by Mr. Gilbert Goudie in 1869 and 1871 (Fig. 207), had an internal
diameter of 29½ to 30 feet, the wall varying in thickness from 12 to 16
feet, while the greatest height of wall remaining was 15 feet. It
presented the unusual feature of a “scarcement” or secondary wall, about
6 feet high and 6 feet wide, built against the face of the interior
wall. From this secondary construction there were five buttress-like
projections from 2½ to 4½ feet in length, placed at regular distances
from each other, and extending into the enclosed area. At one side of
the area opposite the shortest of the projecting walls was a fireplace
(_d_), consisting of three flags placed on edge. The entrance passage
(_b e f_) led straight through the wall of the Broch and through the
secondary wall in its interior, widening to the outer part of the
secondary wall. There were two of the lintels of the passage remaining,
but the outer part of the original entrance way was much dilapidated. On
this account perhaps the checks for the door were not visible and there
is no appearance of guard-chambers. Contrary to the usual experience
also, the stair ascends from an opening to the right of the main
entrance in the middle of the east side of the building (at _h_ on the
plan), and ascending to a height of 8 or 10 feet, enters a level gallery
which apparently went half way round the building to the west side (at
_m_ on the plan), where there is another flight of 15 steps remaining.
At the point where this second flight of steps starts from the gallery,
there is a window opening to the interior area. This arrangement of the
stair differs from that of Mousa. At the Broch of Yarhouse
[Illustration: Fig. 208.—Bronze Knob found in Broch of Harray (3½ inches
in length).] in Caithness what remained of the stair was similarly
divided into two flights, though the distance between them was less than
at Levenwick. The objects found in this Broch were few, consisting of
quern-stones, pounders, and roughly-hollowed stones. It is chiefly
interesting on account of the variation exhibited in its structural
details.
In one of the Brochs in the parish of Harray, in Orkney, excavated by
Mr. Farrer, a number of stone lamps, circular discs, and perforated
stones were found, and along with them the bronze object here figured
(Fig. 208).[86]
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Footnote 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.
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The East Broch of Burray, also explored by Mr. Farrer, yielded a number
of stone vessels of various sizes, a lamp of stone, a thin circular disc
of mica schist, polished, like those found in the Brochs of Old Stirkoke
and Kintradwell, small bead-like objects made of bone, a bone cup made
of one of the vertebral joints of a small whale (Fig. 209), a number of
bone pins from 1½ to 3½ inches long, four long-handled combs of bone,
two broken portions of double-edged combs of the same [Illustration:
Fig. 209.—Cup made from Vertebra of Whale from Broch of Burray (4½
inches high).] material, a bronze pin with a flat circular head (Fig.
210), and an iron chisel and knife-blade. [Illustration: Fig. 210.—Bone
Button with iron shank, Fragment of Comb and Pins of Bone and Bronze
from Broch of Burray (actual size).] Besides the ordinary unglazed
pottery of native manufacture there was found in this Broch a fragment
of the red lustrous ware commonly called Samian. This ware, which is
found abundantly on the sites of Roman settlements, as at Inveresk for
instance, is always one of the most characteristic indications of Roman
influence, and its presence necessarily betokens some degree of contact
with the effects of Roman civilisation. In this Broch also a quantity of
charred bere or barley lay on the floor, and the most remarkable feature
of the collection of food refuse from its rubbish was the presence among
the bones of the ordinary domestic animals, of great numbers of the
horns of the red-deer, many of which belonged to animals of considerable
size. There are now no red-deer in Orkney, but there is no Broch which
does not contain their remains abundantly.
[Illustration: Fig. 210.—Bone Button with iron shank, Fragment of Comb
and Pins of Bone and Bronze from Broch of Burray (actual size).]
