So You Think You Know The Story Of ? ScARF Society of Antiquaries of Scotland ContentsContents

Introduction 1 The Atlantis of the North Sea 4 How did climate change affect the world of our ancestors? Frankenstein’s 6 How has our treatment of the dead changed over time? Musselburgh and the Mysteries of Mithras 10 How do we understand ancient religions from the artefacts left behind?

Facing the Past 12 o You Think You Know The Story temple to worship at the What can new technologies reveal about Scotland’s past? Of Scotland? altar of a bull-slaying god S called Mithras. That Obscure Object of Desire 14 Eight thousand years parts preserved in peat On 6 April 1520, on the ago, after the collapse were reassembled as part snow-clad banks of the What can the life of an object tell us about the society that made it? of the Norwegian coastal of an arcane ritual. These River Fyris near the shelf known as the ‘Great would become some of Swedish town of Uppsala, Edge’, a gigantic tidal the earliest mummified an army of Scottish The Tartan Army on Tour 18 wave devastated the east remains ever found in the soldiers fought and died What was Scotland’s role in the world and how has it changed over time? coast of Scotland, the British Isles. for the cause of the Danish beginning of a process In the second century crown. Their dismembered that would see an entire AD, on the site of what bodies were discovered The Land of a Million Stories 22 landscape submerged is today a public park in five centuries later, buried How does research change our understanding of the past? beneath the North Sea. Musselburgh, the disciples in a mass grave beneath Around 1600BC, in a tiny of a mysterious Roman a cycle path. village on the Hebridean religion _ for a time as The Scottish Archaeological Research Framework 24 island of North Uist, a popular as Christianity _ Are You Sure? series of human body met in an underground

ScARF Telling Scotland’s Story 1 ...Today, across the landscapes of Scotland, archaeologists continue to search for the threads of Scotland’s story ...... They are digging in remote island caves, excavating beneath buildings in our modern cities, and diving in he past does not stand still. And so the story of the dark waters of our lochs... T Scotland – the real story – for ever changes. Some 14,000 years ago, as the glaciers The goal is to explore the uncharted territory of the last Ice Age melted away, people of what we do not know _ to fill in the blanks ventured northwards to hunt and explore. in the collective memory of Scotland and to These were our earliest ancestors _ nomads better understand how we lived 100, 1,000, who moved with the seasons through a wild and even 10,000 years ago. It is about ...they are asking land, and left only the faintest of traces asking questions, encouraging research and behind. argument, and puzzling out our past from questions, encouraging every new fragment of evidence. research and argument, But we can still find them, if we look and puzzling out our hard enough. Buried beneath earth and sand, we have It is a million stories past from every new discovered the places where those ancient fragment of evidence... hunters first landed and set up camp. We waiting to be told, and have found flint arrowheads and barbed spear it is one story. It is the tips shaped from deer antler, millennia-old cooking pits and piles of discarded animal story of Scotland. bone. We can stand on the same ground and look the ghosts of our ancestors in the eye.

We can give the story of Scotland a beginning.

Today, across the landscapes of the nation, archaeologists continue to search for the many different threads of this one story. They are digging in remote island caves, excavating beneath buildings in our modern cities, and diving in the dark waters of our lochs. New technology is revolutionising the study of the past. Ground penetrating radar can detect long lost structures hidden in the earth, and laser scans can produce 3D models of entire landscapes and even reconstruct individual faces from human skulls. Now, for the first time, the Scottish Archaeological Research Framework (ScARF) is bringing together the combined knowledge of all our experts in one place. But this is just the first step. ScARF also marks the beginning of something even bigger. Spanning millennia _ from the earliest known traces of human activity to the present day _ it is attempting nothing less than the mapping out of the history of Scotland in its entirety.

