Figs. 738 and 739.]
CHAPTER XIII.
Early Pottery of Scotland—Cinerary Urns—Mediæval Pottery—Glasgow—Delft Ware—Verreville Pottery—Garnkirk Works—Gartcosh Works—Heathfield Pottery—Glasgow Pottery—North British Pottery—Saracen Pottery—Port Dundas Pottery Company—Hyde Park Potteries—Britannia Pottery—Annfield Pottery—Bridgeton Pottery—Barrowfield Pottery—Coatbridge—Glenboig Star Works—Glenboig Fire-Clay Works—Cardowan and Heathfield Works—Paisley—Ferguslie Works—Shortroods and Caledonia Works—Paisley Earthenware Works—Crown Works—Grangemouth—Fire-brick Works—Greenock—Clyde Pottery—Dumbarton—Rutherglen—Caledonia Pottery—Portobello—Midlothian Potteries—Portobello Pottery—Kirkcaldy—Sinclairtown Pottery—Kirkcaldy Pottery—Gallatown Pottery—Boness—Boness Pottery—Prestonpans Pottery—Alloa—Alloa Pottery—The Hebrides.
Scotland.
The early pottery of Scotland appears, as a general rule, to bear a close analogy to that of England both in form, in intention of use, and in ornamentation. The cinerary urns, the food and other vessels, and the immolation urns, all bear a marked resemblance to those of the sister country, and lead one to the inference that the same feelings, habits, and customs obtained in the one nation as the other. A cinerary urn found on the Hill of Tuack is of identical shape and pattern of ornament with the one engraved on Fig. [15] of Vol. I., while others bear an equally strong resemblance to others already engraved. To Professor Wilson the antiquarian world is indebted for much valuable information concerning the early pottery of Scotland, and to his important and standard work, the “Pre-Historic Annals of Scotland,”[71] it owes most of the knowledge it possesses of this, and other important branches of national history. “It is altogether impossible,” says the learned Professor, “within the limited amount of accurately observed facts with which the Scottish archæologist has to deal, to picture and classify into distinct periods the pottery found in the ancient tumuli and cairns. Many of the fictilia are so devoid of art as to furnish no other sign of advancement in their constructors from the most primitive state of barbarism, than such as is indicated by the piety which provided a funeral pyre for their dead, and even so rude a vase, wherein their ashes might be inurned.... The rudimentary form of the true cinerary urn is that of the common flower-pot, still retained as the easiest and simplest into which the plastic clay can be modelled.... From this simple shape was gradually developed the varying forms both of sepulchral and domestic pottery found deposited with the dead; inurning the sacred ashes and the costly tributes of affectionate reverence, or placed in the grave with offerings of food and drink designed to sustain the deceased on his final journey to the world of spirits.” Fig. [740] is of this form and is almost identical with the English example Fig. [15], Vol. I. It is from the Hill of Tuack, near Kintore, in Aberdeenshire, and was found in the usual inverted position close to one of the monoliths of the stone circle at the place. Another of the same form, Fig. [741], ornamented with impressed dots and incised herringbone pattern, was dug up in 1855 on the farm of Belhelvie, in Fifeshire. It was 4 feet 6 inches in circumference at the mouth, and when perfect must have been about 2 feet in height. When found it was, as is commonly the case, inverted, as shown in the engraving, and was imperfect. Another fine example is engraved on Fig. [742]. It measures thirteen and a half inches in height, and was dug up at the Ha’ Hill of Montblairy, in Banffshire. It bears a marked resemblance to many English examples, both in general form and in ornamentation; it bears encircling lines of herringbone or zigzag ornament.
Fig. 740.—From the Hill of Tuack, near Kintore.
Fig. 741.—From Belhelvie, Fifeshire.