Images! Deep Inside a UK Burial Mound

Excitement pervades the cold winter air in Tankerness, a small village in the Orkney region of Scotland.

Inside a mound discovered in a farmer's field there lies a strange structure, thought to date to neolithic or Bronze Age Scotland, is a three-compartment building with with two stairways leading into it. The mound is surrounded by a large ditch. It is said to be unlike anything known in Britain.

The mound was entered briefly in 1945 by the farmer who owns the field, then re-sealed and left unexplored until earlier this month.

Sigurd Towrie, who has been inside the mound, described the entrance "quite literally like a mine shaft going deep into the earth. The steps are steep and a rope has to be used to get down. Once down the first flight there is a small "landing"....from this landing are two chambers that spiral out from the main stairwell."

The visitor also snapped some digital images which are viewable at:

http://www.orkneyjar.com/minehowe.htm

Its likely that the mound will not undergo extensive exploratory until the spring thaw.