The chamber when cleared out proved to be about 15 feet square on the
level of the floor, and 13 feet in height, to the top of the present
walls. Immediately opposite to the passage is an opening in the wall 3
feet from the floor. This is the entrance to a cell or small chamber in
the wall, 5 feet 8 inches long, 4-1/2 feet wide, and 3-1/2 high. A large
flagstone is laid as a raised floor between the entrance and the inner end
of the chamber. The entrance is 2 feet wide, 2-1/2 high, and 22-1/2 inches
long. On the two opposite walls of the chamber are similar openings in the
walls. The one on the right is 2-1/2 feet wide, 2 feet 9 inches high, and
1 foot 8 inches long. It gives admission to a cell 6 feet 10 inches long,
4 feet 7 inches wide, 3-1/2 feet high, and has a raised flagstone floor,
as in the other chamber. The opening on the left is 2-1/4 feet wide, 2-1/2
high, and 1-3/4 long, and about 3 feet above the floor of the chamber. The
cell of which this is the entrance is 5 feet 7 inches long, 4 feet 8
inches wide, and 3 feet 4 inches high. It has no raised floor like the two
other cells. The roofs, floors, and back walls of the cells are each
formed by a single slab of stone, and stones corresponding in size and
shape to the openings in the walls were found on the floor in front of
them. The natural inference is that they were originally the seals of the
chambers in which the honoured dead reposed.
The four walls of the central chamber converge towards the top by the
successive projection of each stone or flag, commencing about 6 feet from
the level of the floor, as is usually found to be the style of building,
both in the Pict's houses or burghs, and in the still more primitive
subterranean dwellings known as Weems. The top of the chamber would thus
necessarily be of small dimensions, and the aperture easily closed by one
large flagstone. This top, or cover stone, together with a considerable
portion of the upper part of the walls, has been thrown down, and the
highest part of the existing walls is only about 13 feet from the level of
the floor. At that point, the opposite walls have approached to within 10
feet of each other, so that the chamber is now 15 feet square at the
floor, and 10 feet at the top of the walls, in their present condition.
Large quantities of earth had been piled up over the building when
completed. In each angle of the central chamber stands a large buttress,
doubtless intended to strengthen the walls, and support them under the
pressure of their own weight, and that of the mass of earth with which the
whole was covered. These buttresses vary somewhat in dimensions, but they
are on an average about 3 feet square at the base, and from 9 to 10 feet
high, with the exception of one which is only 8 feet high. In each
buttress one side is formed by a single slab. The walls of the chamber are
built with large stones, which generally extend the whole length of the
wall. No lime or mortar of any kind has been used.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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