Chapter 5

The collection of home-made pottery on the table--glazed with milk--is the latest contribution to our Museum. It was recently brought up, by Captain Thomas and Dr. Mitchell, from the parish of Barvas, in the Lewis. These "craggans," jars, or bowls, and other culinary dishes, are certainly specimens of the ceramic art in its most primitive state;--they are as rude as the rudest of our old cinerary urns; and yet they constitute, in the places in which they were made and used, the principal cooking, dyeing, and household vessels possessed by some of our fellow-countrymen in this the nineteenth century.[13] In the adjoining parish of Uig, Captain Thomas found and described to us, two years ago, in one of his instructive and practical papers, the small beehive stone houses in which some of the nomadic inhabitants of the district still live in summer. Numerous antiquarian remains, and ruins of similar houses and collections of houses, exist in Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, Switzerland, and perhaps in other kingdoms; but apparently they have everywhere been long ago deserted as human habitations, except in isolated and outlying spots among the Western Islands of Scotland. The study of human habits in these Hebridean houses, at the present day, enables us to guess what the analogous human habits probably were, when, for example, the old Irish city of Fahan--consisting of similar structures only--was the busy scene of human life and activity in times long past. These, and other similar facts, besides teaching us the true road to some forms of archaeological discovery, teach us also one other important lesson,--namely, that there are in reality two kinds of antiquity, both of which claim and challenge our attention. One of these kinds of antiquity consists in the study of the habits and works of our distant predecessors and forefathers, who lived on this earth, and perhaps in this segment of it, many ages ago. The other kind of antiquity consists of the study of those archaic human habits and works which may, in some corners of the world, be found still prevailing among our fellow-men--or even among our own fellow-countrymen--down to the present hour, in despite of all the blessings of human advancement, and the progress of human knowledge. By one kind of antiquity we trace the slow march and revolutions of centuries; by the other we trace the still slower march and revolutions of civilisation, in countries and kingdoms where the glittering theories of the politician might have led us to expect a different and a happier state of matters.

Besides the antiquarian relics of a visible and tangible form to which I have adverted, as demanding investigation and collection on our part, there are various antiquarian relics of a non-material type in Scottish Archaeology which this Society might perhaps do much to collect and preserve, through the agency of active committees, and the assistance of many of our countrymen, who, I doubt not, could be easily incited to assist us in the required work. One of these matters is a fuller collection and digest than we yet possess of the old superstitious beliefs and practices of our forefathers. And certainly some strange superstitions do remain, or at least lately did remain, among us. The sacrifice, for example, of the cock and other animals for recovery from epilepsy and convulsions, is by no means extinct in some Highland districts. In old Pagan and Mithraic times we know that the sacrifice of the ox was common. I have myself often listened to the account given by one near and dear to me, who was in early life personally engaged in the offering up and burying of a poor live cow as a sacrifice to the Spirit of the Murrain. This occurred within twenty miles of the metropolis of Scotland. In the same district a relative of mine bought a farm not very many years ago. Among his first acts, after taking possession, was the inclosing a small triangular corner of one of the fields within a stone wall. The corner cut off--and which still remains cut off--was the "Goodman's Croft"--an offering to the Spirit of Evil, in order that he might abstain from ever blighting or damaging the rest of the farm. The clergyman of the parish, in lately telling me the circumstance, added, that my kinsman had been, he feared, far from acting honestly with Lucifer, after all, as the corner which he had cut off for the "Goodman's" share was perhaps the most worthless and sterile spot on the whole property. Some may look upon such superstitions and superstitious practices as matters utterly vulgar and valueless in themselves; but in the eyes of the archaeologist they become interesting and important when we remember that the popular superstitions of Scotland, as of other countries, are for the most part true antiquarian vestiges of the pagan creeds and customs of our earlier ancestors; our present Folk-lore being merely in general a degenerated and debased form of the highest mythological and medical lore of very distant times. A collection of the popular superstitions and practices of the different districts of Scotland now, ere (like fairy and goblin forms vanishing before the break of day) they melt and disappear totally before the light and the pride of modern knowledge, would yet perhaps afford important materials for regaining much lost antiquarian knowledge. For as the palaeontologist can sometimes reconstruct in full the types of extinct animals from a few preserved fragments of bones, possibly some future archaeological Cuvier may one day be able to reconstruct from these mythological fragments, and from other sources, far more distinct figures and forms than we at present possess of the heathen faith and rites of our forefathers.

