The archæology and prehistoric annals of Scotland

by Sir Daniel Wilson

A still more remarkable class of monumental stones remain to be described, including the singular sculptured pillars, peculiar, it is believed, to Scotland. But we have already trespassed on the relics of later eras, and these necessarily belong to a period long posterior to that when the rude aboriginal Caledonian possessed no other tools than the stone hammer and the flint chisel or arrow-head, with which to grave the memorial of his fame and the annals of his race.

In the investigations of the archæologist, even though devoted, as this inquiry is, to the examination of ancient memorials within an extremely circumscribed area, he frequently finds that he is dealing with the evidences of certain phases of progressive civilisation in the history of the race, rather than with mere national peculiarities. The farther research is pursued this becomes the more apparent, and we learn, without much surprise, from the recent invaluable researches in the valley of the Mississippi,[129] that the ancient tumuli of the American continent are found to contain, amid many relics peculiar to the new world, stone celts and hammers, flint and bone arrow and lance heads, and other primitive weapons and implements so precisely resembling those disinterred from the early British barrows, that the most experienced eye could hardly tell the one from the other. To conclude from this that we have found evidence of an affinity of race, or of mutual intercourse between the rude aborigines of Britain and America in that mysterious period of the long forgotten past, however plausible it might seem at first sight, would be to adopt a theory which the investigation of the arts of modern races, such as the natives of Polynesia, must at once dispel. The same correspondence of primitive weapons is found in the north of Europe, in the steppes of Asia, in the ancient tumuli near the Black Sea, and even mingling with the evidences of earliest civilisation on the banks of the Tigris and the Nile. We must look, therefore, for the means of accounting for such remarkable correspondence of primitive tools, to some cause operating naturally at a certain stage of development in the human mind. It is the first manifestation of man's intelligent instincts as a tool-using animal, and furnishes a singular evidence of the instinctive faculties which belong to him as well as to the lower animals, though few and uncertain traces of these remain distinguishable where civilisation has fostered the nobler faculty of reason, and brought it into healthy and vigorous play.

It is not unworthy of note, in the exhibition of a more advanced stage of the same development of features pertaining to the human mind in its progressive civilisation, that there seems also to have been an epoch in the early history of man, when what may be styled the monolithic era of art has been developed under the utmost variety of circumstances. In Egypt it was carried out, with peculiar refinement, by a people whose knowledge of sculpture and the decorative arts proves that it had its origin in a far deeper source than the mere barbarous love of vast and imposing masses. In Assyria, India, Persia, and throughout the Asiatic continent, this monolithic taste appears to have manifested itself among many independent and widely severed races. In Mexico and the central portions of the American continent, a people parted apparently by impassable oceans from the old world, have left enduring evidences of this psychological phenomenon; and in the north of Europe, under circumstances no less widely different from all these nations, numerous monolithic columns and groups attest the same pervading idea. In our own island, more especially, where now we are content to build a monumental obelisk, just as we do a cotton-mill chimney, with successive tiers of stone, we possess some of the most remarkable remains of this peculiar class. The destructive encroachments of civilisation, and the ruthless assaults of the quarrier and the builder, have done much to obliterate these singularly interesting memorials of primitive antiquity. Already the vast temple of Avebury has all but disappeared, like an old ripple-mark of the tide of time. But there still remain, in the huge cromlechs, circles, and standing stones scattered throughout the land, abundant evidence of the influence of the same peculiar taste on the early races of the British Isles, originating, as I conceive, in an unconscious aim at the expression of abstract power.

The convenient terms of Druid altars and temples have long supplied a ready resource for the absence of all knowledge of their origin or use. The cromlech has at length been restored to its true character as a sepulchral monument by the very simple process of substituting investigation for theory. But after the devotion of many learned and ponderous volumes to the attempted elucidation of Druidism, the subject has lost little of its original obscurity; and we shall follow a safer, if it be a less definite guide, in tracing the peculiar character of the so-called Druidical monuments to feelings which appear to have exercised so general an influence on the human race. The idea of the origin of these monolithic structures from some common source seems to have suggested itself to many minds. Colonel Howard Vyse, when describing the great hypæthral court, surrounded with colossal figures, which stands before the rock temple of Gerf Hossein, the ancient Tutzis, remarks:—"The massive architraves placed upon the top of these figures reminded me, like those at Sabooa, of Stonehenge; and it is not improbable that, together with religious traditions, the art of building temples may have even reached that place from Egypt."[130]

