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.
-----
Footnote 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.
-----
[Illustration:
Fig. 260.—Ground plan of Earth-house at Tealing, Forfarshire.
(From a Plan by Andrew Jervise.)
]
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.
[Illustration: Fig. 261.—Sketch ground plan of Earth-house at Newstead,
and stone with Roman moulding found in it.]
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.
-----
Footnote 115:
Described by Dr. John Alexander Smith in _Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot._,
vol. i. p. 213.
-----
[Illustration: Fig. 262.—Ground plan of Earth-house at Crichton Mains,
Midlothian.]
[Illustration: Fig. 263.—Sections of Earth-house at A, D, and E on
ground plan.]
[Illustration: Fig. 264.—Ambry in Earth-house at Crichton Mains.]
[Illustration: Fig. 265.—Stones in Earth-house at Crichton Mains.]
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 [Illustration: Fig. 264.—Ambry in Earth-house at Crichton Mains.] 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 [Illustration:
Fig. 265.—Stones in Earth-house at Crichton Mains.] 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.
-----
Footnote 116:
Described by Lord Rosehill in _Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot._, vol. viii. p.
105.
Footnote 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.
-----
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]
-----
Footnote 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.
Footnote 119:
Paper by J. T. Blight, Esq., in _Archæologia_, vol. xl. p. 113, with
ground plan and woodcuts.
-----
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.
INDEX.
Aboyne, Aberdeenshire, bronze armlets found near, 148.
Aby, Sodermanland, Sweden, Runic monument at, 99, 101.
Airlie, Forfarshire, Earth-houses at, 292.
Analysis of oval bowl-shaped brooches, 41.
—— of bronze armlets, 148, 161.
Animal Remains found in Brochs, 215, 221, 222, 231, 237, 238.
Armlets of bronze, massive, penannular, decorated in relief and with
enamels, 141-155.
—— spiral and serpent-formed, 156-161.
—— found in Earth-houses, 297.
—— found in Broch of Yarhouse, 231.
Arm-rings of silver, 86, 87, 88, 109.
Arms buried with Christian dead, 5, 6.
Architecture of the Brochs of Scotland, 174-208.
Art, Celtic, of the Pagan Period, 112.
Auchenbadie, Banffshire, bronze armlets found at, 144.
Auchindoir, Aberdeenshire, Earth-houses at, 292.
Aucorn, Caithness, vessels of sandstone found at, 75.
Axe-head, inlaid with silver, from Mammen How, 97.
Axes found in Viking graves, 21.
Ayrshire, the crannogs of, 269.
Backies, Sutherlandshire, Broch of, 202.
Balearic Islands, the Talayots of, 206.
Ball of bronze ornamented with spiral patterns, 161, 162.
Balls of stone ornamented with spiral and other patterns, 162–170.
Ballinaby, Islay, Viking graves at, 14, 38.
Balmaclellan, Kirkcudbright, bronze mirror and other articles found at,
126.
Barra, grave mound in, 42.
Bayeux Tapestry, maces figured in the, 170.
Bead of Vitreous Paste found in Broch of Bowermadden, 233.
Beads of variegated glass found in Viking graves, 27.
Ben Ledi, Hill-Fort on a spur of, 275.
Birdlip, near Gloucester, bronze mirror found in a grave at, 132.
Birrenswark, Annandale, enamelled bridle-bit found at, 123.
Bishops buried with their vestments, 5.
Bodinar, Cornwall, hut structures at, 207.
Borrowston, Shapinsay, Orkney, Broch of, 197.
Bowermadden, Broch of, 232.
Braavalla Heath, battle of, 60.
Brass, hammer-marked plates of, found in Broch of Carn-liath, 222.
Brochs, Architecture of the, 174–208.
—— geographical distribution of the, 192.
Bronze, vessels of, from Dowalton Loch, 266, 268.
Brooch of Brass, circular, found at Yarhouse, 225.
Brooches, oval, bowl-shaped, found in Viking graves, 24, 38, 39, 40,
44, 45,57.
—— analysis of, 41.
—— geographical distribution of, 34.
—— silver, penannular, with knobs like thistle-heads, 54, 79, 81, 93,
101, 102.
Broomhouse, Berwickshire, Earth-house at, 282.
Brounaben, Caithness, Broch of, 200.
Buchaam, Strathdon, Earth-house at, 285.
Bunrannoch, Perthshire, bronze armlets found at, 149, 153.
Burghead, silver mounting of a drinking-horn found at, 46.
Burghead, fort built with logs and stones at, 279.
Burial, survival of Pagan customs in Christian, 3.
—— clothed and with grave-goods, 4, 5, 6, 7.
—— of laymen in clerical habits, 6.
Burials in the mounds covering the ruins of Brochs, 219, 225.
—— with urns of steatite in Orkney and Shetland, 66–76.
—— in Norway, 77.
Burraness, island of Yell, Shetland, Broch at, 184.
—— Unst, Shetland, Broch of, 195.
Burray, Orkney, east Broch of, 197,236.
Burrian, North Ronaldsay, Broch of, 245.
Burwick, near Stromness, Broch of, 202, 238.
Bute, island of, gold fillets and rings found in, 107.