Layers of history

This is one of my favourite places - the Kirkton of Bourtie. There are layers of history to be seen here.

The stubble in the foreground is this year's.

The large stones are the remains of a recumbent stone circle. Recumbent stone circles (dating to the late 3rd millennium BC) are circles of standing stones whose 2 tallest stones, on the south-western arc, flank a massive slab laid on its side - the recumbent. The recumbents average 24 tons in weight and were carefully levered and chocked-up to ensure that their upper surface was as level as possible. The recumbent and its 2 flankers frame the moon rising or setting in the southern sky and allowed lunar observations of broad seasonal change by the small farming communities who built the circles.

The hill on the horizon is Bennachie, claimed, by many, to be the site of the ancient battle of Mons Graupius. In AD 84, on the slopes of Bennachie, a large force of 17,000 Roman soldiers led by Agricola took on 30,000 natives under the leadership of Calagacus, According to the only contemporary account of the battle, Tacitus' The Life of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, the Romans emerged totally victorious, slaying some 10,000 of their opponents with the loss of only 360 on their own side. One of the Roman units fighting on that day was the IX Hispana, the ninth legion. Later the the 9th was to become famous when, in around 108 AD, 5000 battle-hardened men simply disappeared from the face of the Earth, somewhere in Northern Britain.