Pentre Ifan burial chamber, Pembrokeshire, Wales

Pentre Ifan - which translates as 'Ivan's village' is an ancient burial chamber. It was built somewhere around 6000 years ago. All that remains now are the large stones, but once there was an earth mound covering the whole thing.


These stones are large - you can walk under the cap stone without any difficulty. It's been estimated that the capstone weighs somewhere between 16 and 40 tons. It makes you wonder how the people who built this moved the stones here? And why?


What were the ceremonies to do with burial that were so important to them that they took the immense effort and time to buid this, and other, burial chambers for their dead?


The site of this burial chamber is fabulous. It overlooks the coast near Fishguard, Pemmbrokeshire, and there are other burial chambers nearby, as well as a reconstructed Iron Age viillage, Castell Henllys.

Dyffryn Ardudwy burial chamber

Dyffryn Ardudwy is a small town on the north west coast of Wales between Barmouth and Harlech. It has a picturesque old church and graveyard on the on the shore, and hidden away behind the victorian primary school buildings, it has an ancient burial chamber. Thus chamber was built somewhere around 3,500 BC, and the upright stones acted as portal (doorway) stones with the cap stone acting as a roof. All the stones were put in place by sheer effort and human strength.


The smaller stones lying all around them would once have covered the large stones, and earth would have been piled over the whole thing. This 'building' served the same purpose as churches have done for the last 2000 years or so. The cremated remains of people from pre-history were kept safely inside, along with ceremonial offerings of broken pottery.