Christian because of their east-west alignment, and are dated to around 500 to 1000. Hilderston in the valley to the east was the site of a large but short-lived mining operation following the discovery of silver in 1606. Present day The site is open to the public April to September and has a small visitor centre. The 1940s excavations have been partly covered by a concrete dome replicating the second cairn (although the dome is much higher than the cairn) so that visitors can go inside what was once a solid cairn and see the reconstructed graves, and outside this the surrounding post holes and graves are marked by being filled with colour-coded gravel like an archaeological plan, with the red gravel indicating upright pits, and the white gravel denoting the alleged Christian burials. The current display attempts to show all the main phases of the site at the same time. Cairnpapple Hill is the 445th highest Marilyn (sub 2000' peaks) in Scotland (Out of 571 total Marilyns) - the true top is to the south beside a trig point. Derivation of the name Although there is still some confusion about the origin of the name Cairnpapple Hill, or the alternative Cairniepapple, its meaning can be guessed to a certain extent. It is uncertain whether the name comes from a Brythonic language, related to Welsh; a Goidelic one, such as Scottish Gaelic; or a mixture of the two. The first part, cairn- means cairn, either from Brythonic (e.g. Welsh carn) or Goidelic (e.g. Gaelic càrn or càirn). The second part -ie-, means of the, as in Welsh y or Gaelic a'''. The third part is the most problematic, possibly meaning any of tent (Welsh pabell, Gaelic puball), people/congregation (Welsh pob(o)l, Gaelic pobull), or even eye (compare Old Welsh pubell). Thus, Cairniepapple is most likely to mean Cairn of the tent, Cairn of the people, or Cairn of the eye''. References Scotland Before History - Stuart Piggott, Edinburgh University Press 1982, Scotland's Hidden History - Ian Armit, Tempus (in association with Historic Scotland) 1998, Guide to Prehistoric Scotland - Richard Feachem, B.T.Batsford Ltd. 1977, External links Cairnpapple site information from CANMORE Aerial photos Cairnpapple Hill on Historic Environment Scotland Archaeological sites in West Lothian Bronze Age Scotland Hills of the Scottish Midland Valley Scheduled Ancient Monuments in West Lothian Stone Age sites in Scotland Protected areas of West Lothian Museums in