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment
Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment submitted by SandyG : Boulders in the foreground and upright stones beyond. View from south west.

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"Brainport Bay Standing stones and Alignment" | Login/Create an Account | 9 News and Comments
  
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Re: Brainport Bay by enjaytom on Tuesday, 19 February 2013
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A vitally important site. The presence of 33 quartz pebbles symbolically defines the find spot as regal, heavenly, Otherworldly. I have corresponded with Euan about this feature and he is aware of my views.
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Archie Roy, leading Scottish astronomer and archaeoastronomer dies age 88 by Andy B on Saturday, 09 February 2013
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Archie Roy, who has died aged 88, was one of Scotland's most distinguished astronomers, and a world expert on celestial mechanics and the movements of heavenly bodies. He was also a gifted writer, publishing 30 books that included six novels, and more than 70 scientific papers. An abiding interest in psychic research led to his achieving fame in his later years as "Glasgow's ghostbuster".

Archibald Edmiston Roy, astronomer and writer, born 24 June 1924; died 27 December 2012

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/feb/03/archie-roy

As a tribute to Professor Roy I have collected on this page a guide to the arguments for and against the [I have to say - alleged] Brainport Bay alignments, which he helped to discover.

More below and in our forum
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=Forum&file=viewtopic&topic=5576&forum=4&start=0
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Official Recognition for an Ancient Solar Calendar Site in Scotland by Euan MacKie by Andy B on Saturday, 09 February 2013
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The main site at Brainport Bay on Loch Fyne, (Argyllshire, Scotland, a quarter of a mile from the village of Minard) has been described in detail in this journal (MacKie, 1985, Archaeoastronomy VIII, 53-69). It is a complex linear arrangement of platforms, "observation boulders," small standing stones and a partly artificial rock notch. Some 80 m long overall, it aligns to the rising point of the Sun at the summer solstice, over twin mountain peaks 28 miles away (MacKie, 1985, Plate 1 and Figure. 5). However it appears to be primarily a ceremonial alignment with space for quite a large audience on the "Back Platform". The closest analogy would be with the approximate midsummer line at Stonehenge.

If this is to be a plausible explanation, then useful "working alignments" should exist nearby. One was duly found on "Oak Bank", higher ground about 200 yards to the northwest. Here there was a fallen standing stone and two cup- marks in a nearby rock outcrop that pointed at an initially invisible notch in the nearby western horizon. This proved to be an accurate marker for the equinoctial sunset (Figures 6-8 and Ruggles, ed. 1988 Figure 8.1). A year later another more distant cup mark was found which, when observed from the fallen megalith, indicated another notch marking the midwinter sunset within a day or two (Ruggles, ed. 1988, Figures 8.2 and 8.3). These subsidiary alignments go far to support the given identification of the Main Alignment.

The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) was carrying out fieldwork in mid Argyll at the time the site was being investigated and eventually decided that Brainport Bay should be included, with a plan, under "Miscellaneous Structures" (RCAHMS 1988, no. 364, p. 209 and Figure). "The site has been interpreted as a center for solar observation in prehistoric times, but the identification must be treated with some reserve, since the archaeological evidence is at best equivocal;".

http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~tlaloc/archastro/ae20.html
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Re: Brainport Bay by Andy B on Saturday, 09 February 2013
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Prof Euan MacKie writes:

...Ruggles’ second objection to the genuineness of the western alignment at Brainport Bay is a general one, and a classic example of the use of deduction to oppose a fragment of concrete evidence. ‘Finally there is a deeper problem in relation to supposed alignments upon the equinox which is a concept not necessarily meaningful outside the Western scientific tradition (see Chapter 9 and Astronomy Box 8)’ (Ruggles 1999: 34).

This Box (Ruggles 1999: 150) clearly explains the point just made about equinoctial sunrises and sunsets in successive years but even there Ruggles mixes up the two concepts of the ‘megalithic equinox’ and the modern astronomical equinox and implies that they are interlinked. They are not of course. The former is simply a slightly variable date arrived at by sub-dividing the total days in the year; because of the irregularity of the Earth’s orbit, the Sun will arrive at this ‘calendar equinox’ slightly later than the true (or astronomical) one in spring and slightly earlier than it in the autumn, as Thom explained many years ago (1967: 107 & figure 9.2).