Perhaps a more important matter still would be the collection, from every district and parish of Scotland, of local lists of the oldest names of the hills, rivers, rocks, farms, and other places and objects; and this all the more that in this age of alteration and change many of these names are already rapidly passing away. Yet the possession of a Scottish antiquarian gazetteer or map of this kind would not only enable us to identify many localities mentioned in our older deeds and charters, but more--the very language to which these names belong would, perhaps, as philological ethnology advances, betimes serve as guides to lead our successors, if they do not lead us, to obtain clearer views than we now have of the people that aboriginally inhabited the different districts of our country, and the changes which occurred from time to time in these districts in the races which successively had possession of them. In this, as in other parts of the world, our mountains and other natural objects often obstinately retain, in despite of all subsequent changes and conquests, the appellations with which they were originally baptised by the aboriginal possessors of the soil; as, for example, in three or four of the rivers which enter the Forth nearest to us here--viz., the Avon, the Amond, and the Esk on this side; and the Dour, at Aberdour, on the opposite side of the Firth. For these are all old Aryan names, to be found as river appellations in many other spots of the world, and in some of its oldest dialects. The Amond or Avon is a simple modification of the present word of the Cymric "Afon," for "river," and we have all from our schooldays known it under its Latin form of "Amnis." The Esk, in its various modifications of Exe, Axe, Uisk, etc., is the present Welsh word, "Uisk," for "water," and possibly the earliest form "asqua," of the Latin noun "aqua." Again, the noun "Dour"--Douro--so common an appellative for rivers in many parts of Europe, is, according to some of our best etymologists, identical with, or of the same Aryan source as the "Uda," or water, of the sanskrit, "[Greek: hydor]" of the Greeks, and the "Dwr" or "Dour" of the Cambrian and Gael. The archaeologist, like the Red Indian when tracking his foe, teaches himself to observe and catch up every possible visible trace of the trail of archaic man; but, like the Red Indian also, he now and again lays his ear on the ground to listen for any sounds indicating the presence and doings of him who is the object of his pursuit. The old words which he hears whispered in the ancient names of natural objects and places supply the antiquary with this kind of audible archaeological evidence. For, when cross-questioned at the present day as to their nomenclature, many, I repeat, of our rivers and lakes, of our hills and headlands, do, in their mere names, telegraph back to us, along mighty distances of time, significant specimens of the tongue spoken by the first inhabitants of their district--in this respect resembling the doting and dying octogenarian that has left in early life the home of his fathers, to sojourn in the land of the stranger, and who remembers and babbles at last--ere the silver cord of memory is utterly and finally loosed--one language only, and that some few words merely, in the long unspoken tongue which he first learned to lisp in his earliest infancy.

The special sources and lines of research from which Scottish inductive Archaeology may be expected to derive the additional data and facts which it requires for its elucidation are many and various. Let me here briefly allude to two only, and these two of rather opposite characters,--viz. (1), researches beneath the surface of the earth; and (2), researches among olden works and manuscripts.

In times past Scottish Archaeology has already gained much from digging; and in times to come it is doubtless destined to gain yet infinitely more from a systematised use of this mode of research. For the truth is, that beneath the surface of the earth on which we tread--often not above two or three feet below that surface, sometimes not deeper than the roots of our plants and trees--there undoubtedly lie, in innumerable spots and places,--buried, and waiting only for disinterment,--antiquarian relics of the most valuable and important character. The richest and rarest treasures contained in some of our antiquarian museums have been exhumed by digging; and that digging has been frequently of the most accidental and superficial kind--like the discovery of the silver mines of Potosi through the chance uprooting of a shrub by the hand of a climbing traveller.

The magnificent twisted torc, containing some L50 worth of pure gold, which was exhibited in Edinburgh in 1856, in the Museum of the Archaeological Institute, was found in 1848 in Needwood Forest, lying on the top of some fresh mould which had been turned up by a fox, in excavating for himself a new earth-hole. Formerly, on the sites of the old British villages in Wiltshire, the moles, as Sir Richard Hoare tells us, were constantly throwing up to the surface numerous coins and fragments of pottery. We are indebted to the digging propensities of another animal for the richest collection of silver ornaments which is contained in our Museum: For the great hoard of massive silver brooches, torcs, ingots, Cufic and other coins, etc., weighing some 16 lbs. in all, which was found in 1857 in the Bay of Skaill in Orkney, was discovered in consequence of several small pieces of the deposit having been accidentally uncovered by the burrowings of the busy rabbit. That hoard itself is interesting on this other account, that it is one of 130 or more similar silver deposits, almost all found by digging, that have latterly been discovered, stretching from Orkney, along the shores and islands of the Baltic, through Russia southward, towards the seat of the government of those Eastern Caliphs who issued the Cufic coins which generally form part of these collections--this long track being apparently the commercial route along which those merchants passed, who, from the seventh or eighth to the eleventh century, carried on the traffic which then subsisted between Asia and the north of Europe.

