Lecture VI (November 2, 1881.) — Lake-Dwellings, Hill-Forts, and Earth-Houses
A Broch like that of Clickamin (see the Frontispiece), situated upon an island in a loch, accessible by a causeway from the island to the shore is practically a lake-dwelling. But there are many defensive structures occupying similar positions which are not Brochs, although they are often constructed of stone. Most of them are now in such a ruinous condition that it is impossible to say what may have been the precise nature of their form and architectural construction.
In the Loch of Hogsetter, in the island of Whalsay, in Shetland, there is a small island containing a defensive structure of dry-built masonry (Fig. 244) which is plainly not a Broch.93 The structure occupies the greater part of the available surface of the island, and its form has evidently been determined by the form of the island. It consists of a dry-built wall of stones with a minimum thickness of 3 to 4 feet, enclosing an oblong oval of about 70 feet by 75 feet. A causeway, 33 yards in length, has been constructed to give access to the island from the shore, and on the side next the causeway the enclosing wall is amplified so as to admit of the construction of a doorway, flanked on each side by a chamber, as seen in the detached work protecting the entrance to the island of Clickamin. This part of the construction is solidly built, and the chambers, which are placed to right and left of the entrance passage, occupy the interior of a somewhat rectangular expansion of the wall, measuring about 20 feet by 12 feet, and now only about 8 feet high. When Low visited Whalsay in 1774, this part of the construction was 15 feet high, and the chambers and their entrances were quite entire. They were beehive roofed, the entrances going straight through the back wall from the enclosed area. The main entrance, which was 2½ feet wide and 4½ feet high, was covered by the masonry which joined the two sides of the construction over its lintels, and at about two-thirds of its length inwards there were checks for a door and the usual bar-holes on either side. Dr. Mitchell states that above the two lower chambers there appear to have been other two forming a second tier, but as Low did not observe them, and no trace of a stair or other access to the upper level now remains, it seems possible that they may have been chambers of construction, or merely vacancies left to lighten the weight on the roofs of the chambers below. Apart from the peculiarity of its chambers, which are unlike the guard-chambers of the Brochs in having their entrances opening to the enclosed space and not directly opening into the passage, this structure has more affinities with the stone cashels than with the Brochs. Like them it adapts its form to the space in which it is situated, and like them it consists of a simple rampart with cells in the thickness of the wall. The wall is low, and of no great strength, and like the wall of a cashel is merely meant to add to the defensibility of a naturally defensive position. The special peculiarities of this defensive construction are, that it is a dry-built structure which is not a Broch but a cashel, and that it is situated on an island in a loch and rendered accessible by a causeway. The island is of natural formation, and has been thus utilised, because of its suitability for defensive purposes.
Such instances of the adaptation of natural islands in lochs as places of strength by constructing defensive buildings of stone upon them are not uncommon, although it rarely happens that the form and characteristics of the buildings themselves are so clearly traceable. But there is another variety of defensive construction which is more frequently found in similar positions. It possesses the additional peculiarity of being either wholly or partially constructed of wood.
The Lake-Dwellings in Scotland, which are either wholly or partially constructed of wood, and which on that account are known as Crannogs, are very numerous, but so few of them have yet been systematically explored that it is impossible to determine with any degree of certainty the special characteristics of their typical form and structural arrangements. Indeed, it is questionable whether this knowledge may be in any measure attainable by investigation of their existing remains. Constructed of perishable material, which, as long as it survived the ravages of time, was capable of being adapted to many and various purposes of general utility, the parts of the Crannogs that stood above the water were almost certain to be gradually destroyed. But whatever may have been the special form of the superstructure of the Lake-Dwelling when it was built of timber instead of stone, the typical Crannog, taken as a whole, differs from the stone-built strengths that are placed in lakes not only in the substitution of timber in place of stone as the material of its construction, but also in being constructed usually on an island that is itself an artificial construction. The Crannog is therefore a Lake-Dwelling, actually built up from the lake-bottom. Of the structure which stood above the water, and gave shelter and habitable houseroom to the inmates, there is usually no trace whatever. Occasionally the remains of a pavement of timber or of flagstones, or the site of a hearth with its accumulations of ashes and food refuse marks the level of the floor, and sometimes a succession of such indications at different levels may betoken successive occupations. But the story of the Crannog as told by the casual relics imbedded in and around its submerged foundations is clearly intelligible, although it reveals nothing of the precise form and arrangements of the habitable part of the structure.
In the Loch of Dowalton, situated in the centre of the peninsula, bounded on the west by the Bay of Luce, and on the east by the Bay of Wigton, in Wigtonshire, a group of Crannogs was investigated by Earl Percy (then Lord Lovaine) in 1863, and subsequently examined by Sir William Maxwell of Monreith, and the late Dr. John Stuart, then Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. One of these, situated on the south side of the loch and near the west end, presented the appearance of a mass of stones and soil surrounded by numerous rows of piles formed of young oak-trees. On the north-east side of the island a number of beams of oak mortised together like hurdles were visible, and below them layers of round logs laid horizontally. A few vertical piles were observed, which, in some cases, had cross-beams mortised into them. Below the layers of logs were masses of brushwood and fern. The only sign of occupation noticed was the site of a hearth, with an accumulation of ashes, burnt wood, and bones of animals. In the adjacent refuse-heap a small fragment of bronze was discovered, and close by the island a bronze basin was found. Near the eastern margin of the loch was a group of three Crannogs. The largest of these was about 23 yards in diameter. It was surrounded by many rows of piles, some of which had their ends cut square across with a hatchet. The surface of the Crannog was covered with stones resting on a mass of brushwood, fern, and heather, intermingled with stones and earth. The whole mass was penetrated and kept together by piles driven through it into the bottom of the loch. On the south side were the remains of a massive construction of planks of roughly-squared oak, 5 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 2 inches thick, laid side by side in layers crossing each other transversely, and pinned together. The general framework of this platform-like structure was of massive beams mortised together, the mortises measuring about 10 inches by 8 inches. On the north-east side, and underneath part of the timber construction, a canoe was found, 21 feet in length and 3 feet 10 inches wide at the stern. The canoe was of oak, hollowed out of a single tree, and the stern was closed by a board sliding in a groove cut in both sides, and secured by a thicker piece 3 inches in height pegged down over it. A washboard projecting slightly over the edge and pegged into the upper margin of the canoe, ran all round the sides. There were two thole-pins inserted in square holes on each side, and one of the thwarts remained in position. A portion of a shoe formed of stamped leather (Fig. 245) was discovered among the mass of material thrown out in excavating the canoe. One hearth was discovered. It was simply a paved space, showing marks of fire and an accumulation of ashes and food refuse. The bones were those of the common domestic animals, the ox, the pig, and sheep. Among the relies found on the Crannog were a bronze penannular brooch with knobbed ends, the knobs somewhat quadrangular in form, two iron hammers, and four whetstones.
Another Crannog, nearly circular, and 13 yards in diameter, lay a little to the southward. Its construction was in every respect similar to that last described, and it was surrounded by an immense number of piles, extending in rows for 20 yards outside the circumference of a solid construction of brushwood and logs, covered by earth and stones. One canoe was found on its margin, 24 feet long and 4 feet 2 inches wide in the middle; and another was found between it and the shore of the loch, 18½ feet long and 2 feet 7 inches wide. Among the refuse of the occupancy of the Crannog, consisting chiefly of bones of domestic animals, were found a broken bead of glass, and portions of two armlets of glass, one ornamented with a yellow streak and the other with streaks of blue and white.
Between this Crannog and the shore a bronze saucepan (Fig. 246), of the form usually associated with remains of the Roman period,94 was found in the mud of the loch. It is an elegant and well-finished vessel of bronze, tinned inside, and measuring 8 inches in diameter across the mouth and 5½ inches deep. The flattened handle springing from the upper edge is 7 inches in length. The bottom of the vessel is furnished exteriorly with five projecting concentric rings. In front, opposite to the handle, is an ornamental ring, swung by a loop projecting from beneath the upper margin of the rim, and encircling a well-modelled figure of a human face in relief. On the handle is the stamp of the maker, CIPI POLIBI F.95
About 60 yards from this last Crannog was a smaller one, presenting no essential points of difference, and nearer the south-east shore of the loch was a group of six, still smaller and less distinct in outline, but all apparently similar in construction.
The other objects found in association with these Crannogs or in the loch-bottom in their immediate neighbourhood, were a number of beads of variegated glass or vitreous paste, one of which (Fig. 247) has a lining of bronze in the perforation; one amber bead; a small bronze ring; a clay crucible; several whetstones; five querns; a bronze dish (Fig. 248), about 12 inches in diameter and 3 inches deep, hammered out of the solid, and having a flat rim 1 inch in breadth, turned over, and slightly bent downwards; another dish similarly made, but without the flattened rim, 12 inches diameter and 4 inches deep; and a third (Fig. 249) of thinner metal, flat-bottomed with sloping sides, 10 inches diameter and 4 inches deep, the bottom and sides patched in several places by pieces fastened on with flat-headed double-toed rivets exactly like the modern paper-fasteners; a large bronze ring attached to the upper part of a caldron of thin bronze; a portion of a tube of cast bronze of unknown use; a wooden paddle; and a number of fragments of articles of iron complete the list.
In the Black Loch, in the parish of Inch, Wigtonshire, an island explored in 1872 by Mr. C. E. Dalrymple was found to have been a Crannog formed upon a shoal in the lake. In the centre of the island there was a circular mound, 45 feet in diameter, and rising to about 5 feet above the level of the loch and 3½ feet above the general surface of the island. At a depth of about 5 feet in the centre of the mound there was a flooring of trunks of trees, chiefly oak and alder, crossing each other at right angles. This log flooring covered a circular space of about 50 feet in diameter. At different levels above it and over the whole of its area there were found many fireplaces or hearths, formed of two long narrow slabs set on edge and parallel to each other with a paved space between, and filled and surrounded by ashes and bones of animals broken and split. In one of these accumulations of ashes and food refuse there were found a fragment of bronze and a portion of an iron knife; and in another a broken armlet of glass. A broken double-edged bone comb, ornamented with dots and circles, and a portion of a stone disc with a bevelled edge, were also found. The island seemed to have been surrounded with piles, and a small canoe, dug out of a single tree, was discovered in the loch, near the narrow channel which separates the island from the shore.
The general character of the group of relics obtained from these structures is that of the Iron Age, with indications of a period subsequent to the Roman conquest. The same character and the same indications are presented by the group of relics obtained from the Crannogs of Ayrshire, which have been so carefully investigated by Dr. Munro.96 The Lochlee Crannog, near Tarbolton, yielded a very large collection of objects in the various materials of stone, bone, wood, bronze or brass, iron, glass, and jet or cannel coal. But with the single exception of a polished stone celt, the types of the Stone and Bronze Ages are entirely absent from the group. The same thing is true of the collections obtained from the Crannog at Lochspouts near Maybole, and the Buston Crannog near Kilmaurs. But in these Crannog collections there are certain groups of objects which are closely akin to those found in Brochs. These are the hammer-stones, oblong water-worn pebbles wasted at the ends by use, spindle-whorls and querns, the round polished discs of stone, the peculiarly-shaped bone pins, needles, and borers, the double-edged bone combs, the deer-horn implements, the bronze brooches, rings, and pins, and the spiral finger-rings. There are also certain objects in these collections which present features of form and ornamentation clearly of the early Celtic types, such as a bridle-bit from Lochlee (of the same form as that shown in Fig. 101), a block of ash-wood from the same Crannog with Celtic patterns cut in both sides, and a bronze mounting from Lochspouts, which is characteristically Celtic in style. On the other hand, there are certain objects which, like the harp-shaped fibulæ and the lustrous red ware (commonly called Samian), are indicative of post-Roman times. The bulk of the relics from the Crannogs being thus of Iron Age types with indications of post-Roman time, and with a striking general affinity to the group of relics obtained from the Brochs, the place of these lake-Dwellings in the general series may be considered as sufficiently established.97
There is no class of ancient remains within our country of which we have less precise knowledge than the Hill-Forts. The reason of this is not their rarity, because they form perhaps the most numerous and widely-distributed class of ancient structures now existing. But the ordinary methods of obtaining precise knowledge of their form, structure, and contents have not been applied to them, and the ordinary agencies of destruction, incident to a high condition of social and agricultural progress, have long been busy amongst them.