At Burwick, near Stromness, in Orkney, a Broch situated on a rugged
promontory rising to a considerable height above the sea has been
recently explored by Mr. W. G. T. Watt. The external appearance of the
ruin previous to its excavation was that of a circular mound about 15 to
20 feet in height occupying the whole width of the promontory and
sloping to the crag on both sides. On the landward side, about 50 feet
from the exterior margin of the base of the mound, there is a deep and
wide ditch across the neck of the promontory isolating the part on which
the tower stands from the mainland. The ditch is 160 feet long and about
40 feet wide, and is faced on the inner side by a well-built wall 9 feet
high, 6 feet thick at the bottom, and sloping to from 3 to 4 feet at the
top. The Broch itself consists of the usual circular wall, averaging
from 12 to 13 feet in thickness. No part of the wall now exceeds 16 feet
in height. The entrance to the interior area of the Broch is 5 feet 2
inches high, 3 feet 5 inches wide at the bottom and 3 feet 1 inch at the
top. The passage through the wall is paved in the bottom and
[Illustration: Fig. 211.—Polished Bone Pin from Broch of Burwick.
(Actual size.)] diminishes slightly in width and height until at the
distance of 9 feet 9 inches inwards, where there are checks for a door,
the opening of the doorway is only 4 feet 6 inches high and 2 feet 11
inches wide. Inside this doorway the passage widens by 12 inches on
either side, and on the right side there is a guard-chamber entering by
a doorway 3 feet 5 inches high and 2 feet wide, lighted by an opening
above the lintel of about 1 foot square. The chamber seems to have been
about 12 feet long and has been roofed in the usual manner by
overlapping stones. The interior area was occupied by secondary
constructions founded at a height of 3 feet above the original
floor-level upon a bed of stones and rubbish which had accumulated to
that depth upon the original floor previous to the time of this
secondary occupation. The area within the Broch wall, which had been
originally 24 feet in diameter, was diminished to 16 feet in diameter by
a roughly-constructed circular wall or “scarcement” built against the
inner wall of the Broch, rising to the height of about 6 feet. Unlike
many of these “scarcements,” it presents great inequality in thickness,
varying from about 7 feet on one side of the area to about 2½ on the
other. The area is further intersected in various directions by several
partition walls of the same inferior character of masonry. The space
outside the Broch wall, intervening between it and the ditch, is also
occupied by secondary constructions, and an underground passage has been
traced for about 50 feet towards the ditch.
[Illustration: Fig. 212.—Long-Handled Bone Comb from the Broch of
Burwick (4½ inches in length).]
The articles found during the excavation consisted of a number of stone
pounders or hammer-stones, wasted at the ends by use, round flat stone
discs of various sizes roughly chipped to shape, broken mortars or
vessels of various sizes roughly hollowed in naturally-shaped boulders
of sandstone (one being apparently a stone mould for an iron _crusie_),
a considerable number of bone implements of various kinds, among which
are several bone pins, one of which (Fig. 211) is flat at the point, has
an ornamented head, and has been furnished with a loop for suspension at
the side; a polished bone handle in which an instrument, apparently of
iron, has been inserted; two spindle-whorls, one of bone and the other
of stone; portions of deer-horns cut into slips and pierced by
peg-holes; two long-handled combs made of deer-horn, one of which is
here figured (Fig. 212); one double-edged comb of bone, and one
single-edged comb with round back (Fig. 213), both formed in several
pieces, [Illustration: Fig. 213.—Round-backed, single-edged Comb from
Broch of Burwick.] neatly joined and held together by transverse slips
of bone fastened with rivets. The only iron object found was a portion
of a cylindrical rod. The pottery was coarse, thick, unglazed, and
unornamented, except one piece of dark-coloured ware resembling the
black ware made in Roman kilns in several parts of England. The animal
remains were chiefly those of the ox, the sheep or goat, the horse, the
swine, and the red-deer.
The Broch of Okstrow, in Birsay, excavated by Mr. Leask of Boardhouse,
yielded a number of the commoner implements of stone, such as
hammer-stones and rough circular discs, a well-made cup of sandstone, 3½
inches in diameter [Illustration: Fig. 214.—Cap of Sandstone from Broch
of Okstrow (3½ inches in diameter).] (Fig. 214), its cavity still
bearing the marks of the pointed tool by which it was fashioned; a thin
flat disc of compact slaty stone, 3¼ inches diameter, smoothly polished
on both sides, and ground flat on the edges like those from the Brochs
of Burray, Old Stirkoke, and Kintradwell; three lamps of sandstone, one
of which seems an unskilful imitation of the form of a Roman lamp (Fig.
215); while the others (Fig. <span class='htmlonly'>216</span><span
class='epubonly'>216</span>) are similar to the lamp from Kettleburn.