The spade and plough of the husbandman are constantly disinterring relics of high value to the antiquary and numismatist. The matchless collection of gold ornaments contained in the Museum of the Irish Academy has been almost entirely discovered in the course of common agricultural operations. The pickaxe of the ditcher, and of the canal and railway navvies, have often also, by their accidental strokes, uncovered rich antiquarian treasures. The remarkable massive silver chain, ninety-three ounces in weight, which we have in our Museum, was found about two feet below the surface, when the Caledonian Canal was dug in 1808. One of the largest gold armlets ever discovered in Scotland was disinterred at Slateford in cutting the Caledonian Railway. Our Museum contains only a model of it; for the original--like many similar relics, when they consisted of the precious metals--was sold for its mere weight in bullion, and lost--at least to Archaeology--in the melting-pot of the jeweller, in consequence of the former unfortunate state of our law of treasure-trove. And it cannot perhaps be stated too often or too loudly, that such continued wanton destruction of these relics is now so far provided against; for by a Government ordinance, the finder of any relics in ancient coins, or in the precious metals, is now entitled by law, on delivering them up to the Crown for our National Museum, to claim "the full intrinsic value" of them from the Sheriff of the district in which they chance to be discovered--a most just and proper enactment, through the aid of which many such relics will no doubt be henceforth properly preserved.

But the results of digging to which I have referred are, as I have already said, the results merely of accidental digging. From a systematised application of the same means of discovery, in fit and proper localities, with or without previous ground-probing, Archaeology is certainly entitled to expect most valuable consequences. The spade and pickaxe are become as indispensable aids in some forms of archaeological, as the hammer is in some forms of geological research. The great antiquarian treasures garnered up in our sepulchral barrows and olden kistvaen cemeteries, are only to be recovered to antiquarian science by digging, and by digging, too, of the most careful and methodised kind. For in such excavations it is a matter of moment to note accurately every possible separate fact as to the position, state, etc., of all the objects exposed; as well as to search for, handle, and gather these objects most carefully. In excavating, some years ago, a large barrow in the Phoenix Park at Dublin, two entire skeletons were discovered within the chamber of the stone cromlech which formed the centre of the sepulchral mound. A flint knife, a flint arrow-head, and a small fibula of bone were found among the rubbish, along with some cinerary urns; but no bronze or other metallic implements. The human beings buried there had lived in the so-called Stone Period of the Danish archaeologists. Some hard bodies were observed immediately below the head of one of the skeletons, and by very cautious and careful picking away of the surrounding earth, there was traced around the neck of each a complete necklace formed of the small sea-shells of the Nerita, with a perforation in each shell to admit of a string composed of vegetable fibres being passed through them. Without due vigilance how readily might these interesting relics have been overlooked!

The spade and mattock, however, have subserved, and will subserve, other important archaeological purposes besides the opening of ancient cemeteries. They will probably enable us yet to solve to some extent the vexed question of the true character of our so-called "Druidical circles" and "Druidical stones," by proving to us that one of their uses at least was sepulchral. The bogs and mosses of Ireland, Denmark, and other countries, have, when dug into, yielded up great stores of interesting antiquarian objects--usually wonderfully preserved by the qualities of the soil in which they were immersed--as stone and metallic implements, portions of primaeval costume, combs, and other articles of the toilet, pieces of domestic furniture, old and buried wooden houses, and even, as in the alleged case of Queen Gunhild, and other "bogged" or "pitted" criminals, human bodies astonishingly entire, and covered with the leathern and other dresses in which they died. All this forms a great mine of antiquarian research, in which little or nothing has yet been accomplished in Scotland. It is only by due excavations that we can hope to acquire a proper analytical knowledge of the primaeval abodes of our ancestors,--whether these abodes were in underground "weems," or in those hitherto neglected and yet most interesting objects of Scottish Archaeology, namely, our archaic villages and towns, the vestiges and marks of which lie scattered over our plains and mountain sides--always near a stream, or lake, or good spring--usually marked by groups of shallow pits or excavations (the foundations of their old circular houses) and a few nettles--generally protected and surrounded on one or more sides by a rath or earth-wall--often near a hill-fort--and having attached to them, at some distance in the neighbourhood, stone graves, and sometimes, as on the grounds about Morton Hall, monoliths and barrows.

