Part 14

This object (Fig. 141) is a ball of cast bronze, found at Walston, Lanarkshire, long in the collection of the late Adam Sim, of Coulter, and now in the National Museum. It is 1½ inch in diameter, divided into hemispheres, which differ considerably in the colour of the metal. Each hemisphere has a different variety of ornament, although the arrangement is the same in both. The surface of the ball is divided into six discs, three in the one hemisphere and three in the other. The discs are separated from each other by deeply hollowed grooves, and each disc in the upper hemisphere is ornamented by a spiral groove, terminating in a zoomorphic ending. The lower hemisphere is similarly treated, except that the spirals are simply geometric in their character.

A ball of clay slate, 2⅞ inches diameter, from Elgin (Fig. 142), of which there is a cast in the Museum, has its surface divided into four projecting discs of considerable convexity, one of which is completely covered with a double spiral pattern, from which smaller spirals escape, but not in the regular manner so characteristic of the double spirals of the Celtic manuscripts and monuments of the Christian time. Another disc shows the commencement of an unfinished spiral. The two remaining discs are plain.

At the Glas Hill, in the parish of Towie, Aberdeenshire, in 1860, a finely ornamented ball of this description (Fig. 143) was found in digging a drain, and is now in the National Museum. It is of clay slate, fine-grained in texture, and dark in colour. It measures almost 3 inches in diameter, and has its surface divided into four boldly projecting discs with considerable convexity, three of which are elaborately carved and the fourth plain. Its ornamentation consists of double spirals, wavy lines arranged concentrically, interrupted concentric circles and escaping spirals, but the lines are not continuous, and the patterns are not worked out with the regularity and precision so conspicuous in the style of the Christian time when the escaping double spiral formed such a characteristic element of Celtic decoration. In the triangular space between the three ornamented discs is a group of three dots arranged as a triangle.[69]

Footnote 69:

This arrangement of triple dots is a very characteristic feature of the illuminated Celtic manuscripts. It appears also on the monuments and metal work of the Christian time. This is the only instance of its occurrence on these balls, and though it may be held to suggest a possible connection, the suggestion is too feeble to imply distinct relationship.

A ball of fine-grained clay slate (Fig. 144) found at Freelands, near Glasterlaw, Forfarshire, has six projecting discs of slight convexity arranged upon its surface; but the discs are small in proportion to the size of the ball and the interspaces wide. The discs themselves are plain, but the interspaces are partially ornamented. In the space between three contiguous discs is a pattern composed of three triangular figures within each other, formed by the meeting of curved or segmental lines. In the next contiguous space is a double spiral.

A ball of fine-grained dark-coloured sandstone (Fig. 145), found at Fordoun, in Kincardineshire, has its surface divided into seven circular compartments, some of which are simply incised with concentric circles, while in others there is a border of chevrony ornament enclosing the concentric circles.

An example in the collection of Sir J. Noel Paton (Fig. 146) presents a different style of ornament. It is of hornblendic schist, 2¾ inches in diameter, and has its surface divided into six projecting discs, carved with concentric bands of slight convexity, the bands increasing in width and prominence towards the centre of the disc. The spaces between the discs are ornamented by irregular scoopings of the surface as if with the point of a gouge-like tool—a variety of decoration also seen in the gold object found on Cairnmuir (Fig. 114).

On the top of Craig Beg, near Ballater, previous to 1864, three stone cists were found containing interments which, from the presence of ashes and bones, were assigned to the Pagan custom of cremation. Each cist was also surrounded by a number of boulder-stones arranged in a circle of about 15 feet in diameter. Close to one of these cists a stone ball (Fig. 147) was found, having its surface divided into six circular discs of slight convexity, and some of the interspaces between the discs ornamented with small, rounded, slightly projecting knobs.

A ball of fine-grained claystone, in the Perth Museum (Fig. 148), which is said to have been dredged up from the Tay, has its surface divided into four circular discs which scarcely project beyond the circular outline of the ball, and impinge upon each other. In one of the discs the ornament consists of projecting knobs, arranged in rows both ways by the channels between them crossing each other at right angles. The knobs rise from a square base, and are rounded at the summits. This is also the character of the prickly ornament of the hemispheres of the terminal bulbs of the penannular brooches of silver found at Skaill, to which the ornament on the disc of this stone ball has a distinct resemblance. The treatment of the segmental spaces between the discs is also seen in the example from Freelands, Glasterlaw (Fig. 144), and the simply incised ornament of the remaining discs occurs on two other balls (Figs. 149, 150), which have each but one of their discs ornamented.

An example from the island of Skye (Fig. 151) has its surface covered with small hemispherical protuberances. This variety is akin to another which has the whole surface studded with projections of a pyramidal form. Two balls of this latter variety (Figs. 152, 153) were found in one of the chambers of a curious composite structure, or group of structures, situated close to the shore on the south side of the Bay of Skaill, in the mainland of Orkney.[70] One of these (Fig. 152) has the central portion pierced with a hole. The perforation is roughly made, and considerably wider at its external orifices than in the centre, where it is less than half an inch in diameter.

