ISLE OF LEWIS & HARRIS (SCOTLAND)
Lewis and Harris, or Lewis with Harris, is a Scottish island in the Outer Hebrides, around 24 miles from the Scottish mainland. With an area of 841 square miles it is the largest island in Scotland and the third largest in the British Isle. A number of prehistoric stone circles have been found on the Outer Hebrides, the pre-eminent of which is undoubtedly the Callanish Standing Stones. Situated on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis, the standing stones are made of Lewisian Gneiss, a metamorphic rock thought to be around 3 billion years old. The stones were erected around 5000 years ago, even before the Egyptian Pyramids were built. The purpose of the standing stones’ existence is still unknown although excavation in the 1980s found that a burial tomb had been added to the stones sometime after they had been constructed.
