Monument record 8934 - MY4 MINGULAY

MY4 (NL56918358) Platform.
Location: Bench on slope.
Description: Grassy platform 30 m long and 3 m wide, banked up along the southern edge and at each terminal end set into the base of a natural rise in the hillside. There is no formal stone revetting, but a single set stone alignment runs from the top of the platform leading edge, down its banked slope and along the base of the bank out beyond the east end of the platform. MY4 initially appeared to be road construction leading east around the girth of Macphee's Hill for ponies bringing in peat cuttings, but on close examination it was clear that there was no extension of it in any direction and the ends appeared closed as a step down. Perhaps disuse and erosion have masked what may have once appeared as a clear route, partly artificial in construction and partly just an unmodified route across the landscape, There is some similarity to the road MY86, used for bringing peat from the area to the morth of Macphee's Hill around the west side and up on to the ridge between Tom a Mhaide and Macphee's Hill. Although there is a scatter of various monuments around the east side of Macphee's Hill, peat cutting appears to be much less of an acitivity than around the other sides of the valley as the distirbution of peat dryers indicates.
Note: If this monument is part of a road track around the side of the hill it is inexplicable that it should have distinct banked ends.
Brannigan and Foster 2000, 97

Keith Branigan & Patrick Foster, 2000, From Barra to Berneray: Archaeological Survey and Excavation in the Southern Isles ... (Bibliographic reference). SWE41033.