Telling Scotland’s Story 3 magine you are walking on the dunes of Montrose Bay, or along the golden expanse of sand by Aberdeen ’s famous Beach Ballroom. It is a sunny summer ’s I day and families are playing by the shoreline. Perhaps you are at the water ’s edge, trousers rolled up as you dip a toe in the surf. Then, all of a sudden, the tide rushes away from you at a remarkable of all, they have worked out its human population _ calculating that thousands speed. Soon, everyone on the beach has stopped what they are doing. of people could have been living on Just like you, they are staring over the wet sands towards the Doggerland when catastrophe struck. disappearing North Sea. The wind picks up, blowing into your face from _ Marine archaeology can take us back offshore. Maybe you see it first, before you hear it a great white line to the very moment when the tidal wave on the horizon. But soon you have to shout to be heard above the roar. hit, and it can describe the aftermath A wave 30 feet high and hundreds of miles long is heading towards you as Scotland gradually became part of an at tremendous speed. It will break on the beach and then surge inland, island. Yet it can do much more devastating everything in its path. It is already too late to save yourself than that. It can tell us what happened to our ancestors during a phase or anyone near you. of intense climate change. It can This sounds like the stuff of nightmares. The tidal wave it triggered caused the reconstruct a time of rising sea levels, Surely it couldn’t happen in Scotland. Or greatest natural disaster northern Europe disappearing coastlines and extreme could it? Chillingly, archaeology tells us has ever known. Shetland was engulfed weather patterns _ a scenario that that it already has. first, before the immense wall of water may sound eerily familiar. smashed into Scotland’s east coast. But Some 8,000 years ago, Scotland the greatest casualty was the land at the Today, from Shetland and Orkney to the was a ridge of mountains marking the centre of the peninsula. When the wave western seaboard and the Outer Hebri- ...There was a morning - just like any other north-western edge of Europe. To the subsided it was never the same again. des, the sea is steadily consuming many east, a vast, low-lying plain stretched of our coastal and island landscapes. - when our ancestors made their way to the _ Instead, like a prehistoric Atlantis, much shoreline to hunt and fish from Aberdeen to Denmark an of it was lost for ever beneath the waters Vital undiscovered traces of the past are abundant heartland for hunter-gatherers. of the North Sea. sinking beneath the waves, and it is a Slowly but surely, however, this land was race against time and tide to record and disappearing. Sea levels had continued to In the last hundred years, strange understand them before they are gone. rise since the end of the last Ice Age, fragments from this drowned world have Maybe they saw it first before they heard Yet this archaeology is not just about it. A wave thirty feet high and hundreds of and with every passing year more hunting been brought back to the surface. grounds were lost beneath the water. Mammoth ivory, lions’ teeth and bones of looking backwards. While underwater miles long was heading towards them at Over time, this gradual process may well ‘woolly’ rhino have been found tangled in worlds like Doggerland give incredible tremendous speed have isolated Britain from the rest of the fishermen’s nets. Dredged lumps of peat insights into lost peoples and ancient continent. But what we now believe is that have concealed harpoons fashioned from cataclysms, they also offer a cautionary it was not just climate change that helped deer antler, fish prongs and flint tools. tale, providing us with information that to create the island we are part of today Archaeologists now call the place that may be crucial to our future. After all, if _ it was also catastrophe. these artefacts came from ‘Doggerland’ it can happen to our ancestors, who is to It was already too late _ after the famous shipping forecast say it cannot happen to us too? to save themselves All along the east coast of Scotland, region of the Dogger Bank. thick lines of sand sediment have been found layered in the earth far above sea Over the past few decades, companies level. There are deposits in Shetland, the prospecting for oil and gas have, in minute Montrose Basin and even 50 miles inland detail, surveyed, probed and bored large along the Firth of Forth. Carbon dating of tracts of the North Sea floor. Now, by using plant material from the sediments clusters this data, scientists and researchers have around one specific date _ 6100BC. pieced together the first 3D map of the ! _ lost landscape of Doggerland. What has There was a morning just like any other _ emerged is an astonishing vista of hills, when our ancestors made their way to valleys, rivers, lakes, swamps and estuar- the shoreline to hunt and fish. ies. By examining the fossil record and And they had no idea that, hundreds of pollen grains, they have been able to tell miles away across the sea, a gigantic which animals roamed these sunken plains, shelf of Norwegian bedrock known as _ _ and what plants and vegetation grew Storegga Norse for the ‘Great Edge’ there. And, perhaps most remarkable had collapsed into the Atlantic.

ScARF Telling Scotland’s Story 5 ...At Cladh Hallan the people may have wanted to create symbolic ancestors _ spiritual icons made up, quite literally, of the many parts of those that had passed on...