One piece of evidence from Brainport Bay has recently been re-assessed. During the first phase of excavations at the site, in the mid 1970s, Peter Gladwin and members of the mid Argyll Archaeological Society found a cache of 33 quartz pebbles buried in a shallow pit on the main alignment. Many such pebbles had been found scattered around all over the site but the vast majority of these were broken (Gladwin 1985: 28, appendix III). The cache is of smooth, whole pebbles which ‘were packed tightly together as though they had formerly been contained in a bag ?’ (Gladwin 1985: 14). A fine colour photograph of the group has been published (Butter 1999: 17, plate) and it is now in the Kilmartin House Museum, Argyll, with the rest of the finds.

http://antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/Pre2003/mackie/mackie.html
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Re: Brainport Bay by Andy B on Saturday, 09 February 2013
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Prof Clive Ruggles writes: This enigmatic collection of structures--artificially enhanced platforms, standing stones, cup-marked stones and other features--was brought to prominence in the "megalithic astronomy" debate by Euan MacKie, who believed it to be a prehistoric calendrical complex. It raises a number of methodological issues to do with procedures for testing astronomical ideas using archaeological techniques, and whether this is the best way to proceed in the first place.

A detailed critique is contained in Chapter 1 of Astronomy in Prehistoric Britain and Ireland.
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/mm/book/reviewruggles.htm

What is most striking about Brainport Bay is that a number of stone structures occur in a single NE-SW alignment.
http://www.le.ac.uk/has/cr/oldrug/aa/a3015/fotos4.html
These were explored from 1976 onwards by members of the mid-Argyll Archaeological Society. Euan MacKie's attention was first drawn to the site in 1976. For his early ideas in relation to the 'main alignment' see MacKie's paper in Astronomy and Society, ed. Ruggles and Whittle (BAR88, 1981) 131-4.

http://www.le.ac.uk/has/cr/oldrug/aa/a3015/lec2.html
The argument was extended later when he explored features in the vicinity of a standing stone at Oak Bank (see MacKie, Euan W., Fane Gladwin, P. and Roy, Archie E. (1985). "A prehistoric calendrical site in Argyll?" Nature 314, 158-61); MacKie's chapter in Records in Stone, ed. Ruggles, CUP 1988.
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The Solar Alignment at Brainport Bay, Minard by Andy B on Saturday, 09 February 2013
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THE SOLAR ALIGNMENT AT BRAINPORT BAY MINARD, ARGYLL
by P. FANE GLADWIN, .F.S.A.SCOT.

54 page paper from NATURAL HISTORY AND ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY OF MID ARGYLL - 1985

http://www.gopherit.org/minard/files/Brainport.pdf
PDF 3.5MB

A detailed tour of the alignment, with photos:
Argyll and the Isles Secrets Collection: The Brainport Alignment

"Take your time and breathe in the time this place has been here, marking the transition of the seasons that shaped the way lives were led, in ways we have artificially overcome – for the time being. It is a delightful and gently impressive place."

http://forargyll.com/2012/05/argyll-and-the-isles-secrets-collection-the-brainport-alignment-2/
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Re: Brainport Bay by Andy B on Saturday, 09 February 2013
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An interesting and unusual prehistoric site, well known because of its discovery and also the later fight to protect the site from development. There are three parts to the site, all on a north-east to south-west line about 60 metres long.

At the north-east, closest to the sea is the 'main outcrop' (descriptions follow published accounts)3,4. This is a natural feature with a V-shaped notch, at which were found two stone sockets. Two stone slabs were found nearby when the site was excavated which fit into these sockets and they have been re-erected.

Nine metres to the south-west are the 'observation boulders'. These are an entirely natural feature. Standing here an observer has a view to the standing stones which are framed in the notch of the main outcrop, and beyond that to Loch Fyne and (on a clear day) the distant Beinn Oss and Beinn Dubhcraig, 45 kilometres away. This is where the sun rises at midsummer.

More at
http://www.stonesofwonder.com/brain.htm
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Re: Brainport Bay by Andy B on Saturday, 09 February 2013
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Refs:
1985d Brainport Bay: a prehistoric calendrical site in Argyllshire, Scotland (with A E Roy and P F Gladwin). Archaeoastronomy 8, 1-4 (Jan. – Dec.), 53-69.

Mackie, E.W., Gladwin, P.F. and Roy, A.E. A prehistoric calendrical site in Argyll? in Nature vol. 314, pages 158-161, 14.3.1985.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v314/n6007/abs/314158a0.html
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Re: Brainport Bay by Enki on Tuesday, 22 June 2004
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Andy, there was no need to edit my post to add the caveats "possible" and "in my opinion" that this is an alignment. It is recorded as a 'solar alignment' by the archaeologists who excavated it, and posted as such on the site signage.
I felt elated at the time that archaeo-astronomy seemed to have regained respectability in "official" archaeological circles. Let us embrace and encourage this stance, instead of shooting ourselves in the foot? :-)
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