Scotland in Pagan Times; The Iron Age

by Joseph Anderson

Fig. 31.—Brooch found in Tiree.

1. Under Shell of Brooch, gilt.

2. Upper Shell of pierced and chased work.

In the old Statistical Account of Tiree it is stated that, in digging at Cornaigbeg, there were found at different times human skeletons, and nigh them skeletons of horses. Swords, it is said, were also found, but diminished with rust,—silver-work preserved the handles; there were also shields and helmets. In March 1847 an oval bowl-shaped brooch of this special character, which had been found in Tiree, was exhibited to the Society by Sir John Graham Dalzell, but it was not left in the Museum, and it is not now known what became of it. But in 1872, the late Rev. Dr. Norman Macleod presented to the Museum a brooch of this character found in Tiree (Fig. [31]), which is almost precisely of the same pattern as those first found in Islay. It is 4¼ inches in length, 2¼ inches in breadth, and 1½ inch in height. It is double, and is here figured with the upper and under shells separated from each other so as to show the manner in which they were fitted and pinned together, so that the smooth-gilded surface of the under shell might shine through the pierced work of the upper. This brooch also presents a peculiar appearance common to them all, but which, in this instance, is strongly marked. The interior of the under shell is impressed with the texture of coarse cloth so distinctly, that the size, number, and interweaving of the threads are as visible as in the web. The cloth seems to be coarse linen, and the appearance is really an impression cast in the metal. These under shells were probably cast in moulds prepared in this way—the side of the mould corresponding to the convex surface with its ornamental border was cut in soft stone, a thickness of wet cloth was then fitted into it corresponding to the thickness of the metal, and over this a lump of clay was rammed hard; the clay was lifted and the cloth removed, thus leaving a cavity for the metal;[^[25]] the clay became one side of the mould and the stone the other, and, when the metal was run in, it produced a cast of the impression of the cloth retained upon the backing of clay. Thus these brooches present castings in metal of the textile fabrics of the eighth and ninth centuries, showing the thickness of its threads, the method of weaving, and the general finish of the fabric. But there is a still more interesting circumstance connected with them in respect to the cloth of the period when they were made and worn. In some instances they have not only preserved casts in the metal of the impression of cloth in the clay of the mould, but have actually preserved portions of the dress in which they were worn, or in which they were fixed when committed to the grave with the body of the wearer. I have already stated that they have usually had pins of iron, now represented by a lump of oxidation. In this brooch from Tiree, and also in one which I brought from Hakedalen, near Christiania, I have ascertained by careful examination of this lump of oxidation that it has enclosed and protected from decay a minute portion of puckered cloth which had been caught between the point of the thick pin and the iron catch into which it slipped when the brooch was fastened on the dress. I have been able to remove and mount for microscopical examination some small scraps of this cloth. It appears to be linen, but with a partial admixture of another fibre, which may be hemp, and I can detect no material difference between the cloth in the specimen from Norway and that from the island of Tiree on our own western coast.

Continuing our inquiry as to the area over which these peculiar relics have been found in Scotland, we ascertain that there are other instances of their occurrence in the Hebrides. On the island of Barra a large grave-mound, crowned by a standing stone 7 feet high, was opened by Commander Edge in 1862. The grave contained a skeleton placed with the head to the west, and along with it there were found an iron sword, 33 inches in length, with remains of the scabbard, a shield-boss of iron and some remains of the shield, a whetstone, two oval bowl-shaped brooches of this type, and a comb of bone, 8 inches in length.[^[26]] A similar burial was found “in the island of Sangay” (probably Sanderay) “between Uist and Harris.” The grave contained a skeleton, and with it were found a pair of these brooches (closely resembling Fig. 48, from Pierowall in Orkney), together with a brass pin and a brass needle.[^[27]] Even in remote St. Kilda the evidences of the occurrence of this typical form of burial are not wanting. A pair of these oval brooches found in that island are preserved in the Andersonian Museum, Glasgow.[^[28]]

Coming now to the mainland of Scotland, we find that one of these brooches is preserved in Ospisdale House, Sutherlandshire, of which there is no precise record; but there is every reason to conclude that it is one of a pair found somewhere in the neighbourhood. Another pair were found in a grave in the neighbourhood of Dunrobin Castle, and the under shells of them are preserved in the Duke of Sutherland’s museum there.

Fig. 32.—Bowl-shaped Brooch, found with a Skeleton at Castletown, Caithness (4½ inches in length).

In Caithness there have been occasional discoveries of interments of this character, but unfortunately no one seems to have thought a burial which was associated with “rusty pieces of old iron” worthy of careful investigation. The Rev. Mr. Pope records, incidentally,[^[29]] a remarkable discovery of swords “in a peat bank near the house of Haimar” in the neighbourhood of Thurso, and dismisses the subject with the remark that “they were odd machines resembling plough-shares, all iron.” A pair of oval bowl-shaped brooches of great beauty were found at Castletown in Caithness in 1786. One of these (Fig. [32]) is in the National Museum.[^[30]] It is 4½ inches in length and 3 inches in width. It is double-shelled, and the gilding, both on the under and upper shells, is still visible, although the “double row of silver cord along the edge,” which is noted in the first description of the brooches when they were presented by James Traill of Rattar in 1787, is now gone. The centre of the convexity of the brooch is surmounted by a bold ornament, in form somewhat resembling a crown. The ornamentation is distinctly zoomorphic, the four projecting ornaments below the centrepiece being carved into the form of animals’ heads. These brooches were “dug out of the top of the ruins” of a Broch near Castletown, and were found “lying beside a skeleton, buried under a flat stone with very little earth above it.” This evidently implies that the interment had been made in the upper part of the mound covering the ruins of the Broch.[^[31]]