he skeletons of a man and a woman are laid out preservation to take place. Mummified side by side on a laboratory examination table. by the peat, they were then removed T from the and kept above ground for hundreds of years, until they were finally Even though they are over 3,500 years old, they are remarkably buried beneath the foundations of a well preserved. Bronze Age house. The bodies are stretched to their full size but this was not how they This whole story is written in bone. And were found. it has one last, remarkable twist. As When they were first excavated from the sandy, coastal grasslands of they continued to study the skeletons, Cladh Hallan on the island of , their knees were drawn up the researchers realised that the jaw of against their chests, with their arms clutching the fronts of their legs. the woman did not match the skull. After Straight away, the archaeologists realised that they had come across something extremely unusual. The skeletons must have been arranged sampling DNA from various parts of her in this position deliberately, perhaps by being bandaged very tightly or body, they made the startling discovery being bound with cords or straps of leather. The archaeologists had that she was made up of at least two never seen bodies treated like this before in Britain. separate people _ and that her skull in Could it be, they wondered, that on a remote island in the Outer fact belonged to a man. Testing of the , they had discovered some of the earliest deliberately other skeleton revealed the same. mummified bodies ever to be found in Europe? These were not just individuals that had been mummified, but different arms, Bones were all that were left. But bones years earlier. Long before they were legs and heads arranged to create one are full of stories. With modern technol- placed in the ground, something must whole body. ogy, an incredible amount can be pieced have been done to preserve the sinews These were Frankenstein’s mummies. together from the tiniest of fragments. and skin that kept their skeletons What the archaeologists are continuing What had really happened thousands of intact. Further examination of the bones to puzzle over is why. In ancient Egypt, years ago at Cladh Hallan? The truth revealed just what this was. pharaohs and their servants were would be unravelled in the laboratory. A day or two after death the bodies were mummified to gain eternal life. In Peru, Radiocarbon dating of the skeletons and immersed in a peat bog _ a process that Incan emperors were mummified so that the material from their graves immediately tans human skin like animal hide being they could remain part of society _ highlighted a major discrepancy. Both turned into leather. Over time the acid in their corpses even taking seats at state ...Bones were all that were left. bodies had been buried around 1000BC, the peat will destroy bone. But, at Cladh banquets. At Cladh Hallan the people But bones are full of stories yet the man had died six hundred years Hallan, the man and woman were left just may have wanted to create symbolic earlier, and the woman three hundred long enough _ perhaps a year _ for ancestors _ spiritual icons made up, ...Could it be that they had discovered some of the earliest mummified bodies ever to be found in Europe?... ScARF Telling Scotland’s Story 7 quite literally, of the many parts of those ago on almost the same spot? families _ so obvious in fact that we that had passed on. Perhaps the mummies The rituals and customs of our prehistoric forget to question where these were props in a village shrine, kept for ancestors do not always disappear; they ideas came from. centuries in a special house of the dead, can be passed down in one form or and, like a rather more macabre version another from generation to generation. Someone, somewhere had of Madame Tussauds, their limbs were In 2009, in a field near Forteviot in to be the first. And it replaced with new ones as they fell apart Perthshire, archaeologists uncovered a is archaeology ’s from wear and tear. near 4,000-year-old tomb beneath a job to find them. giant slab of sandstone. The body of an We may never know for certain. But by important person _ perhaps even a king studying how our ancestors responded _ had been placed on a bed of birch to life and death, we can attempt to bark and quartz pebbles, along with a draw a line from the past right up to bronze dagger with a pommel fashioned the present day. On a gentle, sloping from gold and the tooth of a sperm hillside overlooking the site where the whale. But perhaps most significant of all mummies were discovered, a drystone wall was the discovery of meadowsweet surrounds a cemetery. First established flower buds _ the earliest in the early eighteenth century and evidence in Scotland of filled with over 2,000 gravestones, it flowers being left with is a memorial to many generations of the dead. islanders. Burial plots are marked with simple stone crosses, solid granite Archaeology can be How has our treatment of the headstones, and elaborate Victorian a guide to why we and Celtic designs. Families walk among do what we do. dead changed over time? the graves, paying their respects to lost Today it seems loved ones. Some leave flowers. Others obvious that we even speak to the headstones _ a mark the places way of feeling close to relatives that where people are are gone. buried, put flowers on coffins and This is how we deal with death in headstones, or even the modern world. Is it really so talk to the graves of our different from what happened millennia HOW DO WE UNDERSTAND ANCIENT RELIGIONS Musselburgh and the Mysteries of FROM THE ARTEFACTS LEFT BEHIND? ...Underground, in the gloom of a vaulted Musselburgh and the Mysteries of chamber, the ceremony of a secret religious cult is underway...!

...Perhaps a new disciple is about to begin his MithrasMithras initiation into the ‘mysteries’ of Mithras...!

