Stellar Standing Stone, Calgary, Isle of Mull I had a near death experience when I was an infant. This was in 1965. I'd just had an inoculation which became infected. Although I remember nothing of the experience myself, my mother later told me the infection began in the form of a winding scarlet shape which grew from my arm and wound round my shoulder and back, finally bathing me in a fever. My family was staying on the northern part of the Isle of Mull at the time.
A local G.P., Doctor MacIntyre, was called in and immediately gave me antibiotics. As the treatment continued over some days the fever subsided and I came back to form. It was only when I was truly well that the doctor told my parents they were lucky to still have me.
Although my parents didn't know it at the time, Dr MacIntyre had an interest in a local cup-marked standing stone near Calgary. This stone was visited by him so often that the locals called it, 'The Doctor's Stone'. Some old timers round here still refer to it with this name. It's said the late doctor used to pray at the stone for his patients - although I find that rumour difficult to believe. Also known is that Dr MacIntyre once painted the top of this stone in 1968; that is to say, he actually painted paint onto the stone itself to highlight its cup-marks. Doctor MacIntyre had realised that the standing stone contains the star constellation of Ursa Major, also known as the Plough or Great Bear. The stone can be found just off the main road between Calgary and Torloisk.
Top of the Stellar Stone The stellar stone on Mull is sloped down at a neat angle as if it's there to hand out information. The stone points north and sure enough there at its top lies a representation of Ursa Major. At the very top and centre of the stone appears a prominent cup which looks at face value like a representation of Polaris, of Ursa Minor. Any amateur astronomer will tell you that if you want to find the Pole star you simply draw an imaginary line through the stars Merak and Dubhe in the Great Bear and this leads you up to Polaris. Going back in time however, the polar region was not always found in Ursa Minor. It seems likely then that the top polar cup on the stone is an abstract representation of the polar region in the night sky from a period of time when Polaris was not the Pole star.
The stars are always shifting slowly over the night sky due to precession, the term given for a cone-like wobble the Earth describes on its axis, every 26000 years. It seems tempting and yet pointless to date the stone pattern by tracing back the Merak-Dubhe alignment and its relation to the polar cup according to this shifting precession. Artists of a mystical nature are known for being abstract with much of their art. It was probably suitable enough for them to find the two main constellations below the polar region and to grind them into the stone without being precise. This ties in with the fact that the serpentine shape below the Plough pattern looks like a representation of serpentine Draco, but isn't precise.
The Plough and Draco drawn in to the main petroglyphs. These are the two most obvious patterns which appear if you play, Join the Dots, on the stone. Notice how the tail of Draco is close to the base of the stone. Around 1000AD both the tail star of Draco and 'Polaris' were equally close to the polar region. The last bright star to sit in the polar region before Polaris was Theban in Draco. This occurred around 2800 B.C.. We could guess that by the Iron Age (600BC to around 400AD), the polar region was seen as a dark area representing a vortex into the unknown. If you want to go back in time and look at what the northern night-sky looked like in the Iron Age in particular, you could download, Skyglobe - the marvellous free astronomy plotter from here. Outside link.
Creag a' Chaisteil from above Climbing onto the cliff which overlooks the Stellar Stone, the remains of a fort comes into view which surrounds the standing stone in the shape of a cup. The opening of this cup along with the sloping standing stone points to the north. This gives the impression of the cupped fortification bringing in the stellar vortex through the polar cup of the standing stone and then 'earthing' it via the cup-marked snake which appears between the Plough pattern and the bottom of the stone. The snake is best viewed in the twilight when the shadows bring it into view.
So who inhabited the fort? There is no name on the map to give any clues. The fort is simply situated at Creag a' Chaisteil - the Crag of the Fort.
Excavation of the fort was carried out in 1964. This revealed the remains of one dwelling made of wattle & daub walls and timber posts. Two constructional phases were discovered in the fort wall itself. The fort then may have been built some time in the Iron Age and used up to the Medieval period. Dwellings inside the ruined fort may also have been used up to the late 1600s.
This sheds interesting light on the cup-marks nearby. If the cups weren't situated inside the fort, many archaeologists would probably date them back to the Bronze Age. Forts however weren't constructed in the Neolithic or early Bronze Age. Their culture was based more on cooperation than a fear of warfare. What little remains have been found of their dwellings tend to be found in sheltered areas, not on the top of hills or sitting on wind-exposed cliffs.
The Calgary Stone then backs up claims that petroglyphic art survived well beyond the Bronze Age. This shouldn't surprise us considering the use of cups in churches for 'Christening' or 'Baptising' babies. Perhaps the daft notion of personifying childbirth with male deities could have been avoided if the Christian church had celebrated an ordinary 'earthy' fertile Mary in the first place.
A New Plough Emerges On North Mull While investigating the Doctor's Stone I was informed by a local farmer of another cup-mark pattern which lies roughly four miles away from Calgary to the north. These cups were known only to the old farmer and no one else. This group of cups lies on a flat outcrop of bedrock which is the preferred medium for such artwork. I was amazed to find that this pattern also displays a representation of the Plough.
Some of the cups are difficult to see due to white lichen so the Plough has been drawn in. Cups enhanced with milk. Swirly cup can just be seen at the top - draw a Merak-Dubhe alignment up to find it.
While the Doctor's Stone shows the significance of the polar region of the sky by placing the polar cup and a deep groove at the apex of the standing stone, the bedrock pattern can't provide an apex because it's lying horizontal. So the artist/s have made the polar cup special by carving swirly lines radiating out from the circle, either that or they'd already developed by erosion.
The top bedrock swirly cup.
Burial Mounds The bedrock pattern lies close to a group of burial mounds. Whilst most mounds are circular, one mound is elongated and I've been told could date from the Viking era right up to the 1850s. It's possible then that the stellar pattern nearby was carved out as a navigational guide for the deceased to aid them on their journey to their afterlife.
This 'lizard-like' rock outcrop and mound can be found between the bedrock Plough and the burial mounds. It may have developed by accident as the nearby field was cleared of stones for farming, or it may be intentional. 'Tail' coming from the north. One burial mound in foreground. Investigating the Duns and Forts around north Mull we find that Dun Auladh (Olaf) and Dun Guaidhre (Godfrey) both lie within a mile of the north Plough carving. These two Gaelic interpretations of Norse names don't appear in conjunction with any other Forts or Duns on Mull. King Olaf the Black was king of the Hebrides for some time and according to the Annals of Ulster his father was named Godfrey. Perhaps these two men were involved with the stellar artwork. Their names have certainly left their mark on the north of Mull.
Notes: According to an old, but still popular guide-book to Mull, the top of the Stellar Stone points to a local ruined village, in which the cottage-remains map out an entire stellar map. This is fanciful nonsense. I've been up there and drawn a map of the damned ruins only to find the truth. However, a very early stage of the settlement may have been connected to the stone. The tip of the stone does line up neatly with the valley in which the remains can be found. This can be seen in the photograph at the top of the page.