Carn Euny
Carn Euny is about 2000 years old settlement from the Iron Age, which was inhabited between 500 BC and 400 AD, and is located in the county of Cornwall in England.
Location
Carn Euny located in southwest Cornwall south of Penzance near the village of Sancreed. The site can be accessed at any time and access is free. Parking can be found in the 600 m distant place Brane. Other Iron Age settlements nearby are Chysauster and Chun Castle.
In the surrounding area you will find the following megaliths:
- Boskednan
- Boscawen -Un
- Chun Quoit
- Lanyon Quoit
- Mên-an -Tol
- Merry Maidens
- Mulfra Quoit
- Tregeseal
- Tregiffian
- Zennor Quoit
Construction
Traces of human activity in Carn Euny could already be detected from the early Neolithic. The first settlement was made with wooden huts about 200 BC In the first century BC these were replaced by stone huts, the remains of which are still visible. People in Carn Euny lived in this time of farming, husbandry, trade and perhaps tin mining. The most important structure of the archaeological site is undoubtedly the Fogou ( Cornish for cave ), an artificial underground passage, which is covered with massive stone slabs. Fogous can be found in some places in the UK and Ireland, where they operate as a basement or Earth House. Their purpose is unclear. The Fogou Carn Euny is particularly well preserved and consists of a 20 m long corridor, a side passage leading to a round stone combined chamber whose ceiling has collapsed, and a small tunnel, which may represent a second entrance. There were also houses with courtyards tags.
History of Research
The plant was discovered in the early 19th century in search of tin deposits. Between 1863 and 1868 the pre-historian William Copeland Borlase the site investigated archaeologically and let expose the Fogou. The graphic artist John Thomas Blight made to appropriate etchings for the excavation report. During the 1920s, the discovery by Dr. Favell and Canon Taylor first time the foundations of houses with courtyards. Between 1964 and 1972 extensive excavations were carried out in which it was discovered nine hut foundations. The Fogou and the round chamber were investigated and restored. Four essential colonization phases between the 5th century BC and the 4th century AD could be detected.