Mulfra Quoit

The Mulfra Quoit is about 5500 year old dolmen from the Neolithic period and is located in the county of Cornwall in England. The name is derived from the small village of the same name. The adjacent hill is the Mulfra Hill.

Location

The Quoit is located west of Penzance between Porthmeor and New Mill on the top of Mulfra Hills, from where you can overlook the sea over the surrounding hills. You can reach him on a path that branches off behind Porthmeor about 3 km turn right.

Construction

The Mulfra Quoit is similar to the five kilometers away Chun Quoit, but is getting worse. Locally there are three each 1.7 m high retaining stones, the U-shaped bordering a 3.0 m long and 1.7 m wide, open on one side chamber. On the open side down skidded, almost square ceiling plate, the side lengths of 3.2 m and 3.0 m and a weight of 5 tons of rejects has, to the supporting stones. Since some of the stones that formed the chamber are missing, it is difficult to get an idea of ​​their original form, but probably based as in Chun Quoit four pillars of the cover plate. On the other hand, the cover plate on its underside a central bulge, which would give the stone a stable position on the existing three pillars. The Mulfra Quoit was apparently covered by a hill, from whose surround the remains are present. Presumably, at the megalithic site, as with other quoits a portal grave.

History of Research

1769 published the antiquary William Borlase a floor plan and a drawing of the quoits and also described a 60 cm high Steinaufschüttung, which was then the dolmen along a circle with a diameter of 12 m included, of which, however, nothing can be seen today. Borlase also mentioned another stone, which he believed that he was part of the cover plate. This stone is no longer available. The area was covered by a 30 -cm thick layer of soil, which Borlase tempted to believe that there was in former times the Dolmen inside a mound. In 1872, William Copeland Borlase confirmed, a great-grandson of William Borlase, essentially its information from a Stone accumulation, stood in the center of the dolmen, and undertook excavations, however, yielded only charred wood. WC Borlase challenged the view, the dolmen was destroyed by a lightning strike in 1752, as his ancestor, the plant would have been 1749 found in the same state as it is today. Later authors treated the Mulfra Quoit due to poor preservation degree somewhat sloppy: Hencken described him in 1932 as the Chun Quoit just as " a huge stone box in a round hill ". Glyn Daniel mentioned in 1950 little more than the name of the quoits and classified him as a " typical rectangular chamber ", but after all, made ​​a plan of the plant to.

In the vicinity there are other megalithic sites:

Counties of England Cist Boskednan stone circle The Merry Maidens Tregeseal East stone circle Tregiffian Burial Chamber British megalith architecture
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