t is the second century AD in a northern frontier of centuries AD, his was a religion very much the Roman Empire. on the rise _ a religion of men from the lower classes, of the soldiers, merchants and A group of men, most of them soldiers, make their way underground into bureaucrats of Rome. According to his story Ithe gloom of a vaulted chamber. At the far end of the chamber there is a of origin, Mithras was born from a rock, naked apart from a dagger and a Phrygian cap. soft glow. As they move closer, they see a great stone carving of a man’s He hunted down a sacred bull which he first face. Candlelight shines from his mouth and his eyes, spreading out in a overcame, and then killed in a test of strength, halo around his head. Above him is a line of smaller carvings _ sculptures releasing power, energy, vitality and life to the world. To celebrate, he feasted on the bull with of the heads of four women, representing the seasons. Flowers decorate Sol, the god of the sun. the hair of Spring and Summer; Autumn has a garland of grapes; and Winter Because Mithraism was a secret cult most is wrapped in a shawl. The flickering light falls across a second altar stone. of what we know about it today comes from In large, carved Latin script there is a name _ ‘Gaius Cassius Flavianus’ _ artefacts and broken remains. For and a dedication: ‘To the Unconquered God Mithras’. archaeologists, understanding it is like working on a vast jigsaw _ where almost all The ceremony of a secret religious cult is ornate carvings. They think they have found the pieces are gone for ever. And that is underway. Perhaps a new disciple is about a pair of ancient altar stones, cracked and why the discovery at Musselburgh is of such to begin his initiation into the ‘mysteries’ of _ broken long ago. The slabs appear to have international importance. Now, for the first Mithras his first step into the seven grades been toppled and buried face down and to time, we know that the worshippers of Mithras of those ‘united by the handshake’. Or maybe reached as far as Scotland and the very edge a feast is being held. The men taking part will avoid any further damage they have to be removed and looked after with great care. of the Roman Empire. We know that a centurion never say. The first rule of the ‘mysteries’ is: called Gaius Cassius Flavianus commissioned you do not talk about the ‘mysteries’. What As part of the conservation process, the altar stones. And we have those remarkable happens beneath the ground, stays beneath the stones to conserve and study _ the very same ground. There are no scriptures for this religion. stones are kept in storage for almost a year. For all that time, whatever is on stones that witnessed the mysteries of Mithras Yet throughout the Roman world, rites are nearly two thousand years ago. being performed in thousands of subterranean the front of the altars remains a mystery. temples called Mithraea _ and the cult is And then, at last, they are ready to be The search for lost religions remains one of spreading. Some are even wondering if it turned over. The surfaces are caked in the most exciting and challenging tasks in could grow to become the dominant religion dirt. The cleaning work is painstaking. It archaeology. How do you piece together ancient of the Empire. takes weeks, moving from dry brushing to rituals and beliefs, when all you have to go on swabbing with distilled water. On the first are cracked Roman altars, arcane symbols like It is 2010 in the town of the carvings of the Picts, or the abandoned stone, they begin to reveal a carved Latin stone circles of Lewis and Orkney? Imagine Musselburgh in East inscription. As they are working from the trying to work out the story of Christianity Lothian. base upwards, the letters become visible from the ruined abbeys and monasteries of the in reverse. When the soil is finally cleared Scottish Borders alone. and the inscription is visible an expert is In a corner of Lewisvale Public Park, Yet, when the evidence is so scarce, it means work on a new cricket pavilion is about brought in to translate. that each new find has the potential to alter to begin. Archaeologists are carrying out There is a name _ ‘Gaius Cassius Flavianus’ radically our understanding of the past. A a routine inspection of the foundations, _ and a dedication: ‘To the Unconquered God breakthrough is always waiting, somewhere when something unexpected emerges from Mithras’... beneath the soil. the earth. Two giant sandstone slabs lie Like many gods before and after him, Mithras Archaeologists are not just pulling stones beside each other. As they dig deeper did not, in the end, prove to be unconquerable. from the ground: they are digging up faith and into the soil and brush away the dirt, the In the modern world, almost no one has dogma. They are unearthing heaven and hell. ...The first rule of the ‘mysteries’ is: archaeologists reveal side panels with heard of him. Yet from the first to the fourth And they are excavating the Gods. you do not talk about the ‘mysteries’... 10 Telling Scotland’s Story ScARF using laser scanners, archaeologists can create 3D replicas of any object Facing The ...What can new technologies reveal about Scotland’s Past past?...