[Illustration: Figs. 215, 216.—Lamps from the Broch of Okstrow.] Among
the other objects found were two of the long-handled combs of bone, a
flat piece of bone resembling a weaver’s rubbing implement for smoothing
or calendering the web after it is woven, and several spindle-whorls of
stone and bone; a bone ring, 2 inches diameter, perforated with small
holes, and a tableman made of an ox tooth. [Illustration: Fig.
217.—Bronze Pin from Broch of Okstrow (4¾ inches in length).] The
objects in metal were a bronze pin, 4¾ inches in length (Fig. 217),
ornamented with [Illustration: Fig. 218.—Penannular Brooch of Bronze
from Broch of Okstrow (1½ inch in diameter).] engraved lines, and having
a small ring, ¾ inch in diameter, inserted in a loop at the head of the
pin; a small penannular brooch of bronze of Celtic form (Fig. 218), with
flattened and slightly expanded ends terminating in the semblance of
animals’ heads; and a mounting of bronze, 3 inches in length (Fig. 219),
chased on the upper surface, and having perforated prolongations, as if
for fastening it to some other object. Besides the usual fragments of
plain unglazed pottery of native manufacture, there were in this Broch
again several pieces of the red lustrous ware commonly called Samian.
These pieces indicate two vessels—one a bowl of about 6 inches diameter;
the other a shallow straight-sided vessel of considerable size. Both had
been broken and mended by the insertion of soft metal clamps in holes
drilled close to the sides of the fracture.
[Illustration: Fig. 219.—Mounting of Bronze from Broch of Okstrow (3
inches in length).]
[Illustration: Figs. 215, 216.—Lamps from the Broch of Okstrow.]
[Illustration: Fig. 217.—Bronze Pin from Broch of Okstrow (4¾ inches in
length).]
[Illustration: Fig. 218.—Penannular Brooch of Bronze from Broch of
Okstrow (1½ inch in diameter).]
[Illustration: Fig. 219.—Mounting of Bronze from Broch of Okstrow (3
inches in length).]
[Illustration: Fig. 220.—Ground Plan of the Broch of Lingrow, Orkney,
with its Secondary Constructions. (From a Plan by Mr. George Petrie and
Sir H. Dryden.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 221.—Pebble of Quartzite marked by use as a
point-sharpener, from Broch of Lingrow (2½ inches in length).]
The Broch of Lingrow at the head of the Bay of Scapa, near Kirkwall,
explored by the late Mr. George Petrie, had little of its height
remaining, but was specially remarkable for the number and extent of the
outbuildings clustered round its base. These were not all explored, but
so far as they were laid bare they are shown on the plan (Fig. 220). The
articles found were—a large number of querns, a stone lamp, a number of
quartz pebbles indented on their flat sides by use as [Illustration:
Fig. 221.—Pebble of Quartzite marked by use as a point-sharpener, from
Broch of Lingrow (2½ inches in length).] point-sharpeners (Fig. 221),
like those from the Broch of Kintradwell, a large number of implements
in red-deer horn, one of which is shown (Fig. 222), bone pins and
needles, and long-handled combs, spindle-whorls of stone, some fragments
of bronze, a clay mould (Fig. 223) for casting bronze pins with open
circular heads bearing the same ornamentation, and precisely of the same
form as the pin from Bowermadden (Fig. 203), in Caithness; playing dice
of bone, and a very large quantity of pottery ornamented in various
patterns, but all unglazed, and of the coarse black paste characteristic
of native manufacture. [Illustration: Fig. 222.—Implement of Deer-horn
from Broch of Lingrow (4¼ inches in length).] In different parts of the
outbuildings there were found four silver Roman coins—denarii of the
Empire. Mr. Petrie did not live to draw up a detailed account of the
excavation, and his notes do not indicate the reigns to which the coins
severally belonged.[87] But the occurrence in this Broch of imperial
coins, and in others of the red lustrous ware of late Roman or
Gallo-Roman origin are indications of the occupation of the Brochs
subsequently to the Roman conquest of the southern part of Britain.
[Illustration: Fig. 222.—Implement of Deer-horn from Broch of Lingrow
(4¼ inches in length).]
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Footnote 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.”
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[Illustration: Fig. 223.—Clay Mould for casting Bronze Pins, from Broch
of Lingrow (actual size).]