page_title: Recumbent stone circle
section_title: Usage
hierarchical_section_title: Recumbent stone circle / Usage
caption_attribution_description: Kirkton of Bourtie stone circle - Map Ref: NJ801250 Landranger Map Number: 38
context_page_description: A recumbent stone circle is a type of stone circle that incorporates a large monolith, known as a recumbent, lying on its side. They are found in only two regions: near Aberdeen in the north-east of Scotland, and in the far south-west of Ireland in the counties of Cork and Kerry where they used to be called recumbent stone circles but now are commonly called Cork–Kerry or axial stone circles. They are thought to be associated with rituals in which moonlight played a central role, as they are aligned with the arc of the southern moon. More than 200 such stone circles are known to exist.
context_section_description: Recumbent stone circles are believed to have been designed for ritualistic astronomical purposes. The moon would have appeared above the recumbent stone, framed between the flankers. Scotland's recumbent stone circles have an average diameter of about 20 m (66 ft), so a recumbent stone that was 3.7 m (12 ft) long would have given an observer an arc of vision of around 10 degrees. This would have given the worshippers about an hour during which the moon would pass over the stone.
  About every eighteen and a half years, the moon would make a closer approach in which it would appear to be "framed" between the two flanking stones above the recumbent; this was presumably a peak time for ceremonies. The nature of the ceremonies is unknown, but Audrey Burl suggests that "the rites enacted in the rings were closely connected with the flourishing and dying of plants, crops, animals and human beings in the short-lived world of four thousand years ago."
  The interiors of some excavated recumbent stone circles have been found to contain pits filled with charcoal, sherds of pottery and the cremated remains of human bones (sometimes those of young children). However, they were not funerary monuments in the ordinary sense; the remains appear to have been merely "tokens" representing a few individuals and a small portion of the bodies. It is possible that they may have been used to lend sanctity to the sites. The builders also scattered crushed quartz around the recumbents, which would have refracted and reflected the beams of moonlight. It may have been seen as "moonstone", serving to draw down the influence of the moon into the desired spot and imbue the ceremony with its radiance.
caption: View of the fragmentary Kirkton of Bourtie stone circle, illustrating the wide vistas chosen by the circle-builders
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