Last year we had detailed at length to the Society the very remarkable results which Mr. Neish had obtained by simple persevering digging upon the hill of the Laws in Forfarshire, exposing, as his excavations have done, over the whole top of the hill, extensive Cyclopic walls of several feet in height, formerly buried beneath the soil, and of such strange and puzzling forms as to defy as yet any definite conjecture of their character. No doubt similar works, with similar remains of implements, ornaments, querns, charred corn, etc., will yet be found by similar diggings on other Scottish hills; and at length we may obtain adequate data for fixing their nature and object, and perhaps even their date. Certainly every Scotch antiquary must heartily wish that the excellent example of earnest and enlightened research set by Mr. Neish was followed by others of his brother landholders in Scotland.

At the present time the sites and remains of some Roman cities in England are being restored to light in this way--as the old city of Uriconium (Wroxeter), where already many curious discoveries have rewarded the quiet investigations that are being carried on;--and Borcovicus in Northumberland (a half-day's journey from Edinburgh), one of the stations placed along the magnificent old Roman wall which still exists in wonderful preservation in its neighbourhood, and itself a Roman town, left comparatively so entire that "Sandy Gordon" described it long ago as the most remarkable and magnificent Roman station in the whole island, while Dr. Stukely spoke of it enthusiastically as the "Tadmor of Britain." I was lately told by Mr. Longueville Jones, that in the vicinity of Caerleon--the ancient Isca Silurum of the Roman Itinerary--the slim sharpened iron rod used as a ground-probe had detected at different distances a row of buried Roman houses and villas, extending from the old city into the country for nearly three miles in length. Here, as elsewhere, a rich antiquarian mine waits for the diggings of the antiquary; and elsewhere, as here, the ground-probe will often point out the exact spots that should be dug, with far more certainty than the divining rod of any Dousterswivel ever pointed out hidden hoards of gold or hidden springs of water.

But it is necessary, as I have already hinted, to seek and hope for additional archaeological materials in literary as well as in subterraneous researches. And certainly, one especial deficiency which we have, to deplore in Scottish Archaeology is the almost total want of written documents and annals of the primaeval and early mediaeval portions of Scottish history. The antiquaries of England and Ireland are much more fortunate in this respect than we are; for they possess a greater abundance of early documents than we can boast of. Indeed, after Tacitus' interesting account of the first Roman invasion of Scotland under Agricola, and a few meagre allusions to, and statements regarding this country and its inhabitants by some subsequent classic authors, we have, for a course of seven or eight centuries, almost no written records of any authority to refer to. The chief, if not the only, exceptions to this general remark, consist of a few scattered entries bearing upon Scotland in the Irish Annals--as in those of Tighernach and Ulster; some facts related by Bede; some statements given in the lives and legends of the early Scottish, Welsh, and Irish saints;[14] and various copies of the list of the Pictish kings.

When we come down beyond the eleventh and twelfth centuries, our written memorials rapidly increase in quantity and extent. I have already alluded to the fact that three hundred quarto volumes--nearly altogether drawn from unpublished manuscripts--have been printed by the Scottish clubs within the last forty years. Mr. Robertson informs me that in the General Register House alone (and independently of other and private collections), there is material for at least a hundred volumes more; and the English Record Office contains, as is well known, many unedited documents referring to the building of various Scottish castles by Edward I., and to other points interesting to Scottish Archaeology and History. The Welsh antiquaries have obtained from the Government offices in London various important documents of this description referring to Wales. Why should the antiquaries of Scotland not imitate them in this respect?

Modern experience has shown that it is not by any means chimerical to expect, that we may yet recover, from various quarters, and from quite unexpected sources, too, writings and documents of much interest and importance in relation both to British and to Scottish Archaeology. Of that great fossil city Pompeii, not one hundredth part, it is alleged, has as yet been fully searched; and, according to Sir Charles Lyell, the quarters hitherto cleared out are those where there was the least probability of discovering manuscripts. It would be almost hoping beyond the possibility of hope to expect that in some of its unexplored mansions, one of the rich libraries of those ancient Roman times may turn up, presenting papyri deeply interesting to British antiquaries, and containing, for example, a transcript of that letter on the habits and character of the inhabitants of Britain which Cicero himself informs us that he desired his brother Quintus to write, when, as second in command, he accompanied Julius Caesar in his first invasion of our island;--or a copy of that account which Himilico the Carthaginian, had drawn up of his voyage, some centuries before the Christian era, to the Tin Islands, and other parts northwards of the Pillars of Hercules;--or a roll of those Punic Annals which Festus Avienus tells us that he himself consulted when (probably in the fourth century) he wrote those lines in his "_Ora Maritima_" in which he gives a description of Great Britain and Ireland.