To speak, as some recent writers have done, as if the mechanical and engineering knowledge by which the Egyptians were able to quarry and erect their gigantic monoliths had become even a greater mystery to us than the hieroglyphic legends which they inscribed on them, is manifestly a hasty and altogether unfounded assumption. It is their taste, and not their skill, which is wanting. The modern eye is satisfied with the perfect proportions of the monumental column, without seeking the barbaric evidence of difficulties overcome implied in the lifting of it in one mass upon its pedestal. A few years since the workmen in Craigleith quarry, near Edinburgh, disengaged a mass of the fine sandstone of the district, capable of rivalling the colossal obelisks of Egypt; but the proprietor in vain advertised the feat, in the hope that some committee of taste would avail itself of the opportunity of once more erecting a British monolith of primitive mass; and he had at last to break it down into cubes adapted to the ordinary wants of the modern builder. When, however, such a feat has to be accomplished as the spanning of the Menai Straits with a railway viaduct, no lack of engineering skill is felt in coping with difficulties which may stand comparison with the most gigantic of the self-imposed feats of the old Egyptian builder.[131] We may fairly presume, therefore, that we have left the monolithic era behind us, not by the oblivion of former knowledge, but by the progress of the human mind beyond that stage of development when it finds its highest gratification in such displays of rude magnificence and vast physical power.

The Stones of Stennis, already referred to as the Orcadian Stonehenge, are unquestionably the most remarkable monolithic group in Scotland, and, indeed, if we except the great temple of Salisbury Plain, in the British Isles. Without entering meanwhile into any investigation of the evidence which various writers have derived from northern mythology or popular traditions, with a view to throw some light on the probable date of their origin, or the character of their builders, it furnishes a rational basis for the classification of such ancient monuments among the remains of the Primeval Period, that they exhibit no indication of having been hewn or shapen with tools. Unless the perforation of the stone of Odin be an exception, the columns have been erected just as they were dislodged from the earth; and we have only to account for their separation from the parent strata and their erection on the site which they still occupy. In this respect they correspond with the more ancient English temple of Avebury rather than with that of Stonehenge, which belongs to an era when efficient metallic tools, whether of bronze or iron, must have supplied the means of hewing the gigantic columns into some degree of uniformity, and fitting the lintels to the upright columns by means of the mortice and tennon still discoverable amid the ruins of that wonderful monument of ancient skill. We are not altogether without some evidence to induce the belief that the early Caledonian did dislodge and cleave into amorphous columns the unquarried rocks with which his native soil abounded, when armed with no fitter tool than the stone wedge and hammer. The Rev. James Little, in furnishing Sir John Sinclair with an account of the antiquities of the parish of Southwick, in Kirkcudbright, mentions the discovery, on the estate of Southwick, "in the middle of a large granite stone, when blasted with gunpowder, in a socket exactly fitted to it, of a piece of the same kind of substance, smooth and polished, in form somewhat resembling a rude hatchet, about nine inches long. The virtuosi to whose inspection it was submitted did not hesitate immediately to pronounce it to be a hatchet which had been used by the Druids in performing sacrifices; which conjecture they imagined warranted by the vestiges of a Druidical temple very near where it was found."[132] The reverend Statist rather inclines to regard it as a lusus naturæ. A few years later another was found, under similar circumstances, in a cavity of an enormous mass of stone, on the farm of Mains, near Dumfries. It was also of polished granite; and from the outline of it in the Archæologia, no doubt can be entertained of its being a genuine stone wedge or celt.[133] Still it is not meant to assume from this that all such monuments were erected prior to the introduction of metals, but only that they indicate an origin coeval with the state of civilisation in which the use of metallic implements was, at best, but imperfectly known, and when the massive size of these rude unhewn monoliths abundantly satisfied the human mind in its desire for a visible shrine adequate to the awful mysteries shadowed forth in the heathen mythology.

