Anthropology
Related: About this forumAncient 'Cave of the Dead Revealed in 3D Model By Tom Metcalfe, Live Science Contributor December
By Tom Metcalfe, Live Science Contributor | December 5, 2017 07:56am ET
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https://img.purch.com/h/1400/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5saXZlc2NpZW5jZS5jb20vaW1hZ2VzL2kvMDAwLzA5Ny8xMDgvb3JpZ2luYWwvc2N1bHB0b3JzLWNhdmUtMS5qcGc=
The twin entrance passages of the Sculptor's Cave led to a dread mortuary chamber where the ancient dead were left to rot.
Credit: University of Bradford/Sculptor's Cave Publication Project
A forbidding sea cave in the far north of Scotland feared since ancient times as a place of the dead and the scene of at least one gruesome act of execution or human sacrifice is getting a breath of new life. Archaeologists have mapped the mysterious cave for the first time to create a digital three-dimensional model that can be explored online in virtual reality.
The cave in Moray, overlooking the North Sea, has been known since the 1860s as the Sculptor's Cave, due to stone symbols that were carved on the forbidding entranceway between A.D. 500 and 600. [See Photos of Scotlands Forbidding Sea Caves]
The carved stone symbols were made by the Pictish people who lived in what is now Scotland during the late Iron Age and Early Medieval periods and include a fish, a crescent and a V shape, archaeologist Ian Armit of the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom told Live Science.
The symbols might be names, or a warning. "Some people think that they indicate personal names, or even maybe tribal names," Armit said. "But we can't really read them we can just recognize that they are regular symbols, and that they clearly had some kind of meaning."
More:
https://www.livescience.com/61099-cave-of-the-dead-revealed.html?utm_source=notification
FarPoint
(13,612 posts)Jon Snow, Dragonglass, Dragons, ???? Ya never know.
FirstLight
(14,070 posts)The end of the article speaks of the "mass killing" of 6 people by beheading right before the close of the cave...
Considering it happened during Roman times...I'll venture a guess it was Roman Soldiers making an example of any rebelling chieftains. Hence the place was memorialized and never used again, since the Romans would have basically tainted it.
Just my 2 cents THANKS for sharing!!!!
IphengeniaBlumgarten
(328 posts)Cave location is in the far north of Scotland. Romans had little success in controlling the Scots and finally just built Hadrian's Wall along the Scots southern border to try to contain them.
FirstLight
(14,070 posts)thought I'd solved a mystery! lol