The Chambered Tombs of the Isle of Man: A study by Audrey Henshall 1969-1978 edited by F Lynch and P Davey (eds), Manx National Heritage in association with Archaeopress: Oxford 2017. 176 pages, softback, £30.00 (e-download £16). Reviewed by Rachel J Crellin.
The Chambered Tombs of the Isle of Man is a book with a fascinating history that has been decades in the making. In 1969 Audrey Henshall OBE was invited to the island to complete a study of the island’s megaliths. Henshall completed the fieldwork for this volume between 1969 and 1972 and produced a text for the volume in 1974. Publication was paused whilst the results of the excavations at the site of Ballaharra, in the west of the island, were being brought to publication. As it transpired the publication of the excavations from Ballaharra was a lengthy process. Aside from a summary (Cregeen 1978) in an edited volume the site remained unpublished with the archival material accessible in the Manx Museum Library.
When the Centre for Manx Studies was established in 1992 the publication of Henshall’s work once again rose up the archaeological agenda on the island. Henshall herself “felt that the task of final editing and updating might, after such a long interval, be more appropriately done by others” (Lynch & Davey, 2017: 6) and in 1997 Frances Lynch took up the editorial mantle. The resultant text therefore has its own complex history.
The book opens with an introduction bringing together background material to provide a history of the study alongside notes on the geographical, geological, and environmental context of the sites. The bulk of the book is formed of a catalogue describing the ten sites studied by Lynch (Cashtal yn Ard, King Orry’s Grave, Ballafayle, Meayll Hill, The Cloven Stones, Liaght ny Foawr (Kew), Croit-ny-Howe, Ballakelly, Ballaharra, and Port St Mary). Each catalogue entry brings together published sources, unpublished manuscripts, and illustrations to provide a descriptive account followed by a commentary. This is followed by a short summary of the artefacts from the sites, before the final chapter presents a summary and interpretation of the sites and places them within their broader chronological context on the island. The text is primarily Henshall’s work but there are comments from the editor noting where Lynch disagrees, or where new information suggests an alternate interpretation.
This is a classic study of prehistoric megaliths concerned with description, typological classification, and what the forms of the various sites can tell us about connections between communities and places. Given the island’s central location in the Irish Sea the typologising is complex as many of the sites are not easy to classify , often combining aspects of monumental construction associated with Irish and south-west Scottish traditions but also showing evidence of links elsewhere.
The book concludes with three important appendices: the final reports for the unpublished excavations at both King Orry’s Grave (north east) and Ballaharra, as well as a short account of Henshall’s excavation at Meayll Hill to establish the edge of the site.
In Appendix 1 Basil Megaw describes his three phases of excavations between 1953 and 1954 at the north-east part of King Orry’s Grave; the original excavation plans were more substantial but were cut short, primarily by Megaw moving to Edinburgh to become the director of the School of Scottish Studies. The report provides details and plans of the excavation as well as reports on the pottery (by Stephen Burrow) and flintwork (by Sinead McCartan).
Appendix 2 – the much-awaited report on Ballaharra – is written by David Higgins and Peter Davey. The original excavations were by Sheila Cregeen; Higgins and Davey have laboured over the archive to make sense of her somewhat idiosyncratic recording techniques (for example stones named after zodiac signs). Cregeen was a stalwart of the Isle of Man Natural History and Antiquarian Society and a key figure in Manx archaeology; the discovery of the Ballaharra site in 1971, with excavations continuing through until 1975 (with a final excavation by Larch Garrad in 1983), came around the same time as Henshall was on the island studying the megaliths. Higgins and Davey’s account of the excavation is accompanied by specialist reports on the pottery (by Stephen Burrow and Jenny Woodcock), the beads (Woodcock), the flintwork (by Sinead McCartan) and the cremated remains, which are held at the Duckworth Laboratory, Cambridge (by C Denston and Don Allen).
This book is a very valuable and welcome addition to Manx archaeology as well as the wider study of megaliths across not just Britain and Ireland but also Atlantic Europe. The book will undoubtedlyraise the profile of the Manx sites allowing them to gain their rightful place in the narratives surrounding the spread of monumental construction in the Neolithic. It is also notable for combining the work of female archaeologists – from Audrey Henshall to Frances Lynch, via Sheila Cregeen and Larch Garrad, with contributions from Allison Fox, Sinead McCarton and Jenny Woodcock. Many of the megaliths discussed in the book are publicly accessible and popular with both locals and tourists alike. The detailed descriptions, extensive illustrations, and commentaries form an excellent accompaniment to the recently published Guide to the Archaeological Sites of the Isle of Man – up to AD 1500) (Johnson & Fox 2017).
Bibliography
Cregeen, S 1978 ‘Ballaharra Excavations 1971: a summary of work and results’, in Davey, P (ed.) Man and Environment in the Isle of Man, 141-63. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, British Series, 54 (2 vols).
Johnson, A & Fox, A 2017 A Guide to the Archaeological Sites of the Isle of Man – up to AD 1500. Isle of Man: Culture Vannin.
Rachel J Crellin is a lecturer in later prehistory at the University of Leicester. She is a prehistorian and metalwork wear-analyst with a keen interest in archaeological theory. She is also co-director of the Round Mounds of the Isle of Man project, through which she is currently excavating a Bronze Age burial mound on the west coast of the island – https://roundmounds.wordpress.com/