Location

Near Llandaniel Fab, Anglesey (Ynys Môn), Wales.

Overview

Hidden away off the road, a few miles south-east of the village of Llandaniel Fab, is this most excellent of Neolithic burial chambers; one of the principal ancient sites to be found on Anglesey. The chamber itself has been dated to around 2,000 B.C., but the history of the site dates back a further thousand years.

In around 3,000 B.C. a henge was built, consisting of a circular array of 14 standing stones, surrounded by a ditch about 30 metres in diameter and 5 metres broad, possibly also including a causeway across it where the burial chamber now stands. It is not known what the purpose of this structure was, though as with all henges possible theories include a seasonal calendar, a temple to the heavens, ancestor worship or some other religious practice of which we have no conception. An exploration of the site in 1928 discovered a pit at the centre of the henge in which a fire had been set, over which a stone slab had been laid with a human ear-bone beneath. Quite what this signifies is open to speculation or, most probably, wildly inaccurate guesswork, but one of the information boards around the monument puts forward the theory that it may have been some form of rededication of the monument before the burial chamber was constructed over the top of it. A stone was also discovered close to this pit which incorporated numerous wave and spiral designs across its surface; a replica of it now stands behind the tomb. The patterns on this stone are similar to others found in the Brittany region of France, which suggests, together with the thoroughly English nature of a henge, that the community which lived here may have had more than just passing contact with these regions.

This replica stone is the only obvious evidence of the henge that remains, and the reason for this lies in the construction of the burial chamber. The standing stones were deliberately damaged when the tomb was constructed, and the very act of building it directly on top of the old henge clearly indicates aggression, but on whose part? Perhaps newcomers who drove out the original inhabitants and wished to assert their authority over them by building this tomb. Or it could be that it was the same community that was responsible for the destruction, having changed their faith and desiring a break from their heritage. A millennia is a very long time for any religion; we have only to look at the changes in the Christian faith over the last 2,000 years to see on what shifting sands they stand. It could be that the old practices, of tracking the seasons or the movement of heavenly bodies, had drifted out of fashion in favour of ancestor worship, for which burial chambers are clearly intended.

The construction of the tomb began in about 2000 B.C. Its remarkable interior is formed by two large standing stones at the entrance, with the passageway beyond lined with more stone and capped by great slabs. At the end of this short passageway is the inner chamber, defined by a rough circle of upright slabs with two great capstones forming the roof. In this chamber there is a notable oddity; a single rounded standing stone which plays no part whatever in the supporting structure and so presumably it must have had some ritual significance. This chamber was eventually sealed off, presumably when the tomb was full, with a mixture of stone, earth, and bones.

The mound which envelops this structure is marked by a circle of small kerbstones, set at about 30 metres in diameter. The mound that we see today is only about a quarter of the size of the original; reconstructed after the 1928 excavations, the gradient now stops well short of the kerbstones, some 15 metres short at the rear, leaving the raised ground here to extend horizontally out to them. The original would have extended to cover the tops of these stones, leaving only their outer faces exposed.

More than the mere disposal of the dead took place at Bryn Celli Ddu. The 1928 excavations also uncovered evidence of hearths outside the entrance, together with an ox burial inside a three-sided shelter, and a scattering of quartz pebbles.

Photographs