The archæology and prehistoric annals of Scotland

by Sir Daniel Wilson

Many bronze vessels discovered in Scotland have been found on the draining or cutting of mosses, into which they may be supposed to have been thrown on the sudden flight either of the native Briton or the Roman invader, according as we incline to assign them to the one or the other. I am not aware, however, of such having yet been met with, either at any of the great Scoto-Roman coloniæ, such as Inveresk or Cramond, or on the sites of the legionary stations on the wall of Antoninus, though the remarkable discovery of Roman relics at Auchindavy, in 1771, including five altars and a statue, all huddled together in one pit, furnishes no doubtful evidence of the precipitancy with which the legionary cohorts were compelled to abandon the Caledonian wall.[329] An interesting discovery of such bronze vessels was made a few years since in the grounds immediately adjoining the cloisters of Melrose Abbey, and distant only a few miles from the Roman station, near Eildon. Similar objects have in like manner been frequently discovered in Galloway, Nithsdale, and in the district surrounding Birrenswork Hill, the celebrated Blatum Bulgium, where, among other curious relics of the Roman invaders, was found the winged figure of the goddess Brigantia, a supposed native deity adopted by the complaisant conquerors into the orthodox Pantheon of the Roman world. All these districts, however, abound still more with traces of native occupation, such as the most classical of modern Oldbucks would hesitate to ascribe to a Roman origin. While, however, I feel satisfied that many of these bronze vessels are the products of native art, others are unquestionably Roman, and many more have probably been made after Roman models, so that the attempt to discriminate between them is attended with difficulty. The mere rudeness of workmanship of many of them is not in itself a conclusive argument against their Roman manufacture, since we are hardly justified in looking for all the refinements of classic art in the furniture of the camp kitchen. It may fairly, however, suggest doubts, which receive stronger confirmation when we find it associated with forms peculiar to the northern designer: as in the snake-head with which the spout is frequently terminated. Such is the case with one of the so-called Roman tripods in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, which was found in its present imperfect state at a depth of five feet below the surface, in a moss near Closeburn Hall, Dumfriesshire. It is of a form of very frequent occurrence, and the decoration of the spout, though also not uncommon, is such as an unprejudiced critic would be much more inclined to ascribe to British or Scandinavian than Roman art. It is figured here along with another of rarer form dug up in the neighbourhood of Dundee, and now preserved at Dalmahoy House.[330] The superstitious veneration which ignorance attaches more or less readily to whatever is derived from a remote or unknown origin, has not failed to include these ancient utensils among the objects of its devotion or fear. In Ireland, more especially, this feeling is still powerful in its influence on the peasantry, and not unfrequently throws additional obstacles in the way of antiquarian research. But in Scotland it was also equally powerful at no very remote date, nor was its influence limited to the unlettered peasant. In the great hall of Tullyallan Castle, near Kincardine, there formerly hung suspended from one of the bosses of its richly sculptured roof an ancient bronze kettle of the most usual form, which bore the name of The Lady's Purse. It was traditionally reputed to be filled with gold; and the old family legend bore, that so long as it hung there the Castle would stand and the Tullyallan family would flourish. Whether the Blackadders of Tullyallan ever had recourse to the treasures of the lady's purse in their hour of need can no longer be known, for the castle roof has fallen, and the old race who owned it is extinct. The ancient cauldron, however, on the safety of which the fate of the owners was believed to hang, is preserved. It was dug out of the ruins by a neighbouring tenant, and is still regarded with the veneration due to the fatal memorial of an extinct race. It measures 8¼ inches in diameter by 5⅛ inches in height as it stands, and is simply what would be called by antiquaries a Roman camp-kettle, and by old Scottish dames a brass kail-pot! This medieval tradition suffices at least to show that the object of its superstitious veneration pertained to an older era than that of the Baron's Hall.

A remarkable discovery of a number of bronze vessels of the class alluded to here, was made in the autumn of 1848, by some labourers engaged in trenching a piece of mossy ground, situated under a peculiar ridge of trap rock about a mile and a half due south of North-Berwick Law, on the Balgone estate, the property of Sir George Grant Suttie, Bart. The whole ground, extending to above twenty acres, was formerly a morass. It has been partially drained of late years, in consequence of which the mean level has sunk three to four feet. In the centre of this morass the relics were found, consisting of a large bronze pot or cauldron, several tripods, goblets, and various fragments of thin plates of bronze, all much corroded. One of the bronze goblets lay within the large cauldron, and the whole were found close together, at a depth of about three feet from the surface, apparently just as they had been thrown into the morass, probably not less than seventeen centuries ago.

