Balnabraid Kerb Cairn
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Glasgow Museums has a collection of six artefacts, including bronze fragments, shells and flints, from Balnabraid Cairn, Argyll & Bute. The material dates from about 2,200 to 1,500 BC in the Early Bronze Age. Balnabraid Cairn is a burial monument comprising an oval stone cairn with the remains of kerbing in the form of large boulders, which survive only around the north edge of the cairn. The west and south sides of the cairn have been eroded away by the Balnabraid Burn. The cairn is in an elevated position on the east coast of the Kintyre peninsula, with views to the Firth of Clyde and the Ayrshire coastline. The geographical location and prominence of the site in the landscape are probably among the reasons this place was chosen to be the resting place for so many people. This collection represents part of the archaeological assemblage from Balnabraid Cairn from T Lindsay Galloway's excavations in 1913, and some material from G Ritchie's excavations in 1966. The material from 1913 is from the Ludovic McLellan Mann Collection (Mann assisted with Galloway's excavations). The material excavated in 1913 held by Glasgow Museums comprises two jet disc-beads, a flint knife, a Food Vessel, a cinerary urn, decorated bronze fragments, a bone toggle, flints and shells. The bronze razor was discovered during the excavations in 1966. The cairn was initially investigated in 1910, when a burial vessel was exposed following water erosion, and subsequently excavated in 1913 and 1966. Many burials were found within the cairn, both in cists (stone-lined graves) and uncisted within the cairn stones. Some human remains had simply been buried, whilst most of the others were cremated first and then buried. Where the age of the individuals could be determined, the remains were found to be those of adults and of children between about six and ten years old, and of an infant.
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