Archaeology 360: Bocan Stone Circle, Co. Donegal

Swing your view around this 360 shot and you're standing on Bocan Hill above Culdaff, Inishowen, in the middle of what was once a formidable ring of standing stones - somewhere around thirty of them, if the early antiquarians are to be believed, though only seven still stand today, the rest toppled or broken by time, farming, or both. Look for the pair of tall entrance stones on the northwest side, still reaching close to two metres, and you'll get a sense of how imposing this circle - some 18-20 metres across, depending on whose tape measure you trust - must have been when whole. An 1816 report tells us diggers found graves and earthen urns tucked inside the ring, which is about as close as we get to knowing why it was built at all; officially it's filed under Bronze Age with a Neolithic whisper, and unofficially it's been dubbed a "sun temple," its axis reputedly lined up east-west towards Slieve Snaght and, on a clear day, all the way to Jura in Scotland. Whatever the builders intended, they picked a spot with a view, and four thousand-odd years on, that's still the best reason to come and stand where they stood.

 


You can view this 360-degree video on an ordinary browser or on the dedicated YouTube app for your smartphone. However, for best results we recommend the more immersive experience that comes with an Oculus/Google Cardboard headset. Please feel free to Like and Share the video and Subscribe to the Archaeology 360 channel. If you’re feeling peculiarly generous and wish to help purchase snacks to sustain the Chapples Minor in the field, please drop something in the Tip Jar on this page.


 


Wikipedia contributors, 'Bocan Stone Circle', Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

'Bocan', The Modern Antiquarian

'Bocan', Megalithic Portal

'Bocan Stone Circle', Visit Carndonagh

'Stone Circles', Monumental Ireland

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The archaeology of the Great Famine: time for a beginning?

Image
[**  If you like this post, please make a donation to the IR&DD project using the button at the end.  If you think the post is useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. **] Preface Let me tell you a story. Way back in 1997, not long after I first came to Belfast, I got a job working on the excavation of Portora Castle , Co. Fermanagh. The site was directed by Cormac McSparron , and during the course of the excavation we became good friends. Over a pint or two on a night out in Enniskillen, we discussed the potential for archaeology that the internet was opening up. One of our ideas was for an internet-based journal devoted exclusively to Irish archaeology. Our general feeling was that ‘someone’ should do it. By June of the following year no such site had materialized and we thought we’d give it a shot ourselves. This was the genesis of The Internet Journal of Archaeology in Ireland . Unfortunately, we had no resources and no track record of deli...
Read more

‘The Shape of an L’: Thoughts on the occurrence and meaning of the L-shape in Early Medieval art and religion.

Image
[If you like this post, please feel free to share. If you can spare a little cash, I’d be grateful if you could hit the secure ‘donate’ button on the right. Either way, thanks for reading!] St Patrick’s Bell shrine ( Source ) One evening last September I posted a picture to Facebook of the back of the rather wonderful St Patrick’s Bell Shrine. This rear panel is decorated with a combination of equal-armed Greek Crosses, swastikas, and T-shaped or ‘Tau’ crosses. The blog post I wrote as a direct result of that online conversation ( "Always remember to draw the swastika turning to the right": Some thoughts on swastika directionality in Early Medieval Irish Art ) was (as the name implies) intended to examine the evidence for directionality of Early Medieval swastikas in Ireland or of Irish manufacture. There was a secondary aim to create a basic catalogue of the currently known examples and appeal for anyone with further information to come forward. In the li...
Read more

"Always remember to draw the swastika turning to the right": Some thoughts on swastika directionality in Early Medieval Irish Art

Image
Swastikas are, for a number of reasons, endlessly fascinating symbols. Like all symbols, they are only invested with the meanings we give them. Otherwise they are just little shapes and drawings that mean nothing in and of themselves. Owing to its long history and brief (if traumatic) association with Nazism, the swastika probably has a stronger resonance than most. You won’t spend long on the internet attempting to discuss the swastika before someone, trying to be helpful, notes that the Nazi version rotated counter-clockwise (elbows pointing left) and was bad, but the good Buddhist/Hindu version rotated clockwise. They may be trying to be helpful, but they are invariably wrong. It’s true that the version Adolf Hitler designed for the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei only went one direction: counter-clockwise. What’s wrong is that not all other ( i.e. non-Nazi) swastikas turn the opposite direction (elbows pointing right). Rather than dutifully plod through a debun...
Read more