Cronk yn Howe stone pillar

Date made: Bronze Age: 2000-500 BC, Mesolithic: 8000-4000 BC, Viking: 800-1265

Description: A stone pillar found during excavations of a mound. There are stick-figure drawings of four-legged animals, probably deer, and some geometric patterns. These carvings are intriguing because they are similar in style to Bronze Age rock carvings found in Scandinavia. Could there have been a link between the Isle of Man and Scandinavia three thousand years before the Vikings arrived? Artefacts from the Viking Age were also found at the site however, so maybe these carvings date to then and were carved by a homesick Viking.

Another theory is that the carvings date to the very earliest period of human habitation of the Isle of Man, the Mesolithic, around seven thousand years ago.

Measurements: overall: 5ft 1 ins x 9 ins x 10 ins

Materials: stone: other, Manx series

Date found: 1928

Object name: carved stone

Collection: Archaeology Collection

ID number: 1954-2773

Subject tags : #MM100COLLECTIONS

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