They differ essentially from all other constructions, because they are adaptations of naturally elevated sites for defensive purposes. The natural site is the defensive position, and the fort itself derives its form and in many cases also its character of construction from the form and nature of the eminence or promontory on which it is built. It would, therefore, be contrary to the nature of the circumstances to expect that they should exhibit any such uniformity of plan or structure as is so conspicuous in the case of the Brochs. Yet it is clear, from the little we do know of them, that there are certain groups possessing certain features of construction in common which differ from other groups possessing other features of construction in common; and it is evident that if a sufficient body of available materials existed on record regarding the different members of these groups their typical characteristics might be readily deduced. But before this can be done with that precision and certainty which are requisite for scientific work, it is necessary (1) that a series of plans and sections to scale of a sufficient number of examples from each of the various groups should be obtained; (2) that a series of observations as to the methods of construction employed in different circumstances and situations should be made; and (3) that a series of examinations of the enclosed areas and surrounding ground should be undertaken, with the view of ascertaining the character of the relics that are associated with the structures. In the meantime it is only possible to indicate some of their general characteristics as exhibited by a few of the better known examples.
They naturally divide themselves into two great classes by their construction—(1) those that are earth-works; and (2) those that are constructed of stone.
In most cases the earth-works are so low and slight that they could not have been of much service unless crowned with palisades. They are usually on sites that are more susceptible of cultivation than the hill-tops which are the common positions of the stone-works, and hence they have suffered more generally from agricultural operations than the forts of stone. They are usually irregularly circular or oval in plan, consisting of a varying number of low embankments drawn round the summit of a natural eminence. The only one of which a scale-plan has been made is a very characteristic example (Fig. 250), on the Midhill Head, on the estate of Borthwick Hall, Midlothian.98 The space enclosed by the embankments is 410 feet in length from east to west, and 284 feet in breadth from north to south. The embankments are four in number, occupying a space round the enclosure, varying from 130 feet to about 80 feet in breadth. They are nowhere more than from 4 to 5 feet in height. There are two entrances to the enclosed space at the ends of the oval, and a third on the south side. This example represents in a general way the class of earthworks of most frequent occurrence, consisting of a series of circumvallations enclosing the highest part of an eminence of no great elevation.
The Hill-Forts which are constructed of stone sometimes consist of a single wall drawn round the brow of a hill, and enclosing the more or less level area which forms its summit. One of this description at Garrywhoine, in Caithness, is an oval enclosure about 200 paces long by 65 in breadth. The foundation of the wall is about 14 feet thick, and in some places 3 or 4 feet of its height remains. In the thickness of the wall on the east side the remains of two chambers are visible. There were two entrances to the area of the fort, one at the north end and the other at the south end of the hill. The entrance at the north end has three of the great corner-stones of the gateway still in position. They are single stones or flat boulders about 5 feet high, set on end, having their broad faces in line with the exterior and interior faces of the wall, and the ends in the line of the entrance which is 7 feet wide. Only one of the stones similarly placed remains at the south entrance. The dilapidation of this remarkable example of a stone cashel was due to the construction of a mill-dam in the valley below, the stones having been rolled down the hill to form the embankment. I notice it because it is the only Hill-Fort I have seen which still retains the stone-pillars of its gateway, and because the story of its demolition illustrates the fate of many of the most perfect and interesting remains of our country’s antiquity.
A more complex variety consists of two, three, or more walls drawn concentrically round the upper part of a conical hill, at short distances apart, as in the case of the example known as the White Caterthun in the parish of Menmuir, Forfarshire. The area enclosed is a long oval about 450 by 200 feet. The enclosing wall has been of enormous size. Its remains have spread themselves over a width in some places of nearly 100 feet, and they now form a somewhat rounded embankment of from 4 to 6 feet high, encompassing the summit of the hill. About 150 feet lower down on the slope of the hill is another wall, equally ruined, and below it are the remains of a third. Beyond this there is an enclosure of an oblong form and of less massive construction, abutting against one side of the outer wall of the fort.99 A fort of smaller size, but presenting somewhat similar features of construction, crowns the spur of Ben Ledi which overlooks the ford at Coilantogle, a little below the outlet of Loch Vennachar. The hill is precipitous on one side, and the walls do not encircle it completely, but the external faces of three encircling walls are in some places visible for a considerable distance round the less precipitous part of the hill. Abutting on the outer wall, on the side which is most accessible, is an oval enclosure less massively constructed, as at Caterthun.
There is another variety of these Hill-Forts which has attracted more attention on account of the singularity of the phenomena which they present. These are the Vitrified Forts, so called because in their walls there is always more or less of the scorified or vitrified appearance which is the result of the action of fire upon masses of loose stones. Although there has been perhaps more written about these singular structures than about any other class of antiquities, there is really little known of their special phenomena, and less of their real character.100 In point of fact the real knowledge relating to the form, measurements, and composition of the structures and the observation of the phenomena they present has been entirely overlooked in fruitless discussions as to the modes in which the vitrifaction of the walls has been produced, and the reasons which may be conjecturally assigned for it. The result is that to this day, so far as I am aware, there is not a single scale-plan with sections, of a single one of them. When such plans and sectional drawings are available in sufficient numbers, we shall be able to say that the materials exist for the commencement of a systematic investigation of the nature and typical relations of the structures.
The fort on Knockfarril, which overlooks the valley of Strathpeffer, in Ross-shire, encloses an oval area of about 120 paces in length by about 40 in breadth. It was first described by Mr. John Williams in 1777.101 Sections were then made through it from side to side, and Mr. Williams states that on the north side he found the ruins of the wall 12 feet high, although he came to the conclusion that this was a section of the width of the wall which had fallen flat outwards. With regard to the phenomena of vitrifaction, he states that the whole wall has been run together into one solid mass, but in another place he states that at the outskirts of the ruins and at the bottom of the hill there was a great quantity of large stones which had not been touched by fire, and from this he concluded that there had been some kind of stone buildings going round on the outside of the vitrified walls. It is to be observed that when he speaks of the whole wall being run together into one solid mass, he is not stating a fact, which he has observed, but a conclusion which he has formed from a partial examination. “I am of opinion,” he says, “and it appears by the ruins that the whole of the surrounding wall on Knockfarril has been run together by vitrifaction much better than the most of the kind I have seen.” He states also that immediately on the inside of the surrounding walls there were ruins of buildings in which the vitrifaction was much less complete, and these he imagined to have been a range of habitations reared under the shelter of the outer wall.
Craig Phadrig, near Inverness, when examined by Williams, presented the peculiarity of two vitrified walls, the remains of which could be traced quite round the inclosed area, while the remains of a third were visible at the entrance at the east end. The outer wall was founded on the rock, about 6 or 8 paces distant from the inner wall. Its greatest height did not then exceed 4 or 5 feet, but he found large masses of it adhering to the rock where it was first run. The area enclosed was from 80 to 90 paces long by about 30 broad.
The fort at Finhaven, near Aberlemno, in Forfarshire, is an irregular oblong with rounded corners, about 150 paces in length by about 36 in breadth. The walls are greatly dilapidated, and but a small part of their height is now visible. They appear to have been about 10 feet in thickness, and in some places there is still 4 or 5 feet of the height remaining. The vitrifaction is very unequal, and many parts of the wall scarcely show the action of fire, while in others the melted matter has run down among the interstices of the stones.
Dun Mac Uisneachan, in Loch Etive, was described by Dr. Maculloch in 1824, and more recently by Dr. R. Angus Smith, who made extensive investigations of the area of the fort in 1873-4.102 It occupies the top of an oblong hill which is either very steep or actually precipitous on all sides. The area enclosed is about 250 yards long by 50 yards broad. It is encompassed on the verge of the hill by a wall which is still in some places from 5 to 6 feet high. The points made out by the investigation are thus stated by Dr. Angus Smith—(1) the weaker parts of the dun or defensible position were walled, the outer wall or part of wall being vitrified; (2) the wall of the western part is double; the outer being vitrified, the inner built in layers of flat stone, 9 feet being the distance from surface to surface; (3) the walls were built without mortar as in all these forts; (4) vitrified portions of walling were found overlying portions built in the ordinary manner and unvitrified. This I regard as the most interesting and important point ascertained by Dr. Angus Smith’s investigations regarding the construction of the so-called Vitrified Forts. It shows distinctly that the wall of a Vitrified Fort is not always, and in every part, a vitrified wall; and it suggests that instead of taking this for granted, in every case in which signs of vitrifaction are observed, the inquiry ought to be directed to the determination of the extent of such partial vitrifaction, wherever it is found to have been partial. Another interesting result of his researches was the discovery of the remains of dwellings within the area of the fort. They were rectangular constructions, having dry-built walls about 2 feet thick. A large refuse-heap of bones of the common domestic animals was found near them. Some querns, a portion of an iron sword, an iron ring about 2 inches diameter, and a convex plate of bronze 1¼ inch diameter, ornamented with concentric circles, the hollows of which were filled with red and the centre with yellow enamel, were found in the course of the excavations. The character of this relic, with its red and yellow enamels, is closely allied to that of the similarly enamelled bronzes which have been already described, some of which have been found in constructions of a very peculiar type which have yet to be noticed.
The latest examination of Vitrified Forts is contained in a paper by Dr. Edward Hamilton,103 in which he gives detailed descriptions of two such structures in Arisaig, one of which is situated on a promontory in Loch na Nuagh. It is an irregular oval occupying the whole summit of the promontory, and measuring about 100 feet in length by about 50 feet in breadth. The enclosing wall varies from 6 feet in thickness and 7 feet in height to about 5 feet in thickness and 3 feet in height. In this case also the wall was not vitrified down to the foundation. Underneath the vitrified portion there was a depth of 3 feet of walling formed of water-worn boulders quite unvitrified. The internal part of the upper or vitrified portion of the wall was also unvitrified. From these appearances Dr. Hamilton concludes that the vitrifaction was the result of fire applied to the upper part of the wall externally.
From a consideration of these examples it is evident that the Vitrified Forts do not differ in any essential point of their character from the forts that are not vitrified—if vitrifaction be not a feature in the method of their construction. The results of former investigations have not produced evidence sufficient to carry the conclusion that the vitrifaction was accomplished at the time of their construction, or that it was a method of construction. The determination of this question lies at the end of an exhaustive investigation, and can only be obtained from evidence furnished by the phenomena of the structures themselves.
There is one fort in Scotland, at Burghead, in Morayshire, which presents the peculiar feature of being partially constructed of logs of oak alternating with layers of stones. The peculiarity of its dry-built stone rampart is thus described by Dr. Macdonald:—“To strengthen it, beams of solid oak (still measuring from 6 to 12 feet in length) take here and there the place of stones, and similar beams inserted end-ways pass into the mass behind.”104 We only know the Vitrified Forts from their greatly dilapidated ruins, and it is a legitimate object of investigation whether any of them may yet present evidence of having been constructed with logs and stones in the manner exemplified at Burghead. This method of construction is characteristic of the Celtic or Gaulish forts of France. The rampart of Murcens, on the river Lot is constructed like that of Burghead, of unhewn and uncemented stones. In its mass, at regular intervals, there have been laid courses of oak logs disposed longitudinally and transversely as “binders” and “headers.” The spaces between the logs are filled with stones, and where they cross each other the transverse logs are fastened to the longitudinal rows by massive iron nails. There are two rows of logs laid parallel to the face of the wall and a little apart within its thickness, and these are crossed at every 3 or 4 feet by logs lying transversely and extending the whole thickness of the wall, so that their opposite ends appear in its exterior and interior faces. This is repeated at every 3 or 4 feet of the height of the wall. The same method of construction, with a greater proportion of timber to the mass of the wall, appears in the fort of Impernal, also on the river Lot.105 It is obvious that by the application of fire to ramparts constructed on this principle, a partially scorified and partially vitrified appearance would be given to their ruins.106 In the early annals the burning of fortified places appears as the common method of reducing them, and the legendary prophecy of the coming of Birnam Wood to Dunsinnane possessed a peculiarly fateful meaning if its walls were built not of stones alone but of stones and logs.
The Hill-Fort of Dunsinnane (a section of which is shown in Fig. 251) is an oval circumvallation crowning the summit of a conical hill, some 800 feet in height. The rampart is now chiefly composed of earth intermixed with boulders, and is in some places about 20 feet wide at the base, rising to a height of from 6 to 8 feet. Fragments of vitrified matter, cementing masses of small stones together, are found in the rampart. The space enclosed is about 150 yards long by 70 yards wide and almost level. Towards its south-east side were two underground chambers 20 feet in length, from 6 to 8 feet in width, and 5 to 6 feet high. The chambers communicated with each other, near their extremities, by two passages low and narrow, not much exceeding 2 feet in width and 3 feet high. The floors of the chambers were paved with rough slabs. The walls were built with undressed stones, which at the height of 2 to 3 feet above the floor began to converge until the roof was spanned by flagstones laid across. The floors were covered with ashes and refuse, consisting chiefly of the bones of horses and cattle, and horns of deer. A quern was found by the side of one of the passages, and in another were parts of three human skeletons. Near the entrance to the circumvallation a bronze spiral finger-ring, described as of exquisite workmanship and formed like a serpent, was found.107
Dunsinnane is the only Scottish hill-fort associated with underground chambers. But there is a class of underground structures of peculiar form which is common in Scotland, though unconnected with any variety of defensive structure. They are mostly situated in arable land now under cultivation, and have usually been discovered by the plough coming in contact with the stones of the roof.
One was so discovered at Broomhouse in the parish of Edrom, Berwickshire. It had been known before and most of the roofing stones removed, but on this occasion it came under the observation of Mr. Milne-Home, who communicated an account of it to the Society of Antiquaries.108 It is to such casual circumstances that we owe the materials of our science. The structure presents the form (shown in the ground plan, Fig. 252) of a long narrow gallery, entering by a low and narrow aperture nearly on a level with the surface, widening and deepening from the entrance inwards, turning first sharply to the left and then to the right, and terminating in a closed and rounded end. The opening (A) faced nearly to the south-east. The whole length of the gallery, measured along the central line of the floor, was 30 feet, its width at the entrance 2 feet, and at the widest part 6 feet. Only three of the roofing stones (B,C,D) remained in position. The vertical height of the walls at the widest part of the structure was 5 feet, and under the roofing stone (B) next the entrance only 3 feet. It seemed as if the floor had been paved with natural water-worn stones, but this point was not clearly ascertained. At the second bend (D) there are checks for a door, consisting of two oblong stones set on end and still carrying a massive lintel. The side walls, from the entrance inwards to this inner door, are vertical. In the wider part of the structure (E) beyond the inner door they are brought towards each other by the stones overlapping inwardly, so that the roof might be covered by single slabs laid across. Nothing was found within it but fragments of bones of animals, among which the roe-deer was the only one that could be certainly determined.
At Migvie, in Aberdeenshire, an underground structure (Fig. 253) was discovered in 1862.109 It was situated in the summit of a gravel hillock, and was in form a long, low, and narrow gallery, entering by an aperture nearly on the level of the original surface, turning first sharply to the left and then to the right, widening and deepening from the entrance inwards and terminating in a squarish end slightly rounded at the corners. The whole length of the gallery measured along the curvature was 41 feet, the width at the entrance 2 feet, and at the widest part about 5 feet. Nine stones covering the portion next the entrance remained in position, the height of the gallery under them increasing from about 2½ feet at the aperture to 4½ feet at the place where the covering ceased. The vertical height of the walls beyond this seemed to have been at least 5 feet. The side-walls were built with rough boulder stones laid pretty regularly. When the interior was cleared out the only objects found were a bronze ring, several rude stone-vessels like roughly-formed cups, large quantities of ashes and charred wood, and corroded fragments of iron implements.
The similarity of these two structures is no less striking than the excessive peculiarity of their distinctive features. These features are—(1) their position under ground; (2) the contracted entrance; (3) the form of the chamber—a long, low, narrow, and curved gallery gradually widening inwards; and (4) the construction of the chamber—with convergent side-walls supporting a heavily-lintelled roof.
Closely analogous to these in its main features is the underground structure (Fig. 254) at Buchaam, in Strathdon.110 It is along narrow gallery entering by a small aperture in the narrow end nearly on a level with the original surface of the ground, gradually widening and increasing in height inwards, and terminating abruptly in a slightly-rounded end. It differs in one respect from the two previously described, inasmuch as though it is curved it has not the double curvature which is the special feature of their form. It curves sharply to the left, but the curvature is not repeated in the opposite direction. It is 58 feet in length following the curve along the middle line of the floor. Its width at the entrance is 3 feet 6 inches, and it gradually widens until it attains a maximum breadth of 9 feet 3 inches. The height increases from about 5 feet near the entrance to about 7 feet at the farther end. The roofing stones were mostly in position and were of great size, some being 7 to 8 feet in length, 3 feet in width, 18 inches in thickness, and weighing more than a ton. The walls rise perpendicularly for 2 or 3 feet and then incline inwards with a curve, so that where the width of the chamber at the floor is 9 feet 3 inches, it is contracted to 7 feet 9 inches at 4 feet above the floor and at the roof to 5 feet. The walls are well built, the lower courses of large cubical stones, undressed, and at the distance of about 12 feet inwards from the entrance there are checks for a door formed of two oblong stones set edgeways in the wall and projecting a few inches from its interior surface. The whole floor of the chamber was paved, and a drain, 10 inches square, well built with a good roof, sides, and bottom, and having a peculiar box-like opening or sink in the inside of the chamber, was found leading from its south-east corner. The chamber when opened was nearly filled with earth and rubbish, and at the bottom there was a layer of fine blue clay 20 inches in depth, which had been carried through the walls by percolation of water from the clay bank outside. In or below this clay which covered the paved floor were found the following relics of human occupation—an iron ring, and an object in iron which looked like the shoe of a wooden spade, some staves of a small wooden cog, a wooden comb, some fragments of pottery of coarse workmanship, a portion of a quern or handmill for grinding grain, fragments of deer’s horns, and bones of the sheep and common domestic fowls. At one corner of the inner end of the chamber the ashes of a fire remained, and immediately above them there was a well-built smoke-hole.
A similar structure (Fig. 255) at Culsh, in the parish of Tarland in the same county, differs from this one only in being curved to the right instead of to the left. It is 47 feet in length and 2 feet wide at the entrance, the width increasing gradually to about 6 feet at the farther end. The walls are partially formed of large boulders set on end or on edge to form the lower course, with rudely-built masonry over them. They converge but slightly, and the roof is formed in the usual manner by large heavy slabs laid across from wall to wall. The floor is formed of the natural underlying rock, and the height from floor to roof increases from 5 feet near the entrance to an average of about 6 feet farther in. When cleared out in 1853, the earth which filled the chamber was found largely mixed with ashes on the floor, and the only relics obtained from its excavation were fragments of coarse unglazed pottery, a large bead, the bones of cattle, and two querns.
Another (Fig. 256) excavated a few years ago at Clova, near Kildrummy, also in Aberdeenshire,111 differs from these in being so slightly curved to the left as to be almost straight. It measures 57 feet in length, 2½ feet wide at the entrance, suddenly widening to about 8 feet at about 20 feet within the entrance. At a short distance from the entrance there were checks for two doors about 8 feet apart. The covering stones had been removed from the first 15 feet of the narrow part, but the roof remained entire over the whole of the wider part of the structure, at an average height of about 6 feet from the floor. The earth with which the chamber was filled was largely mixed with charcoal and bones of animals, among which those of the horse and dog were recognised. No manufactured relics were found, but two of the stones in the walls, one being a large boulder, were covered with the small hemispherical pits known as cup-markings.
An Earth-house at Eriboll, in Sutherlandshire112 (Fig. 257), resembles that at Clova in presenting so little curvature as to be almost straight. The curvature which it has is to the left, and only extends for a few feet within the entrance. It is said, however, to have been 10 or 12 feet longer than it was when examined in 1865. It was then 33 feet in length. It is peculiar for the smallness of its size, being nowhere more than 4½ feet in height, and for the greater part of its length only 2 feet wide, expanding to 3½ for about 3 feet only from the inner end. In view of this feature of its character, Dr Mitchell remarks that it is exceedingly difficult to see what purpose such a structure could have served; but he adds that it is worthy of note that in this district similar underground constructions are not rare, and that they are called by a Gaelic name which signifies Hiding-beds. The use of such underground places of concealment is referred to in the Saga of Gisli the Soursop, which relates to events occurring between the years 930 and 980, and was written in Iceland about the beginning of the twelfth century. It states that when Gisli was outlawed and every man’s hand was against him, he went to Thorgerda in Vadil “She was often wont to harbour outlaws, and she had an underground room. One end of it opened on the river-bank and the other below her hall.” Again it states that “Gisli was always in his earth-house when strangers came to the isle.”113 The form of Earth-house thus described as then in use for concealment in Iceland is not the form of the Earth-houses found in Scotland, which have rarely two openings, but the passage is interesting because it shows that the traditional use ascribed to the Scottish examples is a use which was practised among a people who had close relations with the district in which the tradition still remains attached to these structures.
But whatever may have been the actual purpose or purposes to which they were applied, the fact which is of importance in our investigation is that these Earth-houses, though ranging in area from Berwickshire to the north coast of Sutherland, are all of one special character, long, low, narrow galleries, always possessing a certain amount of curvature, sometimes greatly, and at other times doubly curved, always widening and increasing in height from the low and narrow entrance inwards, usually built with convergent walls and roofed with heavy lintels, which are always lower than the surrounding level of the ground, so that the whole structure is subterranean. Occasionally they present variations in structure as in the case of one at Murroes, in Forfarshire, which, instead of being built, has its walls constructed entirely of flagstones set on edge. Similarly, the example at Kinord, in Aberdeenshire (Fig. 258), has its walls constructed of single boulders set on edge or on end, and it presents the further peculiarity of the chamber being divided into two branches at the farther end. One at Pirnie, in the parish of Wemyss, in Fife, and another at Elie, had steps leading down to the entrance.
Occasionally they occur in considerable groups, as at Airlie, in Forfarshire, where there is a group of five. One of these is of great size, its length being 67 feet, and its average breadth, from the farther end to within about 12 feet of the entrance, 7½ feet. The height at the entrance is only about 22 inches, and the floor slopes down for about 20 feet till a height of about 6 feet is obtained. The walls are built of rough undressed boulders laid in pretty regular courses, and they converge from a width on the floor of a little over 7 feet to about 4 feet at the roof. The covering stones are of great size, many of them 7 or 8 feet in length and 4 feet wide. It contained the usual traces of cookery in the accumulation of ashes and bones of animals upon the floor. The only other relics found in it were a brass pin, a stone mortar-like vessel, and fragments of querns. The other four examples in the same neighbourhood are known to have existed, but have neither been measured nor described.
A still more remarkable group was brought under the notice of the Society in 1816 by Professor Stuart of Aberdeen. They are spread over a space of a mile or two in diameter on what was then a dry moor in the parishes of Auchindoir and Kildrummy, in Aberdeenshire. These excavated houses, he says, are most frequently discovered by the plough striking against some of the large stones which form the roof. The only opening to them appears to have been between two large stones placed in a sloping direction at one end, and about 18 inches asunder. Through this narrow opening one must slide down to the depth of 5 or 6 feet, when he comes to a vault generally about 6 feet high, upwards of 30 feet long, and 8 or 9 feet wide. The floor is smooth, as if of clay, and the sides are built of rude undressed stones without cement. The walls bend inwards to form a rude arch, and the roof is covered with large stones 5 or 6 feet long, some of them being over a ton in weight. The whole structure is beneath the level of the ground and quite invisible, but many of them were detected by the existence close to them of a square space about 10 to 15 paces each way dug a foot or two deep with the earth thrown outwards. These he conjectures to have been the sites of the summer huts of the people, who retreated to these underground places in winter, and stored their provisions and concealed their valuables in them all the year round. But he adds that no article of furniture, and no utensils or instruments either of stone or metal have been found in them so far as can be learned, but only a quantity of wood-ashes and charcoal, chiefly at the farther end, where there sometimes appears a small aperture at the top as an outlet for the smoke. The whole number discovered in this locality he estimates at between forty and fifty. They are found, he says, in other localities, but so great a number collected in one place has probably never before occurred. The number is certainly very large, and may probably be over estimated, but it would not be difficult to find in other parts of Scotland, and specially in Aberdeenshire, a series of groups of similar structures which, though not so numerous or so closely aggregated, are so distributed over wide districts as to show that the custom of constructing these underground edifices was general and prevalent. Wherever they occur they present the same individuality of character and the same strongly marked typical features. Their range in area extends from Berwickshire to Shetland. They occur in greater or less abundance in most of the counties bordering on the east coast. A few doubtful examples only are recorded in those bordering on the west coast. But it is only of late years that the importance of securing a permanent and exhaustive record of such casual discoveries has begun to be recognised, and in this direction of defining the areas of the respective types of structural antiquities, we are still groping in darkness on the threshold of a great investigation.
I now proceed to notice a few examples which, by their associations or their contents, disclose indications of the period of the type.
In the spring of 1859 an underground structure of this type (Fig. 259) was discovered on the farm of West Grange of Conan, near Arbroath, Forfarshire. It occupies an elevated situation on the south-east slope of an eminence commanding an extensive view. The structure differs from all those that have been described, inasmuch as in addition to the long, low, narrow, and curved gallery widening and increasing in height from the entrance inwards, which is the typical form, it presents the additional feature of a circular chamber (A) attached to the long curved chamber near the narrow end, and also communicating with the surface by a passage (C C), thus giving to the composite structure a second entrance. The main chamber or gallery is 65 feet in length along the curvature of the central line of the floor. Its entrance is 2½ feet wide, and apparently little more than 18 inches high. It widens but slightly, till at a distance of 20 feet from the entrance there is an offset formed by a large stone set at right angles to the passage, beyond which it widens more rapidly to about 8½ feet across at the farther end. The walls are built of undressed stones, but in some places they are partially cut out of the soft rock, which, for a considerable portion of its length, also forms the floor of the chamber. The circular chamber (A) is about 10 feet in diameter and 7½ feet high. The floor is partly excavated in the underlying rock. The walls are rudely built of undressed boulders. They converge almost from the floor, and the covering stone was a large boulder resting on the circular apex of the vaulted roof which impeded the plough and thus led to the discovery of the structure.
About 20 feet to the north of the underground chamber there was a circular space from which the soil had been removed. It was rudely laid with a pavement of undressed flags forming a circular floor a few inches below the level of the surrounding soil, and about 20 feet in diameter. Among the flags of this paved space there were found a portion of a plain bronze ring about 3 inches diameter, the upper stone of a quern or hand-millstone, two whorls of lead, a number of rudely-hollowed stone vessels of various sizes, and fragments of implements in iron so greatly corroded as to be unrecognisable except as fragments of implements with cutting edges.
The articles found in the underground chambers were few in number. They consisted of some fragments of pottery, coarse, but wheel-made, pale yellow in colour, and differing in texture and manufacture from the usual handmade pottery of native origin found in many of the other structures of the same class. It closely resembles some varieties of pottery that are constantly found in the vicinity of Roman stations in Scotland. A bronze needle and a portion of a quern were the only other objects found. But that the place had been long occupied was sufficiently apparent from the quantity of ashes mixed with calcined and broken bones of the common domestic animals which it contained.
In this case we have distinct evidence of an underground chamber associated with an overground habitation of less permanent structure, of which time and cultivation had removed all traces except the circular paved floor and the casual relics which it contained. There can be no doubt that the people who occupied this overground habitation also possessed the underground structure, and used it for purposes connected with their daily life. There is little now left to disclose what the manner of that life was, but that little is highly significant. It discloses that they were a people cultivating grain and rearing cattle and sheep. They had utensils of stone it is true, and these of the very rudest form and fabrication, but they also possessed wheel-made pottery and weapons or implements of bronze, iron, and lead.
A singular interest attaches to this little settlement, inasmuch as it not only shows us the association of the two forms of underground and overground structure which united to make one habitation, but also gives the associated grave-ground of the family. A few yards distant from the dwelling there was a group of six graves. They were full-length, stone-lined graves, rudely constructed, with three or four flattish slabs forming the sides, and one stone placed for each end. They lay so near the surface that the covering stones had mostly been removed by the plough, and the remains in them were greatly decayed. The only manufactured object found in them was a single ring or child’s bracelet of cannel coal. This is the only instance on record of the discovery of a cemetery associated with the double dwelling of the people who constructed these subterranean galleries.
Among the rubbish thrown out in the course of the excavation there was found a beautiful spiral bronze bracelet of the form of a double serpent, decorated in that peculiar style of art which has been described in the third Lecture of this course as the precursor or earlier development of the art of the Celtic Christian time.114 Here we find the earlier art associated with this peculiar type of structure, and with a manner of sepulture which is destitute of all indications of Christianity. It is associated also with wheel-made pottery of a type that is only found in situations suggestive of Roman intercourse, and therefore indicates a period when Christianity had not yet supplanted the Paganism of the country. It was also in a precisely similar association with one of these underground structures that the massive bronze armlets (Figs. 115, 116), described in the same Lecture, were discovered at Castle Newe. They also are decorated in this peculiar style of art and enriched with enamels. Their workmanship evinces skill and taste of a very high order, and the occurrence of these works of art in such associations may serve to remind us how greatly we should have erred if we had estimated the capacity and culture of the inhabitants of these structures by their architectural character alone, or if we had measured their condition and acquirements merely by the fact that they burrowed under ground.
Another structure of the same type (Fig. 260), but of larger dimensions, was discovered in 1871 in a field at Tealing. It was 80 feet in length measured along the curve, 3 feet wide at the entrance and widening gradually to 8½ feet at the inner end, where it is a little more than 6 feet high. It has checks for a door at a little distance within the entrance, and a second pair about 16 feet from the farther end. The usual evidences of occupation were found in the presence of ashes, charcoal, and animal bones throughout the excavation. The manufactured relics unfortunately have neither been described nor figured, although they constitute the largest and most varied collection of objects ever obtained from such a structure. They are enumerated by Mr. Jervise as follows:—A piece of the red lustrous ware commonly called Samian, a bracelet, bronze rings, and coarse pottery, no fewer than ten querns, a number of whorls and stone cups, and an article made of iron slightly mixed with brass. The occurrence of the red lustrous ware in these Earth-houses, as well as in the Brochs and Crannogs, is an indication of the period of the occupation of these structures which is of great significance. The large size of the gallery, in the present instance, and the occurrence in it of ten querns, indicate that it was frequented by a considerable number of people. It has another feature of interest in the presence, on one of the rude boulders which form the walls, of a number of cup-markings, one of which is surrounded by five concentric circles. Another stone with forty-six cup-markings on it lay on the margin of a circular paved space close to the entrance of the structure. These cup-markings form one of the enigmas of archæology. They are shallow pits, roughly hemispherical in form, hollowed by pointed tools in the surfaces of rocks, boulders, and standing stones. Sometimes they are on vertical surfaces, sometimes on horizontal surfaces, occasionally on the under surfaces of stones placed as the covers of cists. Most frequently the cups are simple rounded hollows, but very frequently they are surrounded by a series of concentric circles of varying number, and often a straight gutter proceeds from the central cup through the circles. They are sometimes hewn in groups upon the solid rock of a hillside, sometimes on earth-fast boulders, occasionally on the stones of stone circles, and often on stones in sepulchral cairns or in connection with cists. They are not confined to Scotland, or even to Britain. They are found in Scandinavia, in France, in Germany, and Switzerland. They appear on the Continent in associations which refer them to the Bronze Age at least, but they also occur in associations which show that the custom survived to the late Iron Age, and even in a modified form to Christian times. Their occurrence here, in connection with this underground structure, has therefore no special significance with respect to the age of the structure, and there is nothing in the association or the circumstances in which they occur in this particular instance which contributes to our knowledge of the purpose or significance of the markings themselves. They may or may not have been sculptured on the stone before it was taken to form part of this underground gallery, and the only thing they tell us for certain is that here, at some time or other, there was a custom of which traces are found scattered over a wide area of Western Europe.
But other indications have been found in connection with the structure and contents of these singular buildings, which carry the period of their construction close up to the time of the Roman occupation of the southern portion of Scotland. An underground structure of this special type (Fig. 261) was discovered near the village of Newstead, in Roxburghshire, in 1845.115 It fortunately came under the observation of Dr. John Alexander Smith, who has given a carefully prepared notice of its peculiarities in the Proceedings of the Society. It was of the usual form, a long, low, and narrow gallery turning sharply to the right and widening and gradually increasing in height from the entrance. It measured 54 feet in length along the curve of the central line of the floor, and widened gradually from 4 feet at the narrow end to 7 feet at the farther end. The height was not ascertainable, as the roofing stones were gone, and scarcely more than 3 feet of the height of the side walls remained. But the walls presented the peculiarity of being built with hewn stones, laid in pretty regular courses, though not jointed with mortar or any other cement. Among the fallen stones in the interior of the structure there were many flat slabs bevelled on one edge, and two measuring about 4 feet in length which presented a rope-moulding (Fig. 261) of distinctively Roman character. No relics were obtained from the excavation of the building, but the character of the squared and bevelled stones and the presence of the Roman moulding indicate that the construction of the underground structure was subsequent to the period of the Roman occupation of that part of the country. Another structure of similar character was found in an adjoining field, but not built with squared stones. In all probability the squared stones of the one structure were due to the presence in its immediate neighbourhood of some Roman construction, the stones of which were utilised by the underground builders.
Another structure of the same type (Fig. 262) was found in 1869 at Crichton Mains, in Midlothian.116 It was of the usual long, narrow, curved form, 51½ feet in length, and gradually widening from 5 feet 10 inches just within the entrance to 9 feet at the farther end. A number of the roof-stones remained in position, and the floor throughout being formed of the natural rock it was seen that the average height was about 6 feet. The walls converge from the floor for about half their height and rise somewhat perpendicularly above that, thus giving to the cross-section the form of an ogee vault. The door (A, in Figs. 262, 263), formed of two upright stones crossed by a lintel, is 3 feet high by 33 inches wide, and the top is about 5 feet under the present surface of the ground. Fourteen feet inwards is a passage at right angles to the gallery, the entrance to which is shown at F in Fig. 262. It is 13 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 3 feet 6 inches high, rising by low sloping steps in the rock to what seems another entrance nearer the surface, also shown in Fig. 262 at E. At G is a small ambry (Fig. 264). No relics were found in the excavation; but here and there in the interior faces of the walls there were a number of squared stones faced with the diagonal broaching and stugging which is so common in late Roman work.117 About thirty of these are visible. Two are shown in Fig. 265. There were also other hewn stones, some of which had apparently formed portions of water conduits (H, Fig. 265), and others adapted to different purposes. The lintel-stone of the door of the side passage is moulded and bevelled on the edge in a similar way to the bevelled stones found in the structure at Newstead. It seems evident that this underground building, like that at Newstead, has been partially constructed with stones taken from a ruined building of late Roman workmanship, and that both are consequently later than the commencement of the Roman occupation of the country. Similar indications are given by the discovery of wheel-made pottery of Roman type in the Earth-house at Cairn Conan, and of fragments of the red lustrous ware commonly called Samian in the Earth-houses at Tealing, Pitcur, and Fithie. The presence in most of them of querns and implements of iron, and the entire absence of such implements as are characteristic of the ages of stone and bronze, are indications pointing to the same conclusion. On the other hand there is a complete absence of indications of Christianity, and the characteristics of the ornamentation of the bronze armlets found in association with them are those which belong only to the earlier and partial development of Celtic art, which preceded its subsequent and complete development under the new impulses and opportunities afforded by Christianity. It seems therefore that, so far as our present knowledge will carry us towards a definite conclusion, the period of this peculiar type of structure will lie between the time of the general establishment of Christianity and the departure of the Romans from Scotland.
The range of the type includes the whole eastern area of Scotland, stretching from Berwickshire on the south to the Shetland Isles. Its special form is so peculiar that it must be held to constitute a distinction sufficiently characteristic to separate the Scottish group from all other varieties of underground structures, and sufficiently constant to warrant us in assigning to it a specific value. There is an Irish group and a Cornish group of underground structures, but they do not generally present the special features of form which characterise the Scottish group. The Irish examples are usually associated with raths, thus resembling the specimen in the rath of Dunsinnane, which is the only one known of that special variety in Scotland. They are excavated in the area enclosed by the interior rampart of the rath, and consist of one or more chambers, sometimes circular or oval in plan but often rectangular, and connected together by low narrow passages. Sometimes the chambers are lined with masonry, and roofed by overlapping courses forming a rude dome-shaped vault; at other times they are simply excavated in the hard earth, while the passages and doorways are lined with stones. They thus differ considerably in form from the Scottish variety, and they differ also in being usually associated with raths or earthworks, while the Scottish structures are usually contiguous to the sites of overground habitations.
The general features of the Cornish group, on the other hand, are more allied to those of the Scottish area, inasmuch as they are often associated with clusters of overground habitations. One at Chapel Euny, in the parish of Saucreed, near Penzance, contiguous to the sites of four circular huts, is an underground gallery presenting features of remarkable similarity to that at Cairn Conan, in Forfarshire. The gallery, which is slightly curved, is about 60 feet in length, 6 feet wide, and from 6 to 7 feet high. A circular chamber, 16 feet in diameter, constructed of large granite blocks, each overlapping the one below it and thus forming a domed roof which must have been 10 or 12 feet high, was connected with the wider end of the gallery by a passage 10 feet long, opening off one side. Another small offset near the narrower end of the gallery, also about 10 feet long, slopes up to the surface, presenting an entrance doorway 2 feet 8 inches in height, with recesses on either side as if to retain a slab to close the doorway. The floors of the gallery and chamber were paved with flat stones, and provided with drains underneath the pavement. The relics found in the structure were whetstones; hammer-stones; spindle-whorls; several varieties of domestic pottery, red and black, mostly plain, but occasionally ornamented with markings made by a pointed instrument; an iron spear-head; and a fragment of the red lustrous ware commonly called Samian.118 Another at Halligey, near Trelowarren, consists of a slightly-curved gallery 90 feet in length, from 3 to 5 feet in width, and about 6 feet high in the middle, becoming lower towards the extremities. It has a small rectangular chamber off one side at the farther end of the main gallery. The main gallery opens off the middle of the side of a shorter and wider gallery 28 feet in length, 5½ feet wide, and 6 feet high. At one end of this shorter gallery a narrow passage rises to the surface. The entrance passage is provided with checks for two doors, and the whole structure is strongly and substantially built and lintelled with large flags. On the surface there are traces of two embankments with an intervening ditch surrounding a large area within which there may have been a cluster of overground structures.119
Like the Scottish examples the Earth-houses of Cornwall are long narrow galleries of dry-built masonry, but they are not so strongly marked by the peculiar feature of single or double curvature which distinguishes the Scottish group. They are comparatively few in number, and any indications of the period of their occupation that have been observed point also to a time not far distant from the close of the Roman occupation of the country. No other group of such underground structures is known in any other part of Europe, or indeed anywhere else in the world. These excavated chambers, possessing the characteristics which have been described, are peculiar to the Celtic area, and the specially typical form with the strongly marked curvature is found only in Scotland.
Of the culture and civilisation of the people who constructed these strange subterranean cells, it may be impossible in the present condition of our knowledge to form an adequate estimate. But we can say this of them with certainty, that whatever may have been the special motives and circumstances that induced them to give this peculiar expression to their architectural efforts, they exhibit in other respects evidences of culture which, though it may be held to be inferior in range and quality to the culture of the Christian time, compares not unfavourably (so far as it goes) with that which is exhibited in connection with the superior architecture of the Brochs.
And while on all these lines of investigation we have traced the manifestations of these early forms of culture and civilisation up to points at which they seem to touch the culture and civilisation of the Roman Empire, it is to be observed that they do no more than touch it—they are not merged in it. In all their distinctive features they are still Celtic, and Celtic exclusively. There is nothing Roman in the forms of the prevailing types; there is nothing Roman in the art that decorates these forms; there is nothing Roman in the typical character of the structures in which they are found. The forms, the art, and the architecture are those of Scotland’s Iron Age—the Pagan Period of her Celtic people.
Footnotes
1. The body was swathed in linen, sometimes with the insignia of office, or with ornaments of gold, or gems placed in the coffin or sarcophagus.—Euseb. Vit. Const. iv. 66; Ambros. Orat. in obit. Theodos; August. Conf. ix. 12, cited in Smith’s Dict. of Christ. Antiq., sub voce “Burial of the Dead.” The insignia of office, if the deceased had held any such position—gold and silver ornaments in the case of private persons—were often flung into the open grave, and the waste and ostentation to which this led had to be checked by an imperial edict.—Cod. Theodos. xi. tit. 7, 1, 14. Ibid. So common was the burial of weapons and ornaments in Early Christian times among the Franks, that enactments against the violation of graves in search of treasure form a special feature in the Salic Laws. Gregory of Tours tells of the robbery of the grave of the wife of Gonthram, who was buried in the Church of Metz, “cum auro multo rebusque preciosis;” and Montfaucon adds that from this we see that it was not the kings only, but the great of the land also, who were at that time buried with things of price.
2. There are records of occasional cases in which the converts rebelled and went back to their old customs in spite of the efforts of the clergy to restrain them. Thus we find in A.D. 1249, that in Livonia, where heathenism lingered longer than in almost any other part of Europe, there is a solemn deed of contract entered into between the converts and the brethren of the Holy Cross, by which the converts become bound, for themselves and their heirs, never again to burn their dead or to bury with them horses or slaves, or arms or vestments, or any other things of value, but to bury their dead in the cemeteries attached to the churches.—Dreger, Codex Diplomaticus Pomeraniæ. Again we find that the Esthonian converts rebelled in 1225, took back the wives they had given up, exhumed the dead they had buried in the Christian cemeteries, and burned them, after the fashion of the old Pagan times.—Gruber, Origines Livoniæ, cited by Wyllie in Archæologia, vol. xxxvii. p. 46.
3. Si quis corpus defuncti hominis secundum ritum paganorum flamma consumi fecerit, et ossa ejus ad cinerem redierit, capite punietur.—Capitulary, A.D. 785.
4. When the grave of King Olaf at Sore was opened, a long sword was found over the body from the head to the feet. In the coffin of King Erik Glipping, in the Church of Viborg, his sword lay at his side. Kornerup, Aarboger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed, 1873, p. 251.
5. In the Capitularia Regum Francorum we are told that the custom which had grown obsolete among the common people was retained for the clergy:—Mos ille in vulgo obsoletus in funeribus episcoporum et presbyterum retinetur.
6. Durandus says, “Clerici vero, si sint ordinati, illis indumentis induti sint, quae requirunt ordines, quos habent; si vero non habent ordines sacros more laicorum sepeliantur. Verumtamen licet in aliis ordinibus propter paupertatem hoc saepius omittatur, in sacerdotibus tamen et Episcopis nullo modo praetermittendum est.”—De Div. Off. lib. 7. Kornerup, describing the practice in Denmark, says of the burials of the higher orders of the clergy in the Middle Ages—“On their heads they bore the mitre, on their shoulders the cloak of gold brocade, on the finger the Episcopal ring, and the crosier lay by the side of the corpse. Their feet were shod, and the chalice and paten were placed in their hands.” These particulars have been verified in many instances, among which it is only necessary to mention the graves of Bishop Absalon at Sore, and Bishop Suneson at Lund.—Kornerup, Aarboger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed, 1873, p. 251.
7. In a tumulus opened near Picton Castle, there were found, along with the skeleton of a man, a sword, a breastplate, four horse-shoes, and a gold ring, on the bezel of which were engraved the arms of Sir Aaron ap Rhys, a knight of the Holy Sepulchre. The latest instance of this custom carried out in its integrity occurred at the interment of Frederick Casimir, a knight of the Teutonic Order, who was buried with his horse and his arms at Treves in February 1781.
8. A variety of the custom of burial clothed took the form of burial in a monkish habit. It was not uncommon in the twelfth century for laymen to be thus buried, under the notion that the sanctity of the dress preserved the body from molestation by demons. Thus Erik Ploupenning sets forth in a deed dated 1241, “Votum fecimus ut in habitu fratrum minorum mori deberemus et in ipso habitu apud fratres minores Roeskildenses sepiliri.”—Pontoppidan, Annales Eccl. Dan. 1669. The idea of sanctity connected with the monastic orders led people to seek for burial, not only in the consecrated ground about the monastery, but in the habit of the monks. The right was in early times purchased by the great men of Brittany by the gift of lands and other offerings, as we have seen to be the case in Ireland.—Stuart’s Sculptured Stones of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 63.
9. Bernard, grandson of Charlemagne, who died in 818, was found with shoes on his feet when his coffin was opened in 1638. William Lyndewode, Bishop of St. David’s, who died in 1446, was buried in St. Stephen’s. When his grave was recently disturbed during repairs, the body was found unclothed, but with shoes on the feet.—Archæologia, vol. xxxiv. p. 403. In the cathedral of Worcester a skeleton was found in 1861 having shoes or sandals on its feet, the soles of which were quite entire.—Gent. Mag., Oct. 1861. The Abbé Cochet mentions a large number of instances in France, proving the existence of the custom there from the twelfth century to the seventeenth. In an account of the funeral expenses of Roger Belot, who died in 1603, there is a charge of twelve sous six deniers for a pair of shoes to place on the feet of the defunct.—Revue Archæol., vol. xxv. (1873) p. 12.
10. The Christian liturgists account for this custom on other grounds than as a simulation of the effect of cremation, or a survival by symbol; but we should not expect them to recognise it as a survival of the Pagan custom. Durandus says:—“Carbones ponantur in testimonium quod terra ilia in communes usus, amplius redigi non potest; plus enim durat Carbo sub terra quam aliud.” Is not the “ashes to ashes” of the burial service a lingering echo of this ritual?
11. Vases of glass and of clay were buried with the early Christians in the catacombs. The glass vessels were drinking cups, the clay vessels are in all probability such as were in domestic use. Garrucci gives a list of 340 of these glass vessels, many of which have the Christian monogram, or scenes from Scripture, depicted on them. There are others, however, ornamented with scenes from domestic and civil life, and even with subjects from the Pagan mythology.
12. Mabillon also notices this custom:—“L’on trouvent assez souvent dans l’anciens tombeaux des Chretiens des petits vases de terre pleins de charbons.”—Dissertation sur le culte des Saints inconnus, p. 25. “Aquam benedictam et prunas cum thure apponerent.”—Beleth, De Divinis Officiis, c. 161. “Deinde ponitur in spelunca in qua ponitur aqua benedicta et prunae cum thure. Aqua benedicta ne demones qui multum eam timent ad corpus accedant; solent namque desaevire in corpora mortuorum, ut quod nequiverunt in vita, saltem post mortem egant. Thus propter faetorem corporis removendum, seu ut defunctus creatori suo acceptabilem bonorum operum odorem intelligatur obtulisse, seu ad ostendendum quod defunctis prosit auxilium orationis.”—Durandus, De Off. Mortuorum, In Rationale Div. Off. lib. vii. c. 35. “Vascula cum aqua lustrali in sepulchris apponebantur.”—Aringhi, Roma Subterranea, vol. i. p. 94. “Statutum etiam fuit ut in sepulchris crux, et aqua lustralis seu benedicta apponeretur.”—Durantes, Ex Antiq. Ritual. Sacr. Libris. apud Aringhi, loc. cit.
13. The following are a few of the localities in which these vases have occurred most abundantly:—Braquemont, Martin Eglise, Bouteilles, where over 100 vases occurred, Roux Mesnil, Neuchatel, etc. It may be interesting to indicate the range in time of the custom, by a few instances, with well-defined dates. In the coffin of Urson, Abbot of Jumieges, who died in 1127, two pierced vases were found. At Leure, near Havre, among many interments with similar vases, there was one with an inscribed slab identifying it as that of Pierre Berenguier (1270–1290). In the stone coffin there were six of these pierced vases. The stone coffin of Simon de Goucans, Bishop of Amiens, who died in 1325, contained three vases, two being placed at the shoulders and one at the feet, all pierced with holes and partly filled with charcoal. In the coffin of John Count Dunois, who died in 1468, seven vases occurred. In that of Francis Longueville, who died in 1491, twelve pierced vases with charcoal were ranged along the sides of the coffin. On the right side of the wooden coffin of the Abbé François d’Orignai, who died in 1483, two pierced vases were found. In the leaden coffin of Agnes of Savoy, Duchess of Dunois, who died in 1508, there were four vases of common red unglazed ware containing charcoal. The latest precise date is furnished by an interment in the graveyard of the Benedictine monastery at Mans. The coffin, on which the inscription was still legible, Charlotte Le Normant de Beaumont, Decede le 12 Avril 1688, contained a vase with charcoal. This curious and little known custom is fully illustrated in the Abbé Cochet’s works, La Normandie Souterraine, 2d edition, Paris 1855, and its sequel Sepultures Gauloises, Romaines, Franques et Normandes, Paris 1857. See also Bulletin Monumental, vol. xxii. pp. 329–364, 425–447; vol. xxv. pp. 103–132, 273–311; Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie, vol. xxii. pp. 11, 12, 294–298, vol. xxiv. p. 5–8; Archæologia, vol. xxxv. p. 233, vol. xxxvii. p. 399, vol. xxxviii. p. 66, vol. xxxix. p. 117; Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, 1855, pp. 206, 290; Revue de l’art Chretien, vol. ii. (1858), p. 420; De Caumont, Cours d’Antiquites Monumentales, vol. vi. p. 316; A. Murcier, La Sepulture Chretienne en France, p. 159–164.
14. This is a frequently-occurring characteristic of the vessels partially filled with charcoal found in graves of the Carlovingian period and down to the seventeenth century in France. They are usually pierced with holes irregularly placed. In some cases the holes have been made when the clay was soft. In others the vessels have been pierced by holes driven through their sides after they were fired, as if by a nail or other pointed instrument.
15. At Bernay, where 150 of these incense vases were found, the most common arrangement was four in one coffin, two at the head and two at the feet.
16. Two instances are cited by the Abbé Cochet. Claud d’Escarbotte left orders in his will that the young lads, orphans, who were to follow him to the grave should carry each a torch and a pot with incense. Jehan Thelinige described the custom more particularly, for he prescribes in his will that the small pots with the fire and the incense shall be thrown into the grave. In the district of Morvan, says M. Jules Chevrier, the peasants even in our own days continue the custom of using funeral vases. They throw upon the coffin, when it is lowered into the grave, a porringer or some such dish of earthenware which had been ordinarily used by the defunct; and in certain parts of La Bresse they still throw into the grave the holy water vessel which had stood at the feet of the defunct previous to the ceremony of inhumation.