human skull rests on a Perspex plinth. Most people looking at it will see nothing unusual. After all, one skull can look very much like another. An inquisitive observer may notice some distinctive marks and peculiarities – The scanner looks at the skull up to 50,000 missingA front teeth, a large dent in the forehead – but little beyond that. times a second and it does not miss a thing. Scientists, of course, use these small details The skull and its skeleton were excavated, A whole tract of Caithness can be surveyed in to reveal much more. From the heavy brows along with ten other bodies, from the site of a matter of hours. Although a vast amount of and the considerable size of the jaw, they what is believed to be a lost royal chapel information is generated, computers examine know this skull belonged to a man _ a large discovered deep in the bowels of Stirling the results systematically, pinpointing the and powerful man at that. They can tell that Castle. Carbon dating established that he tell-tale geometric shapes and patterns of the deep groove in the top of the skull came died at some time in the fourteenth century, man-made structures. The 3D model can then from a severe blow. But they can also see and he was probably in his mid-twenties. be turned, flipped and rotated, lit and shaded bone regrowth over the wound. Whatever But science cannot reveal a name. For that, from every direction and studied in the minut- caused this trauma _ and they suspect it the only option is to dig into the historical est detail. So far, the results from Caithness was an axe _ did not kill this man. An expert records. Researchers now believe that they have been astonishing. Large numbers of will also spot large cavities above the front have their man _ Sir John de Stricheley, a unknown archaeological sites are appearing teeth _ a sign that something had either Knight from Buckinghamshire who died in 1341 in the data. Suddenly, researchers are finding shaken the teeth loose or knocked them and was part of an English garrison occupying themselves looking at a lost landscape _ out completely, allowing bacteria to create Stirling Castle during the Wars of Independ- a patchwork map showing the remains left abscesses in the roots. So they can even be ence _ but they cannot know for sure. All behind by people who lived on this coastal certain that, at some stage in his life, this the same, to take a collection of medieval fringe of northern Scotland thousands of man will have experienced severe toothache. bones and to recreate a life _ right down years ago. to the facial features _ demonstrates the Forensic archaeology trains the eye to remarkable contribution modern technology A digital world of Scottish archaeology is question every detail, and it can help can make to archaeology. emerging. Through advanced techniques like to paint remarkably vivid pictures of laser scanning, more and more objects and how our ancestors lived and died. Now, Several hundred miles to the north of Stirling, places are filling this world. Now, from a thanks to technological advances, it can on the northern coast of Caithness, it is not computer screen, researchers can fly above go even further. By using laser scanners, just one man, but a whole landscape that is mountains, forests and plains to search archaeologists can create exact 3D replicas being reconstructed by laser scanning. for fragments of our ancestors. They can of any object. As the skull sits on the plinth, _ walk among millennia-old tombs and ruined beams are fired at it and reflected back. The While the principle remains the same buildings, and study ancient sculptures and sending pulses of light towards an object and time taken for the lasers to return is used _ monuments. And they can even sit face to to calculate the distance to even the tiniest measuring the echoes the scale is vastly face with a 700-year-old skull, and watch it curves, grooves, scratches or indentations on different. Archaeologists fly over the land- come back to life. its surface. The scanner ‘looks’ at the bone- scape in an aeroplane and use state-of-the- structure up to 50,000 times in a second, art ‘light detection and ranging’ equipment, and it does not miss a thing. A centuries-old known as LiDAR, to direct lasers down at In this new world, the human skull is given a new existence in a the earth. The scanner is so accurate it can horizons are limitless. digital world. And it is here that science record differences in altitude to just a few can take an extraordinary leap. By using centimetres. What is perhaps most remarkable the exact measurements for bone size and of all, is that trees, bushes and even dense density recorded by the scanner, complex forests are no barrier to receiving accurate computer software can accurately recreate measurements. Through a combination of muscle and add it to the skull. Once the lasers and computer algorithms, branches muscle is in place, it can wrap it in skin. and undergrowth are stripped away to find the Layer by layer, the skull becomes a face. true surface, the ‘naked’ earth. And it is here that the ancient traces of settlement and Finally, it is possible to look into the eyes of _ _ a man who died many hundreds of years ago. farming burial cairns and earthworks can be discovered. The question remains, however: who was he? Layer by layer the skull becomes a face. Finally, it is possible to look into the eyes of a man who died many hundreds of years ago ScARF Telling Scotland’s Story 13 DESIRE ...This wooden box is one of the mostimportant DESIRE artefacts in the history of the Scottish nation. Yet no one knows where it came from. Or rather, no one knows for certain... THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF...

n a display cabinet of reinforced glass in the National Museum of Scotland there is a small wooden box. It is so Ismall it could rest comfortably in the palm of your hand. The box is made up of two parts, each They can be forgotten and then remembered. hollowed out of a single piece of yew They can disappear and then reappear, wood. The top _ a triangular lid _ centuries later, in the unlikeliest of places. is attached to the bottom by metal More than anything else, and certainly more rivets and a hinge. When you first see than you or I, they can last. it, what it looks like most is a tiny Archaeologists believe that this wooden box model house. has lasted for over twelve hundred years. Its intricate ornamentation is typical of the art of The front and the lid are covered with the Picts and the Celtic church in the eighth thin plates of silver, and decorated century AD _ a style that found glory in the with delicate mounts of bronze, red details, perfection in miniature. Some of the enamel and blue glass. At one end greatest artists of the time lived on the there is a hinged bronze arm marked island of Iona, and it was there that the with a yellow-and-red star _ possibly monks produced the Book of Kells, an once used to attach a leather strap extravagant illuminated manuscript of the to allow the box to be worn around Gospels of the New Testament. Similar and distinctive artistic fingerprints are all over the the neck. If you look very closely, and little box. if the light catches the silver plates at the right angle, you will see the So, let’s say we can imagine the ‘birth’ of the surfaces marked with a series of tiny object, see the hands of a master-craftsman dots _ a stippling effect that forms piece it together by monastery candlelight. But what was it for? And where did it go an arcane pattern of leaping and next? twisting beasts. We have a good idea of the answer to the This box is one of the most important first question. The box was one of a small artefacts in the history of the Scottish number made around the same time, perhaps nation. Yet no one knows where it even in the same place. Others have been came from. found in Ireland and in Norway, and they all appear to have been designed with one Or rather, no one knows for certain. purpose in mind _ to be used as a ‘reliquary’, Such is the life of an object. The biographies a vessel for carrying the bones of a saint. of things are not like those of humans. Time If the box was made in Iona, then perhaps is more elastic for them. As they pass from it was intended to hold the remains of St place to place and from person to person, Columba, the exiled Irish priest who founded they can be changed. They can take on new the monastery on the island in the sixth meanings. They can be damaged, broken and century AD and who embarked on converting put back together again. They can witness Scotland to the Christian faith. ...The biographies of objects are not like those history, absorb it, and play a part in it. of people. Time is more elastic for them. They can witness history, absorb it, and play a part in it. More than anything else, they can last... ScARF Telling Scotland’s Story 15 QUESTION: WHAT CAN THE LIFE OF AN OBJECT TELL US ABOUT THE SOCIETY THAT MADE IT?... ?

