Steinkiste von Mount Stewart
DatedEst. 2900–800 BCE
No licensed photograph yetWe have no photograph we may publish for this site, so the interpretive 3D view leads instead.
Overview
About this site
Overview
The cist of Mount Stewart (Steinkiste von Mount Stewart) lay at Mount Stewart (Irish Teampall Chróine / Moin Stíobhaird), between Greyabbey and Newtownards near Strangford Lough, in Ards, County Down, Northern Ireland. A typological estimate places it between 2900 and 800 BCE.
The site was first described in 1786. The large cist and all remains were removed in 1935 to make way for a private landing strip.
Read on Wikipedia2 min readCC BY-SA 4.0
Where it sits in time
The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.
The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.
Article
Steinkiste von Mount Stewart
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Steinkiste von Mount StewartCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Steinkiste von Mount StewartCC BY-SA 4.0
The cist lay in a cairn about 2.0 m high and 12 to 18 m in diameter, which repeatedly served as a quarry. The cairn contained a large central cist and at least 15 smaller ones. Descriptions of the cists vary somewhat, but the large cist measured 1.73 m × 0.8 m and was accompanied by a smaller one of 1.07 m × 0.46 m. Three stones of the large cist survived.
FindsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Steinkiste von Mount StewartCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Steinkiste von Mount StewartCC BY-SA 4.0
The large cist was empty. The smaller cists contained a number of vessels (six survived) and cremated bone in a scatter of gravel.
In 1935 the large cist and all the remains were cleared to make way for a private landing strip.
Later historySources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Steinkiste von Mount StewartCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Steinkiste von Mount StewartCC BY-SA 4.0
Despite the importance of the site, the small cists were removed. In 1935 the large cist and all the remains were cleared to make way for a private landing strip.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Steinkiste von Mount StewartCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (German): Steinkiste von Mount StewartCC BY-SA 4.0
In Britain and Ireland a cist is a small stone-built coffin-like box used to hold the dead, and it is one of the commonest finds in prehistoric graves. Several are sometimes found together in the same cairn or barrow.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
British and Irish cists
In Britain and Ireland a cist is a small stone-built coffin-like box used to hold the dead, and it is one of the commonest finds in prehistoric graves. A cist may once have been covered by a cairn or a long barrow, and several are sometimes found together in the same cairn or barrow. Ornaments found in excavated cists point to the wealth or prominence of the person buried. The centre of a round barrow, which in Britain was mostly built between 2200 and 1100 BCE, may hold a stone cist or a cut grave, and the burial may be an inhumation or a cremation placed in a vessel.
The Bell Beaker phenomenon, which reached Britain and Ireland in the late Neolithic, brought individual burials, often under tumuli and with weapons, in place of the collective burials of the earlier Neolithic. Cists of this period are therefore often single graves. The Food Vessel culture of the Early Bronze Age used slab cists, and some of their stones carry cup and ring marks.
Kilmartin Glen in Argyll is the richest area, with numerous cists among its prehistoric monuments, including a linear cemetery of five burial cairns that runs for more than three miles. Several of its cairns and many natural rocks are decorated with cup and ring marks. More than 800 ancient monuments lie within ten kilometres of the village, 150 of them prehistoric.
The Atlas's cists are dated by their position in a barrow, by the pottery or ornaments found with the burial, and by radiocarbon dating of surviving bone. Where none is known, it gives a broad Neolithic to Bronze Age range.
When visiting, look for the slabs set on edge around a pit, and for the cap stone that may have fallen aside.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Cist, Wikipedia: Round barrow, Wikipedia: Kilmartin Glen, Wikipedia: Bell Beaker culture · CC BY-SA 4.0
See it in 3D
An interpretive reconstruction of the monument, standing on the real ground at its exact point, under the sun for that place and season. Drag to look around it.
The reconstruction is ours, not a survey: it shows what a monument of this type looks like, at the size the record gives for this one.
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 2900–800 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for cists in United Kingdom; this site has not been dated itself. British barrows of many types were in use from the late Neolithic until the end of the Bronze Age (2900-800 BC) and many contain a stone cist.Source for this date
Where it stands
United Kingdom
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 54°32′55″ N, 5°35′10″ WFor a GPS or map app: 54.54863, -5.58615
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
- MegalithPortal Tomb von Ballygraffan3300–2900 BCE
- Menhir (standing stone)Standing stone2800–1800 BCE
- Menhir (standing stone)‘Horned Cairn’2800–1800 BCE
Court Tomb von Ballynichol- Menhir (standing stone)Standing Stone, Clandeboye Golf Club, Tower Rd2800–1800 BCE
- Menhir (standing stone)Standing Stone, off Hannay’s Hill, Bangor2800–1800 BCE
- Portal tomb (portal dolmen)The Kempe Stones
- Menhir (standing stone)Standing stone at Kilcoroon House2800–1800 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q20182980wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Report a correctionWrong date, name, photograph or source? Tell us and it will be put right.
Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
- Portal Tomb von Ballygraffan9.2 km W
- Standing stone10 km SE
- ‘Horned Cairn’11 km W
- Court Tomb von Ballynichol11 km W
- Standing Stone, Clandeboye Golf Club, Tower Rd11 km NW
- Standing Stone, off Hannay’s Hill, Bangor12 km N
- The Kempe Stones12 km W
- Standing stone at Kilcoroon House13 km N
- Standing stone13 km NW
- Audleystown Court Cairn19 km S
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Steinkiste von Mount Stewart" (German), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors