character that can be recognised as distinctive. They are simple
fragments of a large culinary pot, the diameter of which is indicated by
the span of the iron bow-handle (Fig. 18), of which about half remains
entire. But though the pot itself is not a specially remarkable object,
the occurrence of an iron culinary pot in such associations is a fact of
sufficiently remarkable character to be of importance in the
determination of the special relations of a burial distinguished by such
a group of unusual phenomena.
Let us now examine in detail the special characteristics of the
ornaments and other articles found in the grave of the woman.
[Illustration: Fig. 19.—Brass Spring-Pin of Brooch, from grave No. 2 at
Ballinaby.]
[Illustration: Fig. 20.—Oval Bowl-shaped Brooch found in grave No. 2 at
Ballinaby, Islay.]
The most peculiar and striking objects among these ornaments are the two
brooches. They are determined to be brooches by the fact that they are
each furnished with a pin on the under side. These pins, which are of
brass, are of very peculiar construction.[18] The head of the pin (Fig.
19) is bent back to form a loop, by which the pin is secured in a socket
formed by two projections from the inner surface of the brooch, in which
a small rod is riveted passing through the loop of the pin. On this rod,
the pin plays as on a hinge. The free end of the loop of the pin,
doubled back and recurved, impinges on the inner and concave surface of
the brooch, and acts as a spring when the point of the pin is pressed
back to be slipped under a projecting catch on the opposite end of the
brooch. When in its place it lies under the concavity in a line with the
longest diameter of the brooch, which is oval and bowl-shaped, convex
externally and concave internally. The body of the brooch (Fig. 20),
which is 4¾ inches in length, 3 inches in width, and 1½ inch in height,
is double,[19] consisting of an outer and highly ornamented shell of
pierced open work, placed over an inner shell which is smooth and highly
gilt on the upper surface, so that the gilding may appear through the
open work above it. This open work consists of a series of patterns
which are similar as to the general effect, though they vary in their
details. They are arranged in equal segmentai divisions of the convexity
of the brooch, and separated by continuous bands of unpierced metal.
These bands are traversed longitudinally by furrows, in which plaited
strands of fine silver wire are laid and carried through perforations at
the junctions where they cross each other. At these junctions are
circular spaces, each of which has borne a knob or stud, probably of
coloured paste or enamelled glass. These are all gone, but the pins that
fastened them remain. The patterns themselves are zoomorphic in
character, but their zoomorphism is radically different from that of the
Celtic school. It is zoomorphism in which the details are sacrificed to
the general effect, as if in the mind of the artist the idea of the
ornament was dominant, and the idea of the form of its parts
subordinate. No two styles of ornament could be more widely dissimilar.
The artist of the Celtic school produced his effects by simple variation
of the arrangements of his stereotyped forms. In all the intricate
interlacements of his zoomorphic patterns, the typical forms employed to
produce the most bewilderingly beautiful combinations are substantially
the same, and their parts are the same. His zoomorphism was consistent
throughout. If the conventional beast was there at all, his tail was
there, and his crest, and his limbs—he was there in unvarying
completeness of form and conventionality of feature. But this
zoomorphism renders nothing distinctly. There is a suggestion of heads
here and wings there, but there may be no bodies and no limbs, or there
may be a suggestion of limbs to which no bodies effeir. The Celtic
artist built up his patterns with the forms of his conventional beasts
laboriously expressed. This artist simply blocks out his pattern and
covers it with suggestions of animal forms.
-----
Footnote 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.
Footnote 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).
-----
But if the art of these brooches is not Celtic, the form differs no less
widely from that of the Celtic brooches, which is penannular, with
flattened and expanded ends. No brooch of this oval bowl-shaped form
occurs within the Celtic area, either ornamented with Celtic art, or
associated with objects of exclusively Celtic origin.
[Illustration: Fig. 21.—Double Disc of thin Bronze, from grave No. 2 at
Ballinaby (7½ inches in length).]
[Illustration: Fig. 22.—Silver Hair-Pin, from grave No. 2 at Ballinaby
(actual size).]
Equally characteristic, and as widely different from anything that we
have seen of Celtic forms or Celtic art, are the forms and the art of
the double discs of plated metal (Fig. 21), of which three were found in
the same grave with the brooches. They are so thin and so sorely wasted
that they could only have been recovered from a sandy soil, and even
then, if they had been subjected to less careful handling, we should
have been unable to establish their original form. They are all
imperfect, the most entire being 7½ inches in length, consisting of a
pair of buckler-like discs, ornamented with bosses and concentric
circles, and connected by a band ornamented with zigzags and pellets,
all in _repoussé_ work. It is difficult even to conjecture what may have
been their use. They are of silvered bronze, and if they had occurred in
the man’s grave, they might have been supposed to have been ornamental
mountings of the shield. But Mr. Campbell’s testimony as to their
occurrence in the grave of the woman is distinct, and it is equally
clear from their form and character, that they are objects of ornament,
but neither the form nor the character of the objects gives any clue to
the manner in which they were worn.
The silver hair-pin (Fig. 22), with globular head and ring attached by a
loop, is 5 inches in length. The globular head is ornamented with double
reversing spiral scrolls of filigree work of notched wire, finely
executed. The ring of wire which hangs in the loop on the summit of the
globular head of the pin, is also notched, and the ends twisted round
each other in a fashion which is characteristic of many similarly joined
rings of this type; as, for instance, the ring attached to the end of
the chain of knitted wire to be next described.
[Illustration: Fig. 23.—Chain of Knitted Silver Wire, 15 inches in
length, and end portion of the Chain of the actual size, from grave No.
2 at Ballinaby.]
The chain of knitted silver wire (Fig. 23) is an object of very peculiar
character, but its relations are not difficult to establish.[20] Its
total length is 16 inches, and its width ¼ inch. It is formed of silver
wire of the fineness of sewing thread, knitted as a hollow tube, with
the common knitting-stitch used in knitting stockings. The knots at the
ends of the tube are produced separately, and fastened on. The ring at
the end of the chain has its ends twisted together in the same manner as
the ring attached to the hair-pin.
-----
Footnote 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.
-----
[Illustration: Fig. 24.—Beads found in grave No. 2 at Ballinaby (actual
size).]
The beads of coloured glass found in the graves (of which the different
varieties are shown in Fig. 24), were seven in number. In all
probability, only a part of them were recovered. They present the
peculiarity of being formed of glass of different colours fused together
so as to present a variegated surface, sometimes in regular patterns of
different colours.
[Illustration: Fig. 25.—Saucepan of thin Bronze, from grave No. 2 at
Ballinaby (17½ inches in length).]
The saucepan of thin bronze (Fig. 25) is extremely light, of good shape
and excellent workmanship. Its whole length is 17½ inches,—the handle
being 12 inches in length, the bowl 5½ inches wide and 3½ inches deep.
It is formed of extremely thin beaten bronze, not much thicker than
writing paper. A T-shaped fillet surrounds the rim, giving strength and
rigidity to the upper part of the bowl. Below the rim are three slight
mouldings in _repoussé_ work. The handle is strengthened by a T-shaped
fillet on either edge, and the circular expansion at the end is
ornamented with a disc hammered up from the under side.
The hemispherical implement of black glass (which is here shown in Fig.
26), is the most peculiar object found in this grave. In shape it nearly
resembles the bottom of a common black bottle, though flatter in the
concavity and scarcely so large, being 3 inches in diameter and 1½
inches in thickness. It has been made by “throwing” a lump of glass in
fusion, and has evidently been “thrown” in this special form for a
special purpose. That purpose, as we shall see hereafter, is indicated
by the marks of use on its convex side,—which is considerably rubbed and
striated, chiefly towards the centre where the surface is most
prominent.
[Illustration: Back view.]
[Illustration: Front view.]
[Illustration: Section.]
Fig. 26.—Implement of Black Glass, from grave No. 2 at Ballinaby (3
inches in diameter).
Lastly, a little cylinder of bronze plated with silver, about 2 inches
in length and scarcely so thick as a common pencil-case, contains in its
interior, adhering to one of its sides, what seems to be the point end
of a needle of bronze.
From this detailed examination of the objects associated with these
interments, we perceive that they are for the most part objects
presenting a strongly marked individuality of character. The weapons
form a peculiar group, consisting of a long, broad-bladed, double-edged
sword, with short, straight guard and triangular pommel; a light wooden
shield with a truncated boss of iron, and a long, stout-bladed, and
unbarbed spear. The ornaments also form a peculiar group, the brooches
being large, oval, and bowl-shaped, and covered with patterns of
zoomorphic decoration, imperfectly expressed. Reverting to the remarks
made on the essential qualities of this peculiar style of decoration, it
will be remembered that it differs widely in character and spirit from
the decoration of the Celtic school with which we have now become
familiar; and if the general teaching of these Lectures, in regard to
the value of decoration as an index to the archæological relations of
the objects on which it is found, has been successfully applied, it must
be obvious that there is no Celticism apparent in these objects. We are
unable to compare the forms of the weapons and implements with forms
obtained from Celtic burials, because no iron sword, no iron spear, or
wooden shield has ever been found in Scotland in association with any
burial demonstrably of Celtic character. And no such group of implements
as axes and smithy-tools of iron has ever been found in association with
any interment on the mainland of Scotland. The obvious inference is that
these two burials, with their associated groups of weapons, implements,
and ornaments possessing such strongly marked and unusual
characteristics, may be outlying examples of a form of burial and
associated types of objects, whose special area is not Celtic, and
therefore probably not in Scotland.
I have already explained that since it is difficult, if not impossible,
to point to any given area which has remained unaffected by movements of
populations, invasions, colonisations, and other changes not dependent
on purely physical conditions, we must be prepared for the occurrence,
among the products that are indigenous to the soil, of other products
archæologically characteristic of other areas; and I have endeavoured to
show how these are separable from the purely indigenous types by their
difference in character and decoration, and how they are assignable to
their parent area by their identity with the types native to the region
from which they are derived. This is the problem we have now to deal
with.
The most prominent features of the form of burial exhibited by these
Islay graves are that it is burial unburnt, and with grave-goods. I have
already shown that these are features that are common to almost all
forms of Paganism. But there seems to be a special suggestiveness in the
character of the group of objects deposited in the man’s grave. Since he
took with him his sword and spear, his axe and shield, and took also
with him his smithy-tools to keep them in repair, it seems a fair
inference that his form of faith must have taught him to look for a
continuance of warfare in the life beyond the grave. We know that such a
faith existed, and that the Northern and Western Isles of Scotland were
overrun by men who held it at a time when such implements and weapons of
iron were in common use. The special feature which distinguished the
wild creed of the Northmen from most other forms of heathenism was that
it promised a place in Odin’s Hall to all men wounded by arms or slain
in battle. Spears supported the ceiling of this Valhalla; it was roofed
with shields, and coats of mail adorned its benches. It was the
perpetual pastime of its inmates to fight and slay each other every day,
to be revived again before evening, and then to ride back to the feast
of boar’s flesh and mead. If, therefore, it can be shown that the forms
of the weapons, implements, and ornaments thus found in these Islay
graves are the forms of the Norwegian area, and that, when they occur in
Scotland, they are found in those portions of Scottish territory that
were possessed and colonised by the Norwegians—and found only there—the
demonstration of the character, period, and relations of these burials
will be complete.
The materials for forming an estimate of the typical character of the
burials of the Viking time in Norway are ample, and they have been very
fully described by the Norwegian archæologists. Upwards of a thousand
graves of this period are known. The form of burial which they exhibit
is burial with grave-goods. The burial is usually covered by a mound,
either round or oblong in shape. The mounds vary greatly in size, but
they differ from those of the early Iron Age, and of all previous ages,
in being usually unfurnished with either cist or chamber. Stones are
often found set round the burial, which, when the body was unburnt, was
simply laid on the natural surface, and the mound heaped over it. In
Norway the custom of burning the body exceeds in frequency the custom of
burying unburnt by about four to one. Where the body has been burnt it
is usually found that the grave-goods have also passed through the fire,
but this is not always the case. The burnt remains are either found
spread over the area of the base of the mound or gathered together in a
heap in the centre. Very frequently they are found placed in an urn. The
urns of the Viking time are very rarely made of clay, but are either
hollowed out of some soft stone, such as steatite, or they are caldrons
made of thin plates of iron riveted together, or beaten out in bronze.
The grave-goods buried with these interments include the clothing,
weapons, implements, or ornaments used or possessed by the deceased, and
the furnishings of the grave are thus rich in proportion to the wealth
and station of the individual.
[Illustration: Fig. 27.—Sword found at Vik, in Norway.]
The sword which is characteristic of these interments in Norway is a
peculiar weapon. It is long, broad-bladed, often double-edged, and
usually furnished with a short, straight guard and a triangular pommel.