The site of the celebrated Orkney group is perhaps little less remarkable than the venerable monuments to which it owes its name. A long and narrow neck of land separates the Loch of Stennis, a salt-water lake into which the tide rises and falls, from the fresh waters of the Loch of Harray, save at the narrow strait of Brogar, where at times the tidal wave mingles with the tideless waters of Harray; and on this, the great circle or Ring of Brogar, as it is most commonly styled, is reared. Judging from the regularity with which such of the stones as still remain are disposed, the number of columns originally forming the circle appears to have been sixty, on the assumption that they were placed at nearly equal distances apart. Of these sixteen remained in situ in 1792, and eight lay prostrate near their original sites; but now only twenty-three stones remain, ten of which are prostrate, and the broken stumps of a few more serve to indicate the places they once occupied. The whole is inclosed by a deep trench, except at two opposite points, where a level break occurs, affording the means of entrance and exit. The diameter of the great circle, from the inner edge of the trench, measures 366 feet. From the eastern entrance it is possible that an avenue of stones may have once led to the Bridge of Brogar, as the stepping-stones are styled by which the shallow channel between the Lochs of Harray and Stennis is crossed. On the eastern side of the channel one column still remains, bearing the name of the Watch Stone; derived apparently from its position on the brink of the ford commanding the passage between the great circle and the opposite shore, but which may possibly be the only relic of the avenue once connecting the circles on each side of the loch. The smaller group is now frequently designated, from its crescent form, the temple of the moon, and the larger circle that of the sun; but there can be no doubt that these are quite modern and spurious designations. Stennis Circle, as the smaller group is properly termed, is situated on a nearly level piece of ground, and its semicircular outline is further indicated by an inclosing mound of earth, presenting its opening to the south; whereas the larger circle is environed only by a fosse. This group was composed, at no very remote period, of seven or eight stones, but no doubt can be entertained that the figure was originally a circle, inclosing with its vallum, a large cromlech, the ruins of which still remain within the area. It is described by Wallace in 1700 as "a round set about with high smooth stones or flags;"[134] so that it would appear to have been complete at that comparatively recent period. It stood upon a raised circular platform, part of which still remains about three feet above the surrounding level. Beyond this is the embankment, forming a circle, the radius of which, measured from its outer edge, is 117 feet. The radius of the circle, on the circumference of which the stone columns were placed, is about fifty-two feet; and judging from the space between those still standing, twelve stones may be supposed to have completed the circle. But though so small a group when compared with the Ring of Brogar, its columns are fully double the average height of the great circle, and it must have presented, when perfect, a far more magnificent and imposing aspect. It is painful to think that within our own time these most interesting memorials of an era far beyond the date of written records have fallen a prey to ignorance, in that dangerous transition state when the trammels of superstition are broken through without being replaced by more elevated principles of veneration. An intelligent native of Orkney, who appears to have left his home about 1789, remarks in his MS. notes accompanying a valuable donation of books relating to the northern islands presented to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland:—"If Mr. Daniell's sketch of the Stones of Stennis (taken in 1818) be at all accurate, many of them have disappeared, and others fallen to the ground, since I can remember."[135] It was in the immediate neighbourhood of the smaller circle of Stennis that the Stone of Odin stood, completing, along with the adjacent earth-works alluded to in a former chapter, a group of primitive monuments, which, though inferior in magnitude to the vast temples of Wiltshire, or of Carnac in Brittany, are scarcely surpassed in interest even by these remarkable monuments.

I am indebted to Lieutenant Thomas, R.N., to whose liberal communications of the result of his observations in Orkney I have already referred, for careful observations and measurements made by him on the Stones of Stennis, of which the following are the most important results:—

The Great Circle of Stennis, or Ring of Brogar, is a deeply entrenched circular space, containing almost two acres and a half of superficies, of which the diameter is 366 feet. Around the circumference of the area, but about thirteen feet within the trench, are the erect stones, standing at an average distance of eighteen feet apart. They are totally unhewn, and vary considerably in form and size. The highest stone was found to be 13.9 feet above the surface, and, judging from some others which have fallen, it is sunk about eighteen inches in the ground. The smallest stone is less than six feet, but the average height is from eight to ten. The breadth varies from 2.6 to 7.9 feet, but the average may be stated at about five feet, and the thickness about one foot—all of the old red sandstone formation.

The trench around the area is in good preservation. The edge of the bank is still sharply defined, as well as the two foot-banks, or entrances, which are placed exactly opposite to each other. They have no relation to the true or magnetic meridian, but are parallel to the general direction of the neck of land on which the circle is placed. The trench is twenty-nine feet in breadth, and about six in depth, and the entrances are formed by narrow earth-banks across the fosse.