Another class of works of ancient art and constructive skill, which come under the notice of the archæologist, admit of much more decided and unhesitating assignment to the native manufacturer. These are the specimens of pottery of such frequent occurrence in the tumuli and cists, and which present, in every respect, so striking a contrast to the fictile manufactures of the Roman colonists. It is not from any doubt of the use of the sepulchral urn, and of the rites of cremation, during the primitive period, that all notice of native fictile ware has been reserved till now, though both furnish undoubted evidence of some progress attained by the primitive Briton. It is altogether impossible, however, with the very limited amount of accurately observed facts with which the Scottish archæologist has to deal, to pretend to classify into distinct periods the pottery found in the ancient tumuli and cairns. Many of these 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.

One obvious distinction is at once apparent between the unsymmetrical hand-made urn and that which has been turned and fashioned into regular shape. Yet even this very marked subdivision will not suffice for chronological arrangement; for the very rudest and most unsymmetrical of all the hand-made urns in the Scottish Museum, devoid of grace, and destitute of the very slightest attempt at ornament, was found to cover a pair of gold armillæ somewhat roughly finished with the hammer, and three smaller rings of the same metal, two of which are neatly ornamented with parallel grooves.[331] It seems, indeed, as if some pious hand may have hastily fashioned the clay into shape while the flames of the funeral pile were preparing the ashes it was to hold.

It is obvious even from this single instance, that any assignment of special examples or classes of native fictilia to the primeval period can only be done on the distinct ground of their being found accompanied solely with the relics of flint and stone. Still, setting aside the idea of a precise chronological arrangement, somewhat may be done as an approximation towards a system of classification. The early British pottery, though at best sufficiently rude, exhibits considerable variety both in form and workmanship, from the coarsest specimens of unshapely sun-dried clay to the graceful and elaborately decorated vases evidently made by workmen who had acquired a knowledge of the potter's wheel. Though the whole of these are found with sepulchral deposits, it is rarely difficult to discriminate between domestic vessels and cinerary urns, independently of the contents of the latter. The presence of the cup and bowl alongside the weapons and implements deposited with the ashes of the deceased warrior, is readily accounted for. The difficulty which the uncultivated mind experiences in realizing any adequate conception of death, or of a future state, apart from the daily necessities and cravings of the body, has led in many different stages of social progress to the custom of depositing food and drink, unguents, perfumes, and similar necessaries or luxuries of life beside the body of the loved dead, or even along with the cinerary urn. The archæologist has accordingly been long familiar with the fact, that some at least of the fictile vessels found in the tumuli are not sepulchral, and the names of "drinking cups" or "incense cups" have been given to one class of small vases frequently deposited in cists and barrows.

The first and most obvious subdivision which the early British fictile ware admits of, is into hand-made and wheel-made pottery. Notwithstanding the remarkable example above referred to of the discovery of the former along with gold relics, it is most probable that the hand-made pottery will be generally found to belong to the earliest period. The inverse argument is at any rate indisputable, which assigns the wheel-made pottery to the period of partially developed art and tutored skill. Even in the case of the rude example found in Banffshire, the gold armillæ are roughly wrought with the hammer, and may have been fashioned from the native gold by a workman who knew of its ductility, but had yet to learn the use of the furnace, the crucible, and the mould. We know from the most ancient records both of sacred and profane history, that the potter's wheel is among the earliest inventions of primitive art. It is referred to by the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah as the most familiar illustration of creative power; and the hieroglyphics and symbolic paintings still visible on the temples of Egypt, prove that the simile is older by many generations than that day when the Hebrew prophet "went down to the potter's house, and behold he wrought a work on the wheels." On the wall of a chamber in the ruined temple of Philæ, which, however, belongs to the era of the Ptolemies, one of the most striking adaptations of the prophetic symbol has been noted. Kneph, the ram-headed god, is represented seated at a potter's wheel, which he turns with his foot, while he fashions the mass of clay on it with his hands. The hieroglyphic inscription which accompanies it is thus rendered:—"Knum, the Creator, moulds on his wheel the Divine members of Osiris, (the father of men,) in the house of life." It is an old Egyptian version of the simple but sublime language of Isaiah: "O Lord! thou art our Father, we are the clay, and thou our potter." The contents of the earliest Egyptian tombs furnish abundant evidence of the perfection to which the potter's art had been carried; and the recent discoveries at Nimroud and along the banks of the Tigris disclose no less satisfactory proofs of equal skill among the ancient dwellers in the great central plains of Asia, from whence the nomade colonists of Britain have been traced. The ignorance, therefore, of the simple contrivance of the potter's wheel furnishes more conclusive proof of a rude and barbarous state of society even than the stone weapons and implements of the same period. In the one instance we see the intelligent barbarian ingeniously turning to the best account his very limited materials, and effectively supplying the want of metals apparently from the most inadequate resources. In the other we find him fashioning the plastic clay with far less skill or symmetry than the thrush or the common barn-swallow displays in the construction of its nest. It may therefore be assumed as a general rule, that the unsymmetrical hand-made urn belongs to a very early period, and must in most cases be considered the work of an era prior to the introduction of the wheel, or the practice of the decorative arts so abundantly employed in the adornment of later specimens of the same ware.

Urns found at Banchory.