17. Pennant figures an iron sword of this type in the second volume of his Tour in Scotland, plate xliv., but dismisses it with the remark that it is “part of an iron sword found in Islay.”
18. The pins of all the other specimens of this type of brooch that are preserved in the Museum have been of iron, and have consequently disappeared by oxidation. Without the Ballinaby brooches we should not have known the construction of the pin.
19. See the figure of the Tiree brooch, which is engraved with the upper shell removed from its place, and each shown separately (Fig. 31).
20. A portion of a similar chain occurred in the Croy find (Scotland in Early Christian Times, Second Series, p. 23); also in the Skaill hoard, to be subsequently described; in the hoard at Cuerdale; and in a small hoard found in the Isle of Inchkenneth.
21. For this reason the geographical distribution of these brooches marks the range of the Scandinavian conquests of the ninth and tenth centuries. In Iceland, in Russian Livonia, in Normandy, in England, in Ireland, and on our own shores in Shetland, Orkney, Caithness, and Sutherland, and in the Hebrides, including even the remote St. Kilda, their presence attests the historical fact of the Viking settlements from Norway. But the area in which they are specially abundant, of course, is in Scandinavia itself. I find on comparing the different records that there are now upwards of five hundred of them known in Norway. When we add the number known in Sweden, which exceeds four hundred, and those of Denmark, which only amount to thirty-eight, we have a gross total of nearly a thousand, of which the larger portion are from Norway. No archæological period in any country is marked by such a distinctly peculiar and characteristic type.
22. In a letter to me acknowledging receipt of a copy of my “Notes of the Relics of the Viking Period of the Northmen in Scotland,” Professor Rygh, Curator of the Museum at Christiania, says:—“Among the oval brooches which you have figured, there is not one that might not have been found in Norway. The brooch from Pierowall is of a form exceedingly common with us, of which I know no fewer than one hundred and eight specimens. The commonest form of all in Norway is that of the brooches from Islay and Tiree, of which we have one hundred and eighteen examples. The brooches from the Longhills at Wick belong to a variety of the last form well known with us, and that from Castletown in Caithness has many analogous examples here in Norway, although they are not so common as the two previously mentioned types.”
23. When showing the relics from the Ballinaby graves to a lady, she remarked that in her home in Caithness she remembered seeing a similar article of glass, which she was told was formerly used for a similar purpose. Though now resident in Edinburgh, she believed the implement was still preserved, and at my request she made search for it, found it, and sent it to the Museum. It is an implement so similar in form to the ancient specimen, that there can be no question as to the identity of type. It is of black bottle glass, 3 inches in diameter, and 1¾ inch thick, and is here engraved (Fig. 28) to the same scale as the specimen from the Ballinaby grave (Fig. 26). That the discovery of this lump of glass in a Pagan grave should be the means of bringing to light the existence of similar implements in Scotland which had continued in use till within living memory, is a curious illustration of the rapidity with which the knowledge of special implements and special processes becomes extinct when the implement has been superseded by a new form and its use rendered obsolete by an improved process. The placing of this specimen (of the modern type) in the Museum has brought to light other three specimens of modern calendaring implements of glass. They are of larger size and furnished with handles, which are also of glass.
24. A similar grave was found in Mull, and the brooches are in the possession of Lord Northampton at Torloisk, but I have no further information regarding them.
25. The metal of which these brooches are made is not bronze but a very soft brass. Professor Rygh has given the details of the analyses of four, and the composition of the metal is as follows:—
| Analyses of bowl-shaped brooches. | Copper. | Zinc. | Lead. |
| 1. From Stromsund, Norway | 74·78 | 10·44 | 14·36 |
| 2. From Braak, Norway | 72·85 | 11·90 | 15·71 |
| 3. From Gardness, Norway | 88·00 | 11·90 | ... |
| 4. From Denmark | 84·44 | 11·00 | 3·77 |
26. Proc. Soc. Antiq. Lond. 1861–64, p. 230. The comb is there said to have been of boxwood, but it seems more likely that it was of bone.
27. One of these brooches is figured in the Vetusta Monumenta of the Society of Antiquaries of London, vol. ii. pl. xx., and it is there said that “the fellow of it is in the British Museum.”
28. One of these is figured by Worsaae in the Aarboger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed for 1873.
29. Pope’s Translation of Torfaeus, Wick, 1866, p. 169.
30. The other was given to Mr. Worsaae on the occasion of his visit to Scotland, and I had no difficulty in recognising it in one of the cases of the Museum at Copenhagen.
31. It was the custom of the Northmen to bury their dead in mounds raised in their honour, but they also took advantage of mounds already raised, and of natural or artificial mounds which were convenient for the purpose. See also the remarks on the use of the mounds covering the ruins of Brochs as burial-places in the subsequent Lecture on Brochs.
32. This fine sword, now broken in many pieces, was presented to the Museum in 1874 by the representatives of the late Professor Thomas S. Traill, through the Rev. G. R. Omond, Free Church minister at Monzie, one of the oldest Fellows of the Society.
33. This trefoil-shaped brooch closely resembles one figured in the Memoires de la Société des Antiquaires du Nord, 1840-44.
34. Including those found in the Viking cemetery at Pierowall, in Westray, Orkney, the total number of these brooches found in Scotland is thirty-two. The total number of Celtic brooches that I was able to enumerate was fourteen. The difference is striking, and the fact that the foreign form occurs in larger numbers than the native form is so opposed to what is naturally expected, that the explanation becomes of some interest. It is simple, but significant. The largeness of the larger number is an archæological result of Paganism. The smallness of the smaller number is an archæological result of Christianity. The effect of Paganism was that those who had brooches were buried with them. The effect of Christianity was that brooches ceased to be buried with those who had them. The tendency of the one system was to take all the brooches ultimately into the soil with the remains of the generations that wore them; the tendency of the other system was to keep the brooches from going underground. Hence we see that the preponderance of these foreign relics in the soil of Scotland (which is almost destitute of native relics of the same age and purpose) is an archæological result which is directly dependent on the difference between Paganism and Christianity.
35. They are now deposited in the Museum, and have been fully described by Professor Norman Macpherson, LL.D., in an elaborate paper, read before the Society, on the Antiquities of Eigg.
36. The tumulus contained the remains, still distinctly recognisable, of a ship in which a warrior had been entombed along with his arms and two horses. The iron nails which fastened the planks together were still visible in their places. The vessel appeared to be a galley of no great size, carrying a single mast. Alongside of the body, which was unburnt, was found a sword, the blade of iron, and the splendid hilt of gilt bronze decorated with interlaced patterns of extreme beauty and elegance. Remains of the wooden sheath and its gilt mountings were also found. A helmet of iron was also found, having a crest or ridge of bronze, containing zinc as an ingredient—the only helmet of the Pagan period in Sweden hitherto known. There were also found a magnificent umbo or boss of a shield, in iron plated with bronze, and adorned with patterns of interlaced work, the handle of the shield, nineteen arrow-heads, the bits of two bridles, a pair of shears, all in iron; thirty-six table-men and three dice, in bone. Besides these there was an iron gridiron and a kettle of thin iron plates riveted together, with a swinging handle, as also bones of swine and geese, probably the remains of the funeral feast.—La Suede Prehistorique, par Oscar Montelius, Stockholm, Paris, and Leipzig, 1864, p. 114.
37. Figured in the previous series of Lectures—Scotland in Early Christian Times, p. 29, Fig. 22.
38. Sometimes the description of a burial mentions the digging of a grave instead of the raising of a mound. When Thorolf died, Egil took his body and prepared it according to the custom of the time, then they dug a grave and placed Thorolf in it with all his weapons and raiment, and Egil placed a gold bracelet on each of his arms, then they placed stones over him, and earth over all.
39. Suorri says that the custom of burning the body was over before the time when the historical sagas begin their chronicle of events. The fact that it is represented in the mythological sagas as the burial rite of the Æsir, in the Twilight of the Gods, shows that it was out of memory as a human custom in Iceland.
40. A translation of this narrative is given in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. ix. p. 518.
41. Scotland in Early Christian Times (second series), pp. 226-232.
42. Described by Mr. Petrie in Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. viii. p. 367.
43. Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. ii. p. 50.
44. The unscientific method of opening a burial mound by driving a trench across it cannot be too strongly condemned. No such investigation can be regarded as scientific which leaves any part of the mound or of the site beneath it unexamined; and no one should touch a burial-mound who is not prepared both to investigate and record its phenomena in a scientific manner.
45. Mr. Petrie notices a similar instance in Orkney, the bottom being formed of a lozenge-shaped piece of stone, fitted into its place by a groove cut round its circumference.
46. These vessels are figured and described by Mr. G. E. Roberts in the Mem. Soc. Anthrop. Lond., vol. i. p. 296.
47. A few notices of these are appended to show the character of the burials:—At Hof, in the district of Hedenmarken, round the church are several grave-mounds. In some of these there were found, in 1842, four axe-heads, three spear-heads, fragments of two double-edged swords, a pair of stirrups, two bridle-bits, ten arrow-points, a fire-steel, fragments of a shield-boss, a ring, a kind of pincers, and other fragments, all of iron, along with two vessels of steatite, the one having an iron handle, and the other containing burnt bones and oxidised iron fragments.—Nicolaysen’s Norske Fornlevninger, p. 59. In a circular grave-mound at Gaarden, Ostre Alm, Hedenmark, there was found an urn or vessel of steatite with remains of its iron handle, a two-edged sword contorted and broken into three pieces, a bent spear-head of iron, an iron axe-head, two shield-bosses of iron, a bridle-bit, a pair of stirrups, a strap-buckle and two iron tags, a portion of a comb of bone, pretty long, and toothed only on one side, made of small pieces of bone held between two slips of bone riveted together, two hemispherical table-men of bone, and a small figure in bone of animal resembling a dog. In the urn lay ashes.—Foreningen for Norske Fortidsmindesmækers Bevaring, 1866, p. 88. At Nordby Sagbrug, Akershus, there were found in a small low grave-mound, the pieces of a bowl-shaped urn of steatite, 7 inches diameter, in which were ashes and burnt bones, and along with it a two-edged sword of iron, the blade 30¼ inches long, a spear-head, an axe-blade, and other iron relics.—Foren. for Norske Fortids. Bev., 1867, p. 49. At Elset, in Solum parish, province of Bratsberg, there was found a bowl-shaped urn of steatite of the kind so commonly occurring in graves of the later Iron Age. It had an iron hank round the rim and an iron bow-handle, and was full of burnt bones.—Foren. for Norske Fortids. Bev., 1868, p. 115.
48. Upwards of 20,000 Cufic and 15,000 Anglo-Saxon coins have been enumerated from hoards of this period in Sweden alone.
49. The gold brooch is figured in the Ulster Journal, vol. iv. p. 1.
50. In this remarkable sepulture the body was found in a pit 6 feet beneath the natural surface, under the centre of the mound, laid in a chest constructed of oaken planks, axe-dressed, and fastened together with large round-headed iron nails. The chest had somewhat of the form of a closed bedstead, for it was supported by six posts driven into the soil at the bottom of the pit. On the bottom planks of this rough bedstead the skeleton lay extended on cushions filled with feathers, with the head to the north-east. It had been clothed in garments worked with gold thread, of excessive richness and beauty. The fragments preserved include portions of a girdle of silk, ornamented with fretwork and gold tissue; a mantle of woollen cloth, with a band of foliageous scroll-work interwoven with figures of human heads and hands, and further ornamented with figures of animals, and patterns worked in gold thread; and portions of cuffs or bracelets, also of silk, ornamented with gold thread. In the interior of the chest or bedstead, along with the skeleton, there were found the fragments of a sword and scabbard, with its mountings, inlaid with silver, and two axes, of which the one was plain, the other inlaid with zoomorphic patterns in silver, as shown in Fig. 78. On the lid of the chest there stood at the one end a cauldron of thin brass, two buckets, constructed of oaken staves hooped with iron, and at the other end lay a wax candle, 22 inches in length, which had burned for some time, probably during the funeral ceremonies.—La sepulture de Mammen, par J. J. A. Worsaae, in the Memoires de la Société Royale des Antiquaires du Nord: Copenhagen, 1870.
51. This and the two following figures are copied from Professor Stephen’s Thunor the Thunderer: Copenhagen, 1879, folio.
52. The approximate dates of the hoards are indicated by the coins found with them.
53. Besides the fragments that occurred in the Cuerdale hoard, two entire brooches of this type have been found in England—one near Kirby Lonsdale, in Westmoreland, 5½ inches diameter; and one near Penrith, in Cumberland, which is the largest on record, the ring being 8¼ inches in diameter, the pin 21 inches long, and the weight of the whole brooch 25 ounces avoirdupois.