Answering the second question is not Breccbennach was granted to Malcolm Objects like the Monymusk Reliquary have so easy, however. In the ninth century, of Monymusk. And it was at Monymusk a lot more left to tell us than we already many of Iona’s most sacred objects were House in Aberdeenshire that the box know. Although it rests behind glass in a moved to prevent them falling into the was found. The conclusion seems obvious, museum today, its story is far from over. hands of Viking raiders. Some went to especially when you consider that the Lift the silver lid on the wooden box and Kells in Ireland, others to Dunkeld. Gaelic translation of Breccbennach it may appear empty. But it is not. And it is there that the trail of the box is ‘speckled, peaked one’: an apt goes cold. description of the silver vessel and its Many secrets remain hidden pointed lid. This argument proved so within, just waiting to be We may, however, be able to pick it up convincing that in 1933, when the box, discovered. again some four hundred years later. known today as the ‘Monymusk Reliquary’, Early in the morning of 24 June 1314, a appeared for auction in a London Scottish army led by Robert the Bruce saleroom, a high-profile campaign was advanced out of the woods on the fringes mounted to save it for the nation. of the Bannock Burn. Among the throng was Abbot Bernard of Arbroath, and Quite a journey for ...With new technologies he had with him an object known as the Breccbennach. This was the army’s lucky one little object. But we can return to objects talisman, a sacred icon that had been the question remains: again and again, and we carried into battle alongside the kings how much of it is can continue to ask new of Scotland since the time of William the actually true? questions of them!... Lion in the thirteenth century. What exactly was the Breccbennach? The latest research on the Monymusk Frustratingly, there is no definite descrip- Reliquary has cast serious doubt on tion. Thought to be connected to St the link between the box and Iona, Columba, some have suggested that it and experts consider it unlikely that was a banner or standard, and may even it was once the sacred totem of the have been made from the garment that Scottish army. Often, archaeology will tell us what things are not, as much the saint was wrapped in at the time of _ his death. Others believe that it was a as what they are pulling artefacts kind of portable shrine, something that back into the darkness of obscurity. could have held Columba’s bones. In And so this one account of the life which case, it needed to be small enough of the box fades away. Yet others will to be taken to the battlefield _ perhaps come to take its place. Because the worn around the neck on a leather strap. biographies of things are not fixed. With new technology we can return Could it be that the Breccbennach to objects again and again, and we and the little house-shaped box are can continue to ask new questions of one and the same thing? them. The answers are often remark- Certainly, that was what the antiquary who able, confounding expectations and rediscovered the box in the nineteenth sending researchers off in entirely century believed. Records show that a different directions. year after the battle of Bannockburn, the

ScARF Telling Scotland’s Story 17 ...The men of the Lordship of the Isles were professional soldiers, born and bred. The Gaelic name for them was buannachan - mercenaries who offered their services to the highest bidder...

...For a time they were one of Scotland’s greatest exports, fighting in foreign lands for unknown causes... OnThe TartanTour Army he face in the carving This sculpture is part of a grave slab, a heavy lid that once sealed a body in is hard to make out its tomb. It was discovered at a site beneath its helmet, called Finlaggan, on a small island at the edge of a loch, at the centre of Tthere are only the faint another island, Islay, in the . Some time ago, perhaps in impressions of eyes the nineteenth century, the slab was and a mouth left in the prised open by treasure hunters and then discarded among the ruins of weathered stone. The an ancient chapel. shoulders are shown Today, Finlaggan is a remote, encased in the armour abandoned and sombre place. Yet throughout the fourteenth and of the West Highlands of fifteenth centuries, it was the vibrant hub of the kingdom that Scotland. One hand grasps ruled over the western seaboard the scabbard of a great of Scotland _ the Lordship of the Isles. The Great Hall of the Lord Highland sword, while the once stood on the island in the loch, other tugs at the end of a an imposing structure of stone and timber. Clansmen from the Butt of belt, as though in the act Lewis to the Mull of Kintyre, and from across the seas in Northern Ireland, of fastening it around came here to pay homage to the Lord the waist. Beneath the and to enjoy the legendary hospitality of Finlaggan _ its food, feasts, drink and boots there is a ship with music. This was a warrior society, descended from a union between Vikings and Gaels, a high prow and stern, its and at its peak it boasted an army of nearly square mast unfurled and 10,000 men and over 100 ships. The lowland kings both admired and feared this power base ready to sail. Whoever on the edge of Scotland: on the one hand it this man was, it is clear served as a potent ally; on the other it could be a dangerous enemy. that he was a leader and a In the late fifteenth century, the Lordship was fighter – and he was on his torn apart by civil war. John Macdonald and his illegitimate son Angus Og fought out a bitter way to war. and bloody battle for control, ultimately, the real ...If you had a problem, and nobody else could help you, then maybe you could hire the buannachan... ScARF Telling Scotland’s Story 19 QUESTION: What was Scotland’s role in the world...

