Sculptor's Cave

File:Sculptors Cave, Covesea, Lossiemouth - geograph.org.uk - 935045.jpg

The Sculptor's Cave is a sandstone cave on the south shore of the Moray Firth in Scotland, near the small settlement of Covesea, between Burghead and Lossiemouth in Moray.{{cite web |url=https://canmore.org.uk/site/16278/sculptors-cave-covesea |title= Sculptor's Cave, Covesea |website=Canmore |publisher=Historic Environment Scotland |access-date=2020-08-31 }} It is named after the Pictish carvings incised on the walls of the cave near its entrances.{{cite web |url=https://online.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/smrpub/master/detail.aspx?refno=NJ17SE0001 |title= SCULPTORS' CAVE, COVESEA |website=Moray Historic Environment Record |publisher=Aberdeenishire Council |access-date=2020-08-31 }} There are seven groups of carvings dating from the 6th or 7th century, including fish, crescent and V-rod, pentacle, triple oval, step, rectangle, disc and rectangle, flower, and mirror patterns,{{cite web |url=https://canmore.org.uk/event/1037132 |title= Covesea Description of stone |website=Canmore |publisher=Historic Environment Scotland |access-date=2020-08-31 }} some very basic but others more sophisticated.{{sfn|Shepherd|1993|p=81}}

The cave is 20m deep and 13.5m wide with a 5.5m high roof and can be entered by two parallel 11m long passages, each 2-3m wide.{{sfn|Armit|Schulting|Knüsel|Shepherd|2011|p=254}} It lies at the base of 30m high cliffs and is largely inaccessible at high tide.{{sfn|Armit|Schulting|Knüsel|Shepherd|2011|p=251}}

The cave was first excavated between 1928 and 1930 by Sylvia Benton, who discovered evidence of two main periods of activity on the site: the first during the late Bronze Age, and the second during the late Roman Iron Age, between the 2nd and 4th centuries AD.{{sfn|Armit|Schulting|Knüsel|Shepherd|2011|p=251}}

Notes

References

{{cite journal |last1=Armit |first1=Ian |last2=Schulting |first2=Rick |last3=Knüsel |first3=Christopher J. |last4=Shepherd |first4=Ian A.G. |date=2011 |title=Death, Decapitation and Display? The Bronze and Iron Age Human Remains from the Sculptor's Cave, Covesea, North-east Scotland |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/proceedings-of-the-prehistoric-society/article/death-decapitation-and-display-the-bronze-and-iron-age-human-remains-from-the-sculptors-cave-covesea-northeast-scotland/72F031B3F3BE322A0590F2FDD6C19739 |access-date=2020-08-31 |journal=Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society |volume=77 |pages=251–278 |doi=10.1017/S0079497X00000694|s2cid=128421586 }}
{{cite book |last=Shepherd |first=Ian A. G. |editor-last=Sellar |editor-first=W. David H. |title=Moray: Province and People |publisher=Scottish Society for Northern Studies |date=1993 |pages=75–90 |chapter=The Picts in Moray |isbn=0950599476}}

Category:Caves of Scotland

Category:Iron Age sites in Scotland

Category:Pictish sites in Scotland

Category:Archaeological sites in Moray