54. One of these brooches occurred in the remarkable hoard of silver objects found in the Rath of Reerasta, Ardagh, in Limerick, in 1868. The hoard consisted of a silver chalice of exquisite beauty, one other vessel of bronze, three brooches of pure Celtic type, decorated like the chalice with interlaced designs in panels, in the best style of the art, and a fourth brooch of the bulbous or “thistle-headed” form.—Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. xxiv. p. 433.
55. This and many of the other objects referred to in this Lecture have been described in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland by Dr. John Alexander Smith, who has specially illustrated the interesting relics which I regard as belonging to the closing period of Scotland’s Paganism. They have been referred by Mr. Franks and others to a special school of art which they have denominated the “Late Celtic,” but from my point of view I must regard them as the work of the early Celtic school, which was the precursor and parent of the greater school of Celtic art of the Christian time which I have already described.
56. The common denarius of the family Furia exhibits a trophy formed of the horned helmet, the tunic of mail, the peculiarly ornamented oval shield, and the large war trumpet. On a denarius of Servilia a Gaul wearing the horned helmet appears aiming a back-handed blow with his long sword at a Roman antagonist. The name “Cornuti” itself is suggestive of this peculiarity.
57. A bronze shield, found in the river Witham, 3 feet 8½ inches long, and nearly 14 inches wide, with straight sides and rounded ends, is decorated with studs of red coral, and had the figure of an animal attached to it by rivets. Another, found in the Thames, 2 feet 6½ inches long and 14½ inches wide, is ornamented with enamelled patterns in this peculiar style, and of singular beauty and remarkable excellence of design and workmanship. They are figured in colours of the originals in the Horæ Ferales, edited by A. W. Franks, of the British Museum (4to. London, 1863), Plates XIV.-XV.
58. The specimens of these iron swords with bronze sheaths found in different parts of England are enumerated by Mr. Franks in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, vol. iv. p. 166; and several are figured in Horæ Ferales, Plates XIV.-XVIII.
59. Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. v. p. 111.
60. They have been figured by Dr. Daniel Wilson in The Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 156.
61. They have been found at Polden Hill, near Bridgewater (Archæologia, vol. xiv. p. 90); at Hagbourn Hill, Berkshire (Archæologia, vol. xvi. p. 348); at Stanwick, Yorkshire, with chariot-wheels (York Volume of the Archæological Institute, p. 10); at Arras and Hessleskew, in the same county, with chariot-wheels and the bones of horses (Ibid. p. 28), and other places. A synopsis of the whole group of objects characterised by this decoration is given by Mr. Franks in Horæ Ferales (4to., London, 1863), pp. 172, 196, and many figures in the coloured plates (Plates XIV.-XX.).
62. Described in a paper by Mr. Spence Bate in Archæologia, vol. xl. p. 500.
63. Archæological Journal, vol. xxx. p. 268.
64. Proceedings of the Bristol and Gloucester Archæological Society, vol. v. p. 137, and Plate XIV., from which the figure here given is copied by permission.
65. These have been conjectured to be of Christian time, and to have been used in connection with the celebration of the Eucharist, but the evidence is insufficient to carry this conclusion. See the papers by Albert Way in Archæological Journal, vol. xxvi. p. 52; and by Rev. E. L. Barnwell in Archæologia Cambrensis, vol. viii. (Third Series) p. 208, and vol. x. p. 57.
66. A denarius of the Emperor Nerva was subsequently found close by the place where the armlets were discovered. The underground structure appears, like many of its class, to have been associated with an overground habitation, the site of which was marked by fire-burnt pavement, remains of querns, beads, etc., found near the present surface.
67. These armlets were analysed by Professor Church, and the composition of the metal determined as follows:—
| Armlet No. 1. | Armlet No. 2. | |||||
| Copper | 86·49 | 88·19 | ||||
| Tin | 6·76 | 3·64 | ||||
| Zinc | 1·44 | 9·13 | ||||
| Lead | 4·41 | — | ||||
| Loss | ·90 | — | ||||
| 100·00 | 100·96 | |||||
68. Another saucepan of this form found in the Loch of Dowalton, and bearing the maker’s name stamped on the handle, is described in connection with the relics from Crannogs in Lecture VI.
69. This arrangement of triple dots is a very characteristic feature of the illuminated Celtic manuscripts. It appears also on the monuments and metal work of the Christian time. This is the only instance of its occurrence on these balls, and though it may be held to suggest a possible connection, the suggestion is too feeble to imply distinct relationship.
70. This structure, which was explored by Mr. William Watt, consisted of several sub-rectangular chambers with rounded corners, having small cell-like constructions opening off them. The chambers were arranged on both sides of a long winding passage. Their door-ways had checks for the doors, and bar-holes behind them. The largest chamber was about 20 feet square. From 6 to 8 feet of the height of the walls remained. They were dry-built, and converged towards the upper part as if to form beehive roofs. Hearths of square form, surrounded by flagstones on edge, were found in the floors. Many implements of stone and bone were found in the chambers, and a large accumulation of bones and horns of animals, among which those of the red-deer and the Bos primigenius were abundant. Among the stone implements were several polished celts. The collection is preserved at Skaill House.
71. Dr. John Alexander Smith has discussed this point fully in his exhaustive notice of these Stone Balls in Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., pp. 56-62. Dr. John Evans remarks that “it seems probable that they were intended for use in the chase or in war when attached to a thong which the recesses between the projecting discs seem well adapted to receive.” He also states that “these Scottish Stone Balls seem to belong to a recent period, as compared with that to which many other stone antiquities may be assigned.”—Ancient Stone Implements, etc., of Great Britain, pp. 377-379.
72. Archæologia Scotica, vol. v. pp. 178-197.
73. The Nuraghi of Sardinia are round towers built of uncemented stones. They are exceedingly numerous in the island, and it has been occasionally asserted that they bear a remarkable resemblance to the Scottish Brochs. It is true that they are like the Brochs externally, because they are round towers, (see Fig. 176), but they possess none of the characteristic features of the typical Broch structure. They contain vaulted and windowless chambers placed vertically above each other in the centre of the tower. The access to these chambers is by a winding stair, which traverses the thickness of the wall completely round the central chambers. Sometimes they have a more complex structure, consisting of a central tower rising from a square basement, with chambers also in the basement, as shown in the accompanying section (Fig. 179). It is thus apparent that the typical Nuraghe differs completely in idea from the typical Broch. Although the external form may be in some cases similar, the essential features of the Broch are not found in any one instance in the Sardinian Nuraghi. No Broch has vaulted chambers disposed vertically over each other in the centre of the tower, and no Nuraghe has its centre open, and its chambers, stairs, and galleries arranged in the ring of walling surrounding the central court and windows looking into it as the Brochs have.
74. That this object was practically attained by these simple means we have evidence in one case from the direct testimony of record. It is related in the Orkneyinga Saga, that Erlend, who (about A.D. 1155) carried off the widow of Maddad, Earl of Athol, took her north to Shetland, and took up his residence in Moseyarborg—the Broch of Mousa, described at the commencement of this Lecture. It is said that her son Harald, Earl of Orkney, pursued Erlend, and besieged him in the Borg, “but it was difficult to take it by assault,” and the siege failed because “Erlend had made great preparations.” This is the only record of the actual use of a Broch as a place of defence, and it bears out the inference drawn from an examination of the nature and arrangements of the structure, that it was difficult to take by assault, and equally difficult to reduce by siege, if the defenders were provided with supplies. It is also stated in the Saga of Egil Skalagrimson, that about two centuries and a half before this time (or somewhere about A.D. 900), Bjorn Brynjulfson, fleeing from Norway with Thora, Roald’s daughter, because her father would not consent to their marriage, was shipwrecked on the island of Mousa, landed his cargo and lived in the Borg during the winter, celebrating his marriage in it, and afterwards sailed for Iceland.—The Orkneyinga Saga (Edinburgh, 1873), p. cxi. and chap. 92.
75. Having mislaid my measurements of the doorways of Caithness Brochs, I am unable to give examples from that county. But I am favoured, by the Rev. Dr. J. M. Joass of Golspie, with the following measurements of the doorways of Sutherlandshire Brochs:—
| Height of Doorway. | Breadth of Doorway. | |||||||||
| Above. | Below. | |||||||||
| Ft. | In. | Ft. | In. | Ft. | In. | |||||
| Broch of Carnliath— | ||||||||||
| Door in Outworks | 5 | 9 | 2 | 10 | 3 | 9 | ||||
| Door in Broch Wall— | ||||||||||
| Outer Opening | 6 | 6 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 9 | ||||
| In middle of Passage | 6 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 3 | 0 | ||||
| Inner Opening | 6 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 5 | ||||
| Broch of Kintrolla— | ||||||||||
| Door in Broch Wall— | ||||||||||
| Outer Opening | 7 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 6 | ||||
| In middle of Passage | 5 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 8 | ||||
| Inner Opening | 4 | 11 | 1 | 9 | 2 | 9 | ||||
| Broch of Backies— | ||||||||||
| Door in Broch Wall— | ||||||||||
| (2 feet of rubbish in passage, | ||||||||||
| height above that 4 feet.) | ||||||||||
| Outer Opening | 2 | 11 | 3 | 3 | ||||||
| In middle of Passage | 2 | 1 | 2 | 6 | ||||||
| Inner Opening | 2 | 9 | 3 | 8 | ||||||
I learn from Mr. W. G. T. Watt that the doorway of the Broch of Burwick, near Stromness, in Orkney, which is 5 feet 2 inches in height, measures 3 feet 1 inch in width at the top, and 3 feet 5 inches at the bottom. From these examples and the measurements of the doorways of Shetland brochs by Sir Henry Dryden, it may be held as demonstrated that the characteristic feature of inclined instead of perpendicular door-jambs, which was constant in the constructions of the early Christian time, was also characteristic of the Brochs.
76. It is to be observed that the type of Round Tower peculiar to Scotland, and known by the name Broch, differs totally, and in all its essential features, from the tall, slender, round Towers of Ecclesiastical construction in Scotland and Ireland. The Brochs are dry-built, the Ecclesiastical Round Towers are lime-built. No hewn stone is used in the construction of a Broch; the doors and windows of the Ecclesiastical Round Towers are often of hewn stone, and sometimes ornamented with sculptures. The Brochs have their chambers, stairs, and galleries in the thickness of the wall enclosing the central area; the lime-built Round Towers possess none of these features. The Brochs have their doorways always on the ground and their windows opening to the interior area; the Ecclesiastical Round Towers have their windows opening in the exterior wall, and their doors placed at a considerable height above the ground. There is thus no point of similarity between the two types of structure except their external roundness.
77. In some Archæological Notes contributed to the Academy of March 25, 1882, on the Terra d’Otranto in the South of Italy, M. Lenormant mentions a peculiar usage still kept up by the inhabitants of the provinces of Bari and Lecce of constructing in their fields structures of uncemented stones called truddhu, which exactly reproduce on a smaller scale the type, arrangements, and mode of building characteristic of the Nuraghi of Sardinia, the Sesi of the island of Pantellaria, and the Talayots of the Balearic Islands. Like the Nuraghe, the Truddhu is a massive conical tower of uncemented stones with a central circular chamber rudely vaulted by the overlapping of the successive courses of its masonry. A low door gives access to the chamber. Sometimes a second chamber is constructed over the first, and approached by a narrow flight of steps winding along the side of the tower. These steps are present even when there is no second chamber, and forming a spiral round the outside of the tower, they give access to the paved platform on the top of the structure. The Truddhu serves as a shelter in bad weather and as a dwelling-place by night in the agricultural season, as the peasant proprietors often live in the towns and travel to and fro in bands for fear of brigands. Sometimes this structure is changed into a permanent home, and the village of Alberto-Bello consists wholly of houses of this form. Thousands of these constructions stud the plains. Some are being built, others are in all stages of dilapidation and decay. Although it is almost impossible to distinguish those that are ancient from those that were made but yesterday, M. Lenormant is of opinion that the origin of the custom must be referred to prehistoric times. A similar custom of constructing stone-built towers of refuge also prevails in the Caucasus, and Mr. Freshfield speaks of having as many as sixty of these structures in view at one time.
78. The ideal Broch is composed of a series of galleries like those of the earth-houses, superimposed upon a basement with a ground plan like that of the structure at Bodinar, and connected by a stair. Although the stone forts of Ireland occasionally exhibit chambers within the thickness of their walls and have double stairs placed against the interior face of the wall to give access to the wall-head, they never have galleries superimposed on each other, and stairs in the thickness of the wall.
79. An account of the excavation, with plans and drawings, was given by Mr. Rhind in the Archæological Journal, vol. x. p. 212; and also in the first volume of the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. i. p. 265.
