Ancient Argyll glen hailed as Britain’s answer to Egypt’s famous Valley of Kings by TV anthropologist

AN ancient area of Argyll has been hailed “Britain’s answer to the Valley of the Kings”.

Kilmartin Glen, south of Oban, was placed top of five “little known” UK landscapes by TV presenter and author Mary-Ann Ochota for leading travel guide Wanderlust.

More than 5,000 years of human history can be traced across the glen.

At least 350 ancient monuments, of which 150 are prehistoric, lie within six miles of Kilmartin village.

Of particular interest are the earlier prehistoric monuments – chambered cairns, round cairns, cists, standing stones and rock carvings.

Before the pyramids were built, the inhabitants of this area of Scotland had built the first of the burial cairns that make up the Linear Cemetery at Nether Largie South.

These Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments, together with the stone circle at Temple Wood and the standing stones at Ballymeanoch and other sites, are all part of the ritual landscape of Kilmartin Glen.

Mary-Ann, an anthropologist, whose past TV work includes Time Team, Britain’s Secret Treasures and Unreported World, said visitors to the area would be “transported to a Stone Age and Bronze Age ancestral landscape of profound complexity”.