and how has it changed over time?...

For a time, Buannachan like MacGillespie snow to attack the forces of King Kristian II were one of Scotland’s greatest exports. of Denmark, who were holed up in the town of In their distinctive, ocean-going longships Uppsala. Although fighting on the side of the loser was the union of the Isles itself. The _ known as birlinns _ they could travel Danish, the majority of the soldiers guarding divisions caused by the conflict would never at speed across the Irish Sea and even the town were buannachan: the hired swords heal, and without a true leader the clans further afield to continental Europe, injecting of Scotland. And it is likely to be their bodies drifted apart. In the space of little more than foreign armies with a unique brand of that were buried in the shadow of the castle, a year, the kingdom was gone. battle-hardened aggression. These men were beneath a steep, grassy slope now used by nothing less than contractors in the art of university students for picnicking and sunbathing. But its way of life was not. war. Pick any medieval flashpoint and there A specialist study of the bones has revealed The men of the Lordship were professional is every chance that Scottish mercenaries that the men were mostly aged between 25 and soldiers, born and bred. Their reputation as will have been there. They fought in strange 34. Besides the fatal wounds, largely caused by a fighting force survived, and their skills lands for unknown causes, as long as there blows to the head, there was much evidence of old were in high demand. The Gaelic name for was money to be made. injuries and fractures. Although in prime physical _ condition, the men must have borne the battle them was buannachan mercenaries who Archaeologists are now attempting to follow offered their services to the highest bidder. _ scars of a warrior’s life. And these sons of the this mercenary trail across Europe to find Hebrides and ancestors of the Lordship finally met Donald MacGillespie was one such man. out just how far the ‘Tartan armies’ travelled Granted tenancy of the lands of Finlaggan their end far from their island homes, fighting in a on their tours of duty. New evidence foreign land for a foreign crown. by the crown, he sought his fortune fighting continues to emerge. In 2001, workmen in the wars in Ireland. And on his death, extending a cycle path below Uppsala Across medieval Europe, if kings and rulers had sometime around the mid-sixteenth century, Castle in Sweden uncovered a mass grave a problem, and no one else could help them, they he was commemorated in the traditional West _ filled with the bodies of at least 60 men. would hire the buannachan. Highland way with a carved stone grave Carbon dating of the remains and a study slab showing him fastening his sword and belt of historical records have now traced their Today, centuries later, in preparation for battle. It is MacGillespie’s origin back to 1520, and even to a specific tomb that archaeologists believe they have day _ 6 April. Good Friday. the hunt is still on for discovered, discarded among the ruins of the Lordship on the deserted island at Finlaggan. As a two-hundred-year-old union between Scotland ’s soldiers of The mercenary warrior took as his burial Sweden, Denmark and Norway began to fortune. plot the sacred heartland of his illustrious disintegrate, Scandinavia was turned into a ancestors _ perhaps in tribute, perhaps in violent war zone. On that April morning, a defiance. Swedish peasant army crossed the frozen Fyris river and marched through heavy

Telling Scotland’s Story 21 hoose an object. Choose a building. Choose a landscape. Choose a frag- ment of bone, a wooden box, or a slab of sandstone. Choose a ruined chapel far away on a remote island. Choose a horn of bronze, a chest Cof iron, a casket of silver or a crown of gold. Choose a line of sand in the earth or a mammoth tusk dredged from a drowned world. Choose an under- ground temple, a giant altar stone, or the face of a forgotten God. Choose any one of them, and archaeology will creating a resource that can be explored and enjoyed by tell you their story. everyone. It is the first port of call for information on Scotland’s past _ the place for students, writers, journal- Every day, researchers are writing, and rewriting, the history ists and documentary-makers to come to find the most of Scotland. Whether on windswept dig sites or in high-tech up-to-date account of the nation’s archaeology. And it is laboratories, they are working on the front line of discovery. also the place to make connections with research teams, Ruins, remains and artefacts may be thousands of years old, to join the dots between the past and the people who are but the stories they are telling are brand new. investigating, uncovering and recording it right now. ScARF is the place where the stories of Scotland can Scotland’s story is changing fast, and new discoveries and come together. Archaeologists working across completely breakthroughs are emerging all the time. ScARF can take different fields and time periods can share what they have you through this shifting history, from the traces of our found, and add their own pieces to the jigsaw. From laser earliest ancestors all the way up to the present day. scanning a landscape by aeroplane, to DNA testing a shat- tered skull, every bit of research is adding to the picture. Scotland is a land with a million But these are not just stories told by experts, to experts. stories. ScARF is your guide to each ScARF seeks to engage with the widest possible audience, and every one of them.

