Back to the past

Ever since my visit - almost three months ago now - to the Iron/Bronze/Neolithic age sites in Kilmartin Glen, which I blipped about here, I've promised Himself that I'd show him this amazing place. When we read that the museum in Kilmartin had re-opened, just last week, we had an added incentive to go, so today, in weather just as perfect as on my last visit but not quite so killingly hot, we went.

We didn't plan particularly - my memories of exact details of geography were too hazy, and I fancied being more random than usual with reference to where/when we might stop, eat, see this or that... So: we stopped at the Garden Shop and café at the head of Loch Fyne for coffee and a scone (we shared!) and then drove straight on to Lochgilphead and on into the interior to the village of Kilmartin and the newly-reopened museum beside the church. Hugely expanded as to exhibits and actually smelling of newness, this was a fascinating place, all the way to the extremely sensitively-displayed skeleton of a young woman, lying as if in sleep, laid out as she had been found. She was apparently about 30 when she died, and so small.

Apart from a lapse as to which direction to turn in to find the cairns and standing stones that had made such an impression on me before, I managed to find the relevant car park to access the fields in which they stood, some surrounded by sheep but mostly in their own spaces. The left hand photo shows Himself with one of the stones which actually had cup markings on it, set out in a line with several others. The top right shows the so-called Temple Wood and the more ornate of the cairns among the trees - trees which were a Victorian planting by the Malcolm family who thought it would enhance the site - while the lower right shows the approach to the whole site from the road along a walkway - you can see the standing stones waiting at the end, with Temple Wood in the background. 

We left again about five o'clock, which meant we missed any chance of a cuppa before the drive home - in Lochgilphead all we found open was a Tesco express, so tea became a shared bag of crisps and the last of our water beside the road near another historic site we've never visited - the village of Auchindrain.

That, however, is for another day. Today we were in the past - the same era in which, according to Hebrew scriptures, Abraham was promised the land of Israel by God. Somehow, today, the standing stones of Kilmartin and the shades of the long-dead seemed more tangible.