Fig. 209.—Cup made from Vertebra of Whale from Broch of Burray (4½ inches high).
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
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.
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.
Fig. 210.—Bone Button with iron shank, Fragment of Comb and Pins of Bone and Bronze from Broch of Burray (actual size).
Fig. 211.—Polished Bone Pin from Broch of Burwick. (Actual size.)