The archæology and prehistoric annals of Scotland

by Sir Daniel Wilson

As we cannot doubt but that these buried records of primitive native history have as yet been only very partially disclosed, so also we may hope that the rarer and more curious relics of the precious metals are also unexhausted, and that golden horns and silver beakers, adorned with the well-defined decorations of the Archaic era of native art, may still lie safely garnered in the same store-house and registry from whence so many historic records have been drawn forth, reserved for better times, when their discovery shall no longer involve their destruction. It will be seen from the number and variety of personal ornaments of the same precious metals described in future chapters, that such ideas are not mere chimerical dreams. Whencesoever the metal was derived, gold appears to have been used in Scotland to a very great extent, from the earliest period of the introduction of the metals, and to have been frequently deposited in the sepulchres of the most honoured dead, with no fear that sacrilegious hands would disturb the sacred deposit.

Vessels of bronze are by no means so rare as those of the precious metals. They are not indeed often found in the tumuli, and have obviously been held in less esteem than the weapons and personal ornaments of the same metal. But among the interesting disclosures brought to light by the draining of bogs and lakes, and the ordinary processes of agriculture, no class of relics have been more frequently discovered than the various culinary and domestic utensils of bronze, generally known by the names of Roman tripods and camp-kettles. Some of these do undoubtedly belong to the Anglo-Roman era; but the whole have been much too indiscriminately assigned to the legionary invaders and colonists, whose occupation of Scotland was equally brief and partial, and whose relics must therefore form a very small proportion even of those of the later period to which they belong.

Bronze Cauldron, Kincardine Moss.

In the "Account of the Dominion of Farney," by Evelyn Philip Shirley, Esq., an engraving is given of a singular cauldron, made with considerable taste and skill, of plates of hammered bronze, rivetted together with pins of the same metal, the heads of which are conical in form, and being regularly disposed, serve to decorate as well as to secure the vessel. Two bronze rings are fastened to the inside of the rim by ornamental staples, and with these it was obviously designed to be suspended over the fire. This remarkable relic, which measures sixty inches in widest circumference, was discovered in the year 1834, at a depth of twelve feet below the surface of a bog, in the barony of Farney, Ulster. Bronze rings and staples, similar to those attached to this ancient cauldron, have been frequently found in Scotland. One of them has been already referred to, which was dredged out of Duddingstone Loch, near Edinburgh, along with a large quantity of bronze arms. Several others are preserved in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, two of which (measuring each 4¾ inches in diameter) were found along with the bronze cauldron here represented. Its dimensions are twenty-five inches in greatest diameter, and sixteen inches in height. No question can exist of its native workmanship. The rings and staples are neatly designed, but rudely and imperfectly cast and finished, and are decorated exactly as those of the Farney cauldron. The circles embossed on the side of the vessel are in like manner such as have been frequently noted on objects of the Bronze Period, both in Britain and on the Continent. Nevertheless, in accordance with the classical system of designation which is even yet only partially exploded, this remarkable native relic figures in the printed list of donations in the Archæologia Scotica as a Roman camp-kettle. It was dug up in the year 1786, from the bottom of the peat-moss of Kincardine, some miles west from Stirling, where it was discovered lying upon a stratum of clay beneath the moss, which generally ranges from seven to twelve feet deep. Evidence has already been referred to which leads to the conclusion that the moss of Kincardine was in the same state at the period of Agricola's invasion as it continued to be till nearly the close of the eighteenth century. A curious allusion to this locality, in Blind Harry's Life of Sir William Wallace, which refers to the moss as incapable of passage on horseback, leaves us in no doubt as to its condition in the fourteenth century. After Wallace and his adherents had surprised an English garrison in the Peel of Gargunnoch,

"Yai bownyt yaim our Forth for to ryde;
The moss was strang, to ryde yaim was na but,
Wallace was wycht, and lychtyd on hys fute;
Stewyn of Irland he was yair gyd that nycht
Towart Kincardyn, syne restyt thar atright,
In a forest, that was bathe lang and wyde,
Rycht fra the moss grew to the wattir-syde."[324]

