A chambered cairn is a burial monument, usually constructed during the Neolithic, consisting of a sizeable chamber around and over which a cairn of stones was constructed. Some chambered cairns are also passage-graves. They are found throughout Britain and Ireland, with the largest number in Scotland.
Maeshowe is a Neolithic chambered cairn and passage grave situated on Mainland Orkney, Scotland. It was probably built around 2800 BC. In the archaeology of Scotland, it gives its name to the Maeshowe type of chambered cairn, which is limited to Orkney.
A passage grave or passage tomb consists of one or more burial chambers covered in earth or stone and having a narrow access passage made of large stones. These structures usually date from the Neolithic Age and are found largely in Western Europe. When covered in earth, a passage grave is a type of burial mound which are found in various forms all over the world. When a passage grave is covered in stone, it is a type of cairn.
A chamber tomb is a tomb for burial used in many different cultures. In the case of individual burials, the chamber is thought to signify a higher status for the interred than a simple grave. Built from rock or sometimes wood, the chambers could also serve as places for storage of the dead from one family or social group and were often used over long periods for multiple burials.
A gallery grave is a form of megalithic tomb built primarily during the Neolithic Age in Europe in which the main gallery of the tomb is entered without first passing through an antechamber or hallway. There are at least four major types of gallery grave, and they may be covered with an earthen mound or rock mound.
Entrance grave is a type of Neolithic and early Bronze Age chamber tomb found primarily in Great Britain. The burial monument typically consisted of a circular mound bordered by a stone curb, erected over a rectangular burial chamber and accessed by a narrow, stone lined entrance. Entrance graves have been discovered in the Isles of Scilly, west Cornwall, southeast Ireland, southwest Scotland, Brittany and the Channel Islands. They are often referred to as the Scillonian Group, named for the Scillonian Islands where the majority of entrance graves have been discovered.
The Clava cairn is a type of Bronze Age circular chamber tomb cairn, named after the group of three cairns at Balnuaran of Clava, to the east of Inverness in Scotland. There are about 50 cairns of this type in an area round about Inverness. They fall into two sub-types, one typically consisting of a corbelled passage grave with a single burial chamber linked to the entrance by a short passage and covered with a cairn of stones, with the entrances oriented south west towards midwinter sunset. In the other sub-type an annular ring cairn encloses an apparently unroofed area with no formal means of access from the outside. In both sub-types a stone circle surrounds the whole tomb and a kerb often runs around the cairn. The heights of the standing stones vary in height so that the tallest fringe the entrance and the shortest are directly opposite it.
Porth Hellick Down is a Neolithic and Bronze Age archeological site located on the island of St Mary's, in the Isles of Scilly in Great Britain. The ancient burial monument encompasses a large cairn cemetery that includes at least six entrance graves, other unchambered cairns, and a prehistoric field system. The site is notable for having the largest assembly of surviving entrance graves.
Bodowyr Burial Chamber is a Neolithic burial chamber made of a few large stacked stones in a farmer's field on the north Wales island of Anglesey. It is located at Bodowyr Farm, 1.25 mi (2.0 km) east of Llangaffo, off the B4419 road.
The Tregiffian Burial Chamber is a Neolithic or early Bronze Age chambered tomb. It is near Lamorna in west Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is a rare form of a passage grave, known as an Entrance grave. It has an entrance passage, lined with stone slabs, which leads into a central chamber. This type of tomb is also found in the neighbouring Isles of Scilly.
Klekkende Høj is a megalithic tomb on the island of Møn in Denmark. It takes its name from its location near the village of Klekkende. "Høj" stems from the Old Norse word haugr, meaning hill, mound or barrow.
Denghoog is a Neolithic passage grave dating from around 3000 BC on the northern edge of Wenningstedt-Braderup on the German island of Sylt. The name Denghoog derives from the Söl'ring Deng (Thing) and Hoog (Hill).
This article describes several characteristic architectural elements typical of European megalithic structures.
The dolmens of Jersey are neolithic sites, including dolmens, in Jersey. They range over a wide period, from around 4800 BC to 2250 BC, these dates covering the periods roughly designated as Neolithic, or “new stone age”, to Chalcolithic, or “copper age”.
La Hougue Bie is a historic site, with museum, in the Jersey parish of Grouville. La Hougue Bie is depicted on the 2010 issue Jersey 1 pound note.
Gavrinis is a small island in the Gulf of Morbihan in Brittany, France. It contains the Gavrinis tomb, a Neolithic passage tomb built around 4200–4000 BC, making it one of the world's oldest surviving buildings. Stones inside the passage and chamber are covered in megalithic art. It is likened to other Neolithic passage tombs such as Barnenez in Brittany and Newgrange in Ireland.
A megalithic entrance is an architectonic feature that enables access to a megalithic tomb or structure. The design of the entrance has to seal the access to the cultic structure in such a way that it is possible to gain access to the interior again, even after a long time, in order to perform rituals. To that end, the practitioners of Nordic megalith architecture, the Wartberg culture and Horgen culture, used several variants, that are also found in other megalithic regions in identical or slightly modified form.
British megalith architecture is the study of those ancient cultures that built megalithic sites on the British Isles, including the research and documentation of these sites. The classification sometimes used of these cultures based on geological criteria is problematic.
The Southern Mazghuna Pyramid is an ancient Egyptian royal tomb which was built during the 12th or the 13th Dynasty in Mazghuna, 5 km south of Dahshur, Egypt. The building was never finished, and is still unknown which pharaoh was the owner, since no appropriate inscription have been found.
The pyramid was rediscovered in 1910 by Ernest Mackay and excavated in the following year by Flinders Petrie.
The term Womb Tomb is a form of Neolithic burial site. Europe's prehistory stretches for some 9500 years, from the earliest settlers after the last ice age to around AD 1000. Very little is known of the earliest human burials. The first grave structure of any type dates from circa 4000 BCE. Neolithic farmers had a strong tradition of building burial chambers covered by mounds. Unique burial sites suggest a reverence for birth and the female form. These are called Womb Tombs and are a subset of passage graves or passage tombs. Recent studies show that many of the Neolithic passage graves in Scotland and Ireland were built using the symbolism of the female human womb.