One which was ploughed up from a grave-mound at Vik, in Flaa Sogn in
Norway, in 1837, is shown in Fig. 27 for comparison with those of the
same type found in Scotland. I have said that we have no Celtic sword of
this type. It is the type which prevailed in Scandinavia during the last
three centuries of their heathen period. It differs from the types that
preceded and succeeded it in Norway, and it differs also from the types
of swords of the later Iron Age in other countries of Europe. It is
specially the sword of the Norwegian Viking.
As the sword is the most characteristic object among the grave-goods of
the man, the brooch is also the most characteristic object among the
grave-goods of the woman. The brooch, which is constantly found in these
interments in Norway, is a most peculiar ornament. It is always of
brass, massive, oval, and bowl-shaped in form, and is distinguished from
all other brooches that are known, not only of this, but of every other
area and every other time, by the fact that it is an article of personal
adornment which (though as capable of being used singly as any other
form of fibula might be), is almost never found singly, but constantly
occurs in pairs—the one being usually an almost exact duplicate of the
other. This singular type of brooch is the special ornament of the
female dress which prevailed in Norway during the last three centuries
of their heathen period.[21] It differs entirely from the types that
preceded and succeeded it; and it differs as completely from the types
of the later Iron Age in all other European countries.
-----
Footnote 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.
-----
We therefore see that if the sword thus found in Islay had been dug up
in Norway it would have taken its place as one in a great series of the
ordinary Viking type, and these brooches from the woman’s grave would
have matched exactly with some hundreds of similar pairs from Norwegian
graves.[22] The whole group of objects would have corresponded with the
special characters of many similar groups preserved in the Christiania
Museum. The special forms of each of the members of the groups—as, for
instance, the forge-tongs, the hammer, the adze, the axes,—are all forms
that are abundantly represented in Viking graves there. Nicolaysen gives
twenty-three instances of smithy-hammers, and seventeen instances of
forge-tongs among the articles found in grave-mounds of the Viking time
described by him, in Norway. Several of these grave-mounds contained
more or less complete sets of smith’s tools, including anvils, chisels,
files, as well as hammers and tongs. Along with an interment of this
period at Thiele, in Jutland, there were two anvils of different forms,
four different kinds of hammers, four varieties of pincers or
forge-tongs, two chisels, two implements for drawing wire, four files,
two melting pans, a pair of scales and weights, and a quantity of other
implements. It was natural that the smith’s craft should hold a high
place in the estimation of a people wholly devoted to the use of arms,
and as famous for their skill in forging, tempering, and ornamenting
weapons as for their prowess in using them. But such homelier objects as
the pot and the saucepan of the Islay graves are common accompaniments
of these interments in Norway, and the counterparts of the implement of
black glass found in the woman’s grave may be seen in the museums of
that country, and their purpose demonstrated by specimens that are
actually still in use. Nicolaysen describes them as lumps of glass
formed like the bottom of a bottle, and the character of the objects
usually associated with them may be indicated by the contents of one
grave-mound in which this implement occurs. The mound was a large one,
44½ feet long, and 73 feet broad, set round the base with large stones.
It contained an interment after cremation. The ashes were gathered into
a bronze vessel, 8 inches high, and 17 inches in greatest diameter, over
which was inverted a pot of steatite, both vessels enclosing a quantity
of iron implements cemented into a solid mass of oxidation and burnt
human bones. Among the implements were a lump of glass like the bottom
of a bottle, a knife-blade, the rings of a bridle-bit, an axe, a
sickle-blade, a whetstone, some bronze ornaments, and an ox-horn.
Alongside of the bronze vessel were a spear-head and a frying-pan of
iron, 8½ inches diameter, with 7 inches of the handle remaining, and all
around were large quantities of clinker nails. Here the associations of
the glass implement are similar in character to its associations in the
Islay graves. Its purpose is demonstrated by the facts recorded by
Nicolaysen and Lorange, who state that in Mandal Amt and in several
remote districts on the west coast of Norway, the women still use them
for giving a gloss to their white linen caps, and generally for getting
up a gloss on linen by friction.[23]
-----
Footnote 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.”
Footnote 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.
-----
[Illustration: Back view.]
[Illustration: Front view.]
[Illustration: Section.]
Fig. 28.—Linen Smoother of Black Glass, modern (3 inches diameter).