Mussaquoy [Howe Hurcus] Artificial Mound : The Megalithic Portal and Megalith Map:

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Submitted by howar on Thursday, 15 February 2007 Page Views: 4076

Multi-periodSite Name: Mussaquoy Alternative Name: Howe Hurcus
Country: Scotland County: Orkney Type: Artificial Mound
Nearest Town: Kirkwall Nearest Village: Deerness
Map Ref: HY56590369
Latitude: 58.918285N Longitude: 2.755517W
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

3 Ambience:

5	Superb
4	Good
3	Ordinary
2	Not Good
1	Awful
0	No data.

3 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.

3 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

4

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**Mussaquoy** submitted by howar : SE view of mound, quarrrying cut left of centre top, exposures at RH side (Vote or comment on this photo)

Artificial Mound in Orkney

At various times RCAHMS NMRS record no. HY50SE 1 has been seen as a burnt stone mound and a turf mound with burnt earth, but is no longer believed to be any kind of burnt mound. It has steep sides and is thought to have been circular until the second quarter of the 20th century when, the owner 'quarried' the west end, leaving it slightly crescentic. He found two foot-high earthfast stones about five feet apart and some large stones besides. It now measures 10m by 12m and stands 1.2m high. An S.W.R.I. talk in 1936 mentions what the same site ["The Orcadian" 17/9/36) two graves found in the mound Howe Hurcus "at one time" led to the attempt to dig it away being abandoned. The earthfast stone pair were presumably seen as 2 short cists.
The quickest route is down the Mussaquoy junction then turn onto the Mussaquoy Farm road, which becomes a wide track past the last dwellings, and where you meet the coast turn right. The entrance to the field is an extraordinarily taut 'Orkney gate', thus requiring a push from distance leaning slightly as it could well be risky to attempt from close and straight on.The site is a narrow oval mound with a long rectangular pit taken from the (NNW?) side. Of the two edge-set slabs referred to I can see only one, at the northern end. But this may be owing to vegetation. However I see a long stone prostrate beside it. Scraping away the thin grass covering reveals your usual standing stone shape of a few feet long, which is brown in colour like you would see in an old house (there is some in the exposed material too). There are red stones in the vertical section behind this and red fragments in a smaller exposed section at the southern end of the seaward side (ESE?), however this seems to have originally been structural and is in no way burnt. Perhaps this fell in from above when this place was 'quarried'. However the stones over this mound are a heterogenous lot anyway, differing in size and shape and colour, and including ones similar to the prostrate stone.
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