ScARF Telling Scotland’s Story 23 The Scottish Archaeological Research Framework

www.scottishheritagehub.com

ll of the stories you have www.archaeologyscotland.org.uk just read have been told has a list of local and regional groups that can by ScARF. be joined, as well as details of local museums and A local authority archaeological services. An ongoing, collaborative project, ScARF repre- sents the efforts of experts in fields ranging from Canmore, the searchable online database of the archaeology and history to the natural sciences Royal Commission on the Ancient and Histori- and climatology. The ScARF website _ cal Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) _ www.scottishheritagehub.com www.rcahms.gov.uk _ is the sum of this combined knowledge. From _ allows anyone to explore and contribute imagery here, you can explore the most up-to-date and information on hundreds of thousands of overview of archaeological research in Scotland, archaeological, architectural and industrial sites from prehistory to the present day. across Scotland. Visit the ScARF website for The research that has come together to create further information and links to Scotland’s past. ScARF needs continuing support. Anyone reading _ ScARF is led by the Society of Antiquaries of this booklet can help from experienced _www..socantscot.org _ professionals to those who have never thought Scotland about archaeology before. a charitable, not-for-profit membership organisation founded in 1780 and incorporated For the experts, ScARF will continue to grow by Royal Charter in 1783. The purpose of the and thrive through constant input. ScARF will Society is, the study of the antiquities and help to shine a light on the unexplored regions history of Scotland, more especially by means of of Scotland’s past, but it relies on the research archaeological research. For hundreds of years, community to keep examining, studying and the Society has provided a forum for debate, reporting back on what they find. New stories will discussion and the sharing of knowledge. Today, be uncovered, and many old ones will be rewritten. it runs a prestigious lecture series, publishes By allowing researcher to speak to researcher, monographs, reports and its annual Proceedings ScARF will ensure that no opportunity to advance (most of which are free and available online) and knowledge is lost. is made up of thousands of Fellows from around ScARFScARF isis currentlycurrently fundedfunded byby thethe ScottishScottish GovernmentGovernment throughthrough HistoricHistoric ScotlandScotland For the enthusiast, ScARF can be a doorway to the world. Applications to become a Fellow are __ www.historic-scotland.gov.ukWww.historic-scotland.gov.uk __ discovery, a first step to getting more involved in open to anyone with a passion and interest in Scottish archaeology and heritage. butbut wouldwould notnot havehave beenbeen possiblepossible withoutwithout thethe voluntaryvoluntary contributioncontribution ofof hundredshundreds ofof archaeologists,archaeologists, historians,historians, finding out about Scotland’s history and culture. scientistsscientists andand others.others. ThereThere areare farfar tootoo manymany toto namename here,here, butbut aa fullfull listlist cancan bebe foundfound at:at: wwwwww..scottishheritagehub.coscottishheritagehub.comm//contentcontent//acknowledgementsacknowledgements 24 Telling Scotland’s Story ScARF Text by James Crawford. Artwork by Sha Nazir. Design by Kevin Hicks. All rights reserved. Thanks to all who kindly supplied images: Monymusk reliquary images (pp 18-19), barbed points (pg 5), St Andrews hoard (pg 21) and Torrs Pony Cap (pp 22-23) all © National Museums Scotland Trustees. Underwater archaeologist (pg 4) © RCAHMS (with thanks to Colin and Paula Martin). Altar conservation (pg 4) and reconstruction images (pg 27) © AOC Archaeology Group (with thanks to East Lothian Council). Fuday wreck (pg 7) © Headland Archaeology. Warriston cemetery image (pg 10) ©RCAHMS (with thanks to Robert Reinhardt). Stirling reconstructions (pp 14-15) and skeleton (pg 9) © the Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification, University of Dundee. Skeletons (pg 22) © Bent Syse of the Upplandsmuseet. Images from Up Helly Aa (pp 22-23) © David Gifford Photography

Society of Antiquaries of Scotland

ScARF Society of Antiquaries of Scotland c/o National Museums Scotland Chambers Street Edinburgh EH1 1JF Tel: 0131 247 4138 / 4133 Email: [email protected] Web: www.socantscot.org Fax: 0131 247 4163