Archaeology Field Trip

Today, my Archaeology class took a field trip to a couple of interesting sites in Scotland.  There was a ton of interesting stuff and a lot of pretty views, which obviously led to a lot of pictures.  So I'm going to mainly try and just put the pictures, and add in little bits about them (You've been warned, there are a LOT).


We left the University at 9, and it took a little over 2 1/2 hours to get there (going north).  The first couple of pictures here are from the bus ride up. 

And we went past Inveraray!  (Remember, I went there a month ago!)

View of Kilmartin (mostly of the church and cemetery) from the bus.

Kilmartin

Kilmartin Cemetery

Kilmartin Church

More Kilmartin.  Not sure how big the town is but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that this is it...

Little houses! In a Row!  (I feel like there is a song here... and I can hear my brother singing it?)

View looking back the way we came from the Kilmartin Cemetery area.

Secret back door..........

Stained glass inside Kilmartin Church

Cross that was originally outside - theres some other significance but I didn't have enough time to find out what it was, just take the picture...

Fuzzy wall!

A Monk's Hut thing!

A standing stone.  At this point, we're no longer in Kilmartin but still nearby. 

A cist (pronounced 'kist') - a place for a single person to be buried.

A Cairn.  A place for a lot of people to be buried (this was the trend before single person burials).  The cist from the picture above is right nearby this cairn, and they can't decide if that was done out of respect for the older traditions, or done to kind of, take over and get rid of the old ways.

The opening to the cairn.  Goes straight through to the other side.  These holes would have been covered.

On the road heading to another site.

A Standing Stone circle.  I believe what they said is that this is actually a mix of two type of monuments.  That these standing stones would have been put into a circle, and then the cairn (the grave in the middle and all the little stones) would have been added later (by a different generation following a different tradition)

Sheep!

Oh, what is this delightful little hill-type thing that so magnificently appears before us...?

Oh... its our destination... and we're CLIMBING it!

Yes, we climbed it.  NOT prepared for that at all...  Very pretty though, even if it was incredibly incredibly dangerous.

The slip-n-slide that would be our way out.

One of the main levels.  This used to be a fort, and from what I understand, all of these rocks are actually ruins from the city, and moss has grown on top.

The entrance/exit.

More climbing... up to the "summit"

A lovely little tree growing out of the side of this MOUNTAIN!

Yikes!  On the cool side, the professor said that this used to be a staircase, but now its just kind of... rocks.  This led to the very top levels, which they believe would have been the residence of the King and the immediate Royal Family.

Thats it!  I couldn't take pictures as we climbed down because it would have been deadly (it rained alllll day so our path down was not only rocky and treacherous on its own, but also slippery and muddy).  Most of us were pretty miserable by this point because of how long we had been out, and the fact that it rained on us all day - oh, and the fact that we had to climb this mountain.  There was another site that we went to, but I barely took any pictures, and the few that I did didn't come out very well sadly.  Anyway, that was our Archaeology field trip to Kilmartin!  Very interesting, in general, just wish it had been a little less wet.