Another large shallow vessel of hammered copper, made entirely of one piece, is in the same collection with the above. It bears considerable resemblance to one discovered at Huckeridge Hill, near Sawston, Cambridgeshire, in 1816, and figured with other "Celtic remains" in the Archæologia, (vol. xviii. Pl. XXIV.,) but wants the embossed ornaments which encircle the rim of the latter. It measures fully eighteen inches in diameter by six inches deep, and was found at a depth of eighteen feet below the present level of the Cowgate, Edinburgh. Notwithstanding the difficulty of accounting for so great an accumulation of soil, there is perhaps greater probability in assigning this as part of the curta supellex of some wealthy citizen of the Scottish capital, at a period belonging to the latest epoch of the archæologist.[325] But no doubt can be entertained as to the remote era of another such relic already referred to,—the large bronze cauldron dug up about eighteen years since in a bog in King's County, and now in the collection of the Earl of Rosse. Among the smaller examples of Scottish bronze vessels, one is specially deserving of notice, which was found by a labourer while cutting turf in Lochar Moss, Dumfriesshire, about two miles north from Cumlongan Castle, accompanied by relics of pure native character. It is a small bowl of graceful form, measuring six and a half inches in diameter and three in depth, formed of thin bronze plate of the bright colour common to many of our primitive relics, and very skilfully wrought. Within it lay one of the curious ornamental collars more particularly described in a later page,[326] to which the name of Beaded Torc is now assigned. Lochar Moss, where these interesting antiquities were discovered, has proved a fertile field for archæological treasures of many different eras,—primitive canoes, native stone and bronze relics, products of Roman civilisation and medieval art; while within it lie embedded the trunks of gigantic oaks and other natives of the forest, which once occupied the area of this ancient and extensive morass.

Of the more usual forms of tripods, kettles, and cauldrons of bronze, which are commonly assigned to the Romans, I must speak with more hesitation, though both the circumstances under which these have been found, and the style of some of their decorations, are sufficient to shew that they have been much too summarily classed among foreign productions. So long as bronze continued to be the rare and precious metal which we find good evidence for concluding it to have been during a transition-period of considerable duration, we may be well assured that neither domestic utensils, nor such implements of common use as the older material could supply, would be manufactured of it. We have abundant proof, however, that the supply of the metals kept pace with the increasing demands of progressive civilisation; and as this gradually displaced the old barbarian habits of the Caledonian savage by more refined tastes, the gratification of the palate would be aimed at along with the simpler desire for the mere supply of animal wants. Hence we may trace in the bronze cauldron and the tripod evidences of native civilisation, though doubtless of a late period, and not improbably, in many cases, coeval with the era of Roman invasion. Bronze vessels, of the description to which we refer, have been frequently found not only in the north of Scotland and in Ireland, but in Denmark and Sweden, where no Roman legions ever established a footing; though we must, of course, bear in remembrance that Roman culinary implements, like Roman coins, might reach many regions which their makers never visited. But classical writers make special reference to the abundance of such vessels among the Gauls, and even ascribe to the Bituriges the invention of the art of tinning them.[327] In the Samlingar för Nordens Fornälskare, (Plate XXII. vol. ii.,) an ancient Swedish bronze vessel is represented, in no way differing from the common form of what is here invariably designated a Roman camp-kettle, but surrounded with an ornamental belt, decorated with what appear in the engraving somewhat like Runic characters. A still more remarkable medieval example of the bronze kettle is engraved in the Archæologia[328] under the name of an ancient hunting pot. It is of the same common form, but is ornamented in relief with the symbols of the Evangelists, and with various devices, chiefly relating to the chase, and is encircled with the following inscriptions:—Vilelmus Angetel me fecit fieri. And underneath, in smaller characters, this couplet,—

Je sui pot de graunt honhur
Viaunde a fere de bon savhur.