80. Bronze tweezers are not uncommon accompaniments of female interments of the Bronze Age in Denmark, and it has been suggested that they were used as sewing implements when the material to be sewed was skin and the thread a thong. This supposition is strengthened by the fact that small awls of bronze are occasionally found with them, and it is obvious that the end of a thong hardened in the fire, and pushed partially through the holes bored by an awl, could be readily seized by such a pair of tweezers and so dragged tight. But the tweezers found in the Kettleburn Broch do not belong to the Bronze Age. Their ornamentation is that of the Iron Age, and they were found in association with objects of iron.
81. See a paper by Rev. Dr. J. M. Joass, in Archæologia Scotica, vol. v. p. 95, entitled “The Brochs of Cinn Trolla, Cairn Liath, and Craig Carril, in Sutherland,” etc., with plans and drawings.
82. “As to the scarcement or facing wall, about 1 foot thick and 8 feet high, of such frequent occurrence in the Brochs, it has been suggested that it may have formed the resting-ledge for a conical wooden roof covering the (lower part of the) central area. Others have supposed that it formed the support of a narrow roof, sloping downwards like that of a shed or series of lean-to booths surrounding the wall. It may be noted that it seems rarely of such massive structure as the wall proper with which it appears to be bonded only at the door-corners. This, with the fact that it was found covering what was almost certainly an original doorway to a wall-chamber at Clickamin, suggests the possibility of the scarcement being sometimes, if not generally, a secondary structure.”—Rev. J. M. Joass, LL.D., in Archæologia Scotica, vol. v. p. 112.
83. It is rather suggested by the frequency with which such remains have been met with in other cases, that burials were occasionally made in these mounds long after they had become grass-grown hillocks.
84. It belongs to the class of fibulæ which are often described as bow shaped and cruciform, and is represented in Archæologia Scotica, vol. v. plate 16.
85. The Orkneyinga Saga (Edinburgh, 1873), p. 182. See also Dr. J. A. Smith’s Notice of “Remains of the Reindeer in Scotland,” in the Proceedings of the Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. viii. p. 186.
86. Six of these bronze objects were found at Lisnacragher Bay, Parish of Braid, County Antrim, in 1868, along with a sword-sheath of bronze decorated in that peculiar style of Celtic Art of which examples have been given in Lecture III. They seem to have been mountings of the ends of spear-shafts, and two of them still retained part of the wood of the shaft.—Proc. Soc. Antiq. Lond., 1868, Second Series, vol. iv. p. 256.
87. I am indebted to Mr. James W. Cursiter, Kirkwall, for the extracts from the Orcadian newspaper in which the finding of these coins was recorded. A denarius of the reign of Antoninus (Pius?), is noted in the issue of Nov. 26, 1870. On Dec. 10, one of Antoninus, and one of Vespasian, having a sow on the reverse. On Jan. 21, 1871, one of Hadrian, with Clementina on the reverse, and a female figure holding a paterá in the extended right hand, and a spear in the left. A jotting by Mr. Petrie on the rough plan of the Broch also mentions “two coins of Crispina and bone dice found here.”
88. Dice of this form have not been otherwise found in Scotland. They are occasionally found in Viking graves in Norway.
89. An Egyptian weaving-comb of wood from the tombs at Thebes is in the Museum. Its teeth are differently formed, but the principle of its use is evidently the same. Rich figures a long-handled weaving-comb from a tomb in Thebes, which is now in the British Museum.
90. Ovid (Met. vi. 55) gives a minute description of the process of weaving as follows—
“Tela jugo vincta est; stamen secernit arundo
Inseritur medium radiis subtemen acutis
Quod digiti expediunt, atque inter stamina ductum
Percusso feriunt insecti pectine dentes.”
Also (Fasti, iii. 820) he says that Pallas was the inventress of weaving, and adds—
“Illa etiam stantes radio percurrere telas
Erudit; et rarum pectine denset opus.”
Juvenal (Sat. ix. 30) makes Nævolus complain that he gets cloth from a Gaulish weaver greasy and badly woven—“Et male percussas textoris pectine Galli;” while Virgil (Æn. vii. 14) represents Circe as—
“Arguto tenues percurrens pectine telas;”
and again in the Georgicon says—
“Interea longum cantu solata laborem
Arguto conjunx percurrit pectine telas.”
These descriptions specify the precise operations necessary for closing or driving home the weft, if the instrument employed were a comb held in the weaver’s hand. Alexander Neckham, in his work De Naturis Rerum (written in the twelfth century, and recently printed in the series of Chronicles by the Master of the Rolls), has a chapter (cap. clxxi., De Textore) on weaving, in which, after describing the insertion of the weft by means of the shuttle, he says—
“Inde textrix telam stantem percurret pectine,”
thus using the same words to describe the same operation.
91. Dr. Malcolm Monro Mackenzie, Civil Surgeon, Dharwar, Bombay, states that in the jails in Bombay, where the work of the convicts is chiefly weaving, the implement used for beating in the weft is a hand-comb generally of wood, with iron teeth like that represented above in Fig. 241. The late Mr. Whytock, carpet manufacturer, when applied to for information as to the nature of the implement used in carpet-weaving, stated that “In the manufacture of the Persian or Axminster carpet, made in one piece and worked in an upright loom, the instrument used for beating down the weft or pile was about 4 inches broad, with iron teeth resembling those of a horse-comb, fastened into a short handle.” He was kind enough to supply a sketch from memory of the instrument as formerly used in the factory at Lasswade. The sketch showed an implement in shape somewhat like the short flat hand-brush used by painters in whitewashing, or a good deal like the Indian loom comb (figured above), only a little broader in proportion to its length. The nature and use of these long-handled combs formed the subject of two papers in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. ix. pp. 118, 548.
92. Scotland in Early Christian Times; The Rhind Lectures for 1879, p. 175; and Second Series for 1880, p. 211.
93. Described in Low’s Tour in Orkney and Shetland, 1774 (Kirkwall, 1879), p. 177; and by Dr. Arthur Mitchell in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. xv. p. 304.
94. This special form of saucepan with curved sides and flat bottom, concentrically moulded on the outside, is found in most collections of antiquities obtained from sites of Roman occupation. In the Museo Borbonico, at Naples, there are about 200 examples, mostly of this type.
95. His full designation apparently was Publius Cipius Polibus. His saucepans are widely distributed. Two found in a nest of five dug up at Castle Howard, in Yorkshire, bore his stamp, the one having P·CIPI·POLIB, and the other P·CIPI·POLVIBI. In the Museum at Zurich there is a handle of a saucepan with the stamp CIPI·POLIBI, and one found in Lower Saxony has P·CIPI·POLIBI.
96. Since these Lectures were delivered an exhaustive treatise on The Lake-Dwellings of Scotland, by Dr. Robert Munro, of Kilmarnock, has been issued. In this copiously illustrated work Dr. Munro has described the Crannogs in Ayrshire recently excavated under his personal superintendence, and systematised the whole subject in a manner that leaves nothing to be desired.
97. That the use of such strongholds in the lochs of Scotland and Ireland continued in historic times is abundantly attested. In the Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, under the date of 14th April 1608, one of the articles proposed to Angus M’Coneill, of Dunnyvaig, and Hector M’Clayne, of Dowart, for reducing them and their clans to obedience is:—“That the haill houssis of defence, strongholdis, and cranokis in the Yllis perteining to thame and their forsaidis sail be delyverit to His Majestie.” Three-legged pots of brass, and ewers of the forms in use from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century and later, have been found in several of the Scottish Crannog sites. The Irish Annals contain frequent notices of the taking of Crannogs. For instance:—“A.D. 1436. The Crannog of Loch Laoghaire was taken by the sons of Brian O’Neill. On their arrival they set about constructing vessels to land on the Crannog in which the sons of Brian Oge then were; on which the latter came to the resolution of giving up the Crannog to O’Neill and made peace with him.”—Annals of the Four Masters.
98. Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. xiv. p. 254. The Society is indebted to the liberality of the proprietor, D. J. Macfie, Esq., for the plan of this characteristic earth-work, surveyed and described by Mr. W. Galloway, architect.
99. Such constructions are frequently found in similar juxtaposition to the walls of these forts, and rightly or wrongly they have been regarded as cattle-folds.
100. For this reason we are unable to compare the vitrified forts of Scotland with the scorified and vitrified ramparts which have been occasionally remarked as occurring in other countries of Europe. I know no example in England, but a considerable number have been noticed in France (Memoires de la Soc. Antiq. de France, vol. xxxviii. p. 83), one of which, at Peran in Brittany, has only the upper part of the walls vitrified, a circumstance which has also been noticed with respect to several of the Scottish forts. From the fact of a Roman roofing tile having been found firmly attached to the melted stones of the vitrified part of the wall of this fort, it is inferred that the period of the vitrifaction was subsequent to the Roman conquest. Scorified ramparts in Bohemia have been described by Dr. Jul. E. Fodisch in the Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. viii. p. 155. It has been frequently stated that they do not occur in Ireland, but Dr. Petrie has noted four in Londonderry and one in Cavan (Stokes’s Life of Dr. Petrie, p. 223).
101. Account of some remarkable Ancient Ruins recently discovered in the Highlands. In a series of Letters by John Williams, mineral engineer. Edinburgh, 1777.
102. Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. ix. p. 396, vol. x. p. 70, vol. xi. p. 298, and vol. xii. p. 13.
103. Archœological Journal, vol. xxxvii. p. 227.
104. Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. iv. p. 350. A section and elevation of the rampart showing the oak-beams in position are given in Plate IX. of the same volume.
105. Memoire sur les ouvrages de fortification des Oppidum Gaulois de Murcens, d’Uxellodunum et d’Impernal situes dans le department du Lot. Congrès Archeologique de France, xli. session. Paris, 1875, p. 427.
106. The late Mr. Ramsay, Director of the Geological Survey, records a circumstance which has an obvious bearing on the question of the possibility of such vitrifaction. Near Barnsley, in Yorkshire, the country affords no good material for road-metal the sandstones made from the debris of granitic gneiss pounding up rapidly under cart-wheels. “To obviate this defect the following process is adopted:—The stone being quarried in small slabs and fragments is built in a pile about 30 feet square and 12 or 14 feet high, somewhat loosely; and while the building is in progress brushwood is mingled with the stones, but not in any great quantity. Two thin layers of coal about 3 inches thick, at equal distances, are interstratified with the sandstones, and a third layer is strewn over the top. At the bottom, facing the prevalent wind, an opening about 2 feet high is left, something like the mouth of an oven. Into this brushwood and a little coal is put and lighted. The fire slowly spreads through the whole pile and continues burning for about six weeks. After cooling, the stack is pulled down, and the stones are found to be vitrified. I examined them carefully. Slabs originally flat had become bent and contorted, and stones originally separate glazed together in the process of vitrifaction.”—Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. viii. p. 150.
107. Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. ii. p. 95, and vol. ix. p. 379.
108. Ibid., vol. viii. p. 20.
109. Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. v. p. 304.
110. Described by Dr. Arthur Mitchell, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. iv. p. 436.
111. Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. xii. p. 356.
112. Described by Dr. Arthur Mitchell, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. vi. p. 249.
113. The Saga of Gisli the Outlaw, Dasent’s Translation, p. 72.
114. This bracelet is described and figured as Fig. 140, at p. 160 of this volume in the Lecture on the Celtic Art of the Pagan Period.
115. Described by Dr. John Alexander Smith in Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. i. p. 213.
116. Described by Lord Rosehill in Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. viii. p. 105.
117. This “diamond broaching” is very common in the reparations of the Roman wall and its stations between the Solway and the Tyne, while the stones used in Hadrian’s original erections are severely plain.—Dr. Bruce, in Lapidarium Septentrionale, p. 39.
118. These details are taken from a paper by William Borlase, Esq., in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, 1868 (Second Series, vol. iv. p. 161), where a ground plan and sections, with woodcuts of the structural appearance of the building are given. Mr. Borlase mentions other structures of the same class at Pendeen, Bolleit, Chysoster, and Bodinar.
119. Paper by J. T. Blight, Esq., in Archæologia, vol. xl. p. 113, with ground plan and woodcuts.
120. “We cannot pass over one other important accessory to the characteristics of this book. The publisher has certainly spared nothing to make his part of the work equal to the importance of the subject, and in paper, print, and tasteful appearance, there is nothing to be desired. We cannot always say this much of the publications which come before us; but it is a pleasure to do so in a case like this.”
| 59.29 | Thus we are told that[ a] great store of goods | Inserted. |
| 140.32 | is found in these British Islands along.[”] | Added. |
Corrections to footnotes are denoted by page, resequenced note number, and line.
| 98.51.22 | Memoires de la [Societe/Société] Royale des Antiquaires du Nord: | Corrected. |
| 270.96.2 | issued[.] | Added. |