Allt A' Choire Chireinich 2

Date Fieldwork Started: 04/11/2020

Compiled by: Killin

Location Notes: The panel is situated at 434m asl in unenclosed rough grazing on the S side of Ben Lawers above Loch Tay, midway between two tributary burns of Allt a' Choire Chireinich, with smaller streams 9m to the W and 14m to the E. The ground slopes to the SSE. The is a low earth-fast boulder to the immediate N, and a group of small low boulders 4m to the S. The panel lies 70m N of the head dyke (and the track on its S side), and 5m N of a shieling track running NE up from the head dyke. Loch Tay is visible between E and S, and again at the SW. To the W the summit of Beinn Ghlas is visible over the S slope of Ben Lawers, the summit of which in turn is visible to the NW. To the E is the S side of Meall Odhar, and hills on the S side of the loch. There is a broad distribution of rock art in the surrounding landscape, including cup and ring marked stones 150m to the WSW (Allt a' Choire Chireinich 1, ScRAP 3377), and 90m to the ENE (Allt a' Choire Chireinich 3, ScRAP 254, Canmore 238575). Other recorded features include enclosures and sheiling huts 90m to the E (Canmore 256019), and a sheepfold on the head dyke, 90m to the SSW, at the top of march dyke between Craggantoul Farm and Cragganester Farm (Canmore 291513).

Panel Notes: The panel is a large erratic boulder, 4m long (NE-SW) and 3m wide, with a small flattish surface on top towards the N (bearing the cupmarks), sloping at 5 degrees to the NW, from which the panel drops relatively steeply on all sides. The the NW and NE sides of the boulder are steepest and least regular. The panel consists of a hard, coarse textured Schist, displaying visible bedding planes, cracks and having a rough surface. There are quartz inclusions, including two natural voids containing quartz nodules on the NE edge of the decorated surface, one oval, and the other circular and of a similar size and shape to some of the cupmarks. The decoration comprises 6 cupmarks, displaying no obvious arrangement. They are between 60mm and 100mm in diameter; the largest is 30mm deep, and an adjacent cupmark (80mm diameter) is 40mm deep. A shallow circular hollow at the N (60mm in diameter and less than 10mm deep), could be a cupmark, but it is quite different in character from the other and may be natural in origin.