2022
NT1269 : Stone Carving on Tormain Hill
taken 2 years ago, near to Bonnington, Edinburgh, Scotland
Stone Carving on Tormain Hill
This is probably the second most interesting stone (or panel as the archeologists seem to call them) of the seven or eight around this spot on Tormain Hill. The most interesting (to me anyway) has a very shabby OS bench mark inscribed on it, and I mistakenly thought that my mind was playing tricks when I saw it, it (my mind!) being very map-inclined. Having now read the official write-ups it seems that it was indeed an OS bench mark, used for the surveying of their first map of the area in the 1850s. So, if anyone visits these stones - which are all very close to one another - the reason the OS benchmark is next to a hole in the rock is that they drilled into an existing prehistoric man-made depression to erect some kind of marker from which they could more easily do their surveying.
The markings on the rocks at this spot are said to be Bronze Age. Further reading around the subject of rock carving dating techniques has made me sceptical of such precise dating though. The problem with these very basic rock carvings is that there is nothing left behind to indicate when the carving was undertaken. The way these dates are usually worked out is by comparing them with similar carvings found at sites nearby which also have dateable artefacts on site - eg they may be be part of a burial ground with old bones inside, or be buried beneath mud containing the remains of 3000-year-old beetles etc. However, Scottish rock carvings are usually all very similar, basic and abstract, so in my unlearned opinion these markings could have been made from any point between around 60000 and 2000 years ago. Or just a hoax (though this is extremely unlikely!).
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