Home / Scotland / Shetland Islands / Sumburgh Head
Sumburgh Head
Shetland Islands, Scotland ยท Atlas SC4184
Location
- Atlas number
- SC4184 (4184)
- Country
- Scotland
- Current county or unitary authority
- Shetland Islands
- Historic county
- Shetland
- Parish, community, or townland
- Dunrossness
- National Grid reference
- HU 4077 0803
- Latitude
- 59.85557
- Longitude
- -1.27398
- Altitude
- 80 m
Form and condition
- Type
- promontory fort
- Condition
- Extant and Likely destroyed
- Morphology
- partial bivallate
- Complete rampart circuit
- No
- Number of ramparts
- 2
- Ramparts by quadrant
- NE 2, SE 0, SW 0, NW 0
- Number of ditches
- 2
- Possible original entrances
- 0
- Breaks through the ramparts
- 0
- Enclosed area
- 1.9 ha
- Enclosing works, as visible
- earthen bank
- Also recorded
- ditches
Landscape
- Topographic position
- coastal promontory
- Aspect
- level
- Land use
- pasture and heather moorland
Dating
- Dating
- undated
- Dating reliability
- D - None
Interior and investigation
- Investigations
- 1st Identified Map Depiction (1654); 1st Identified Written Reference (1774); Other (1930); Other (1968); Other (1970)
Identifiers
- HER
- Shetland Amenity Trust 551 & 3738
- National record
- record HU 40 NW 1; monument 896
- Wikidata
- Q31118369
Sources
References
- Dryden, H (1873) 'Notice of the brochs or "Pictish towers" of Mousa, Clickhimin, &c, in Shetland, illustrative of part of the series of plans and sections deposited in the library of the Society'. Archaeol Scot 5.1 (1874), 199-212
- Lamb, R G (1973) 'Coastal settlements of the north'. Scot Archaeol Forum 5 (1973), 76-98
- Lamb, R G (1980) Iron Age promontory forts in the Northern Isles. Brit Archaeol Rep, British Ser 79. BAR: Oxford
- Low, G (1879) A Tour through the Islands of Orkney and Schetland in 1774. Kirkwall
- RCAHMS (1946) The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. Twelfth report with an inventory of the ancient monuments of Orkney and Shetland, 3v. HMSO: Edinburgh