Footnote 70:

This structure, which was explored by Mr. William Watt, consisted of several sub-rectangular chambers with rounded corners, having small cell-like constructions opening off them. The chambers were arranged on both sides of a long winding passage. Their door-ways had checks for the doors, and bar-holes behind them. The largest chamber was about 20 feet square. From 6 to 8 feet of the height of the walls remained. They were dry-built, and converged towards the upper part as if to form beehive roofs. Hearths of square form, surrounded by flagstones on edge, were found in the floors. Many implements of stone and bone were found in the chambers, and a large accumulation of bones and horns of animals, among which those of the red-deer and the _Bos primigenius_ were abundant. Among the stone implements were several polished celts. The collection is preserved at Skaill House.

Another Orkney example (Fig. 154) is allied to these two by the character of its ornamentation. One of its ends is studded with pyramidal projections, the middle portion is ornamented by a continuous spiral, and the other end is filled by a peculiar arrangement of segmental curves.

Many of these balls, however, have their discs destitute of ornament. But whether decorated or undecorated, they usually present the strongly marked typical form, which varies from the approximately circular with rounded discs, like the examples shown from Dumfriesshire (Fig. 155), and Dudwick, in Aberdeenshire (Fig. 156), to those from Mountblairy, in Banffshire (Fig. 157), and Muckle Geddes, in Nairnshire (Fig. 158), which take the form of a cylindrical axis with flat-ended cylindrical projections radiating round its circumference.

In all their varieties of form, these objects present certain features which are suggestive of a possible use as weapons. Their ornate character, their specialty of form, which renders them capable of being swung by thongs or bound to the end of a handle, and the fact that one example is pierced by a hole, are indications in this direction. Although there is no conclusive evidence of the fact, it is at least conceivable that they may have been mounted as mace-heads similar to those metal mace-heads with pyramidal projections which are found occasionally among the relics of the Iron Age, and continued in use in the early Middle Ages, and similar, at least in appearance, to the mace-heads shown (Fig. 159) in the hands of unmounted men in the Bayeux Tapestry.[71]

Footnote 71:

Dr. John Alexander Smith has discussed this point fully in his exhaustive notice of these Stone Balls in _Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot._, pp. 56-62. Dr. John Evans remarks that “it seems probable that they were intended for use in the chase or in war when attached to a thong which the recesses between the projecting discs seem well adapted to receive.” He also states that "these Scottish Stone Balls seem to belong to a recent period, as compared with that to which many other stone antiquities may be assigned."—_Ancient Stone Implements, etc., of Great Britain_, pp. 377-379.

But whatever may have been their special purpose or the precise manner of their use, it is of greater importance for the purposes of our inquiry that we should be able to determine their typical relations and ascertain the area to which they are confined. It is clear that they possess a typical form which has no distinctly definable relations with any other class of stone implements. The type is so peculiar and so strongly marked, that if it exists anywhere out of Scotland we should probably have known of its existence. But, with a single exception, said to have been found in Ireland, there is no record that I can discover of the occurrence of any specimen beyond the bounds of Scotland. Within that area it is widely diffused. There are so many specimens in private hands of whose localities we possess no record, that it is impossible to ascertain with any degree of precision the relative frequency of their occurrence in different districts of the country. But their known range comprehends an area which is but little short of the whole area of Scotland. They are most abundant in the north-eastern districts, but they occur as far north as Caithness and Orkney, as far south as Dumfries, and as far west as Argyle. Whether they belong wholly to the Pagan time or partly to the Christian period, it is clear that the prevailing features of their decoration, though distinctly Celtic in character, are not those of the fully developed style of Celtic ornament which prevailed throughout the early Christian time. Nor does it possess the most striking characteristics of the decoration of these objects in metal, of which so many characteristic examples have now been given. But the zoomorphic ending of the spiral pattern on the bronze ball from Lanarkshire, and the double and escaping spirals of the Towie, Elgin, and Glasterlaw specimens, are sufficiently distinctive to claim for them a place in the same system of design which produced the peculiar patterns of the Pagan period, and developed from them the more elaborate systems of decoration so widely applied in the early Christian art of Scotland.

* * * * *

In the whole group of objects described in this Lecture we have a series of examples of the art which characterised the Iron Age Paganism of Scotland—the period that lies beyond the Christian time and reaches back until it merges into the Bronze Age culture. The outcome of the whole examination thus appears to be that the early Christian art of Scotland, although it had close relations with that of Ireland, was nevertheless based upon a pre-existing system of Pagan art peculiar to the area of the British Isles. Although remotely connected with certain developments of art that appear obscurely among the Iron Age relics of Central and Southern Europe, this special system of design received its highest development and attained its full maturity in the British Isles alone. There it became a distinctive school of decoration, exhibiting different aspects in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and attaining in each of these areas a separate development marked by a distinct individuality of character. Its manifestations in Scotland are those of a peculiar and highly characteristic style, confining itself to curvilinear forms, combining its simple elements in a manner that is neither rigidly geometric nor fettered by conditions of absolute symmetry, but producing by the variation and rhythmic recurrence of its peculiar features a series of designs characterised by beauty of form, balance of parts, and harmonious combination. It differs from the art of the Christian time, inasmuch as it presents no intermixture of forms and features that are common to Greek, Roman, or Etruscan art—no interlaced work, no meanders or key-patterns, or fretwork, and no similitude of foliage, or foliageous scrolls. It is zoomorphic, but its zoomorphism is chiefly apparent in the forms of the objects, and seldom exhibited in the designs with which they are decorated. It is more partial to the modelling of solid forms of ornament than to the elaborate enrichment of surface by intricate engraved work, and these solid forms of its surface ornament rarely become zoomorphic. When engraved or chased ornamentation is employed, it is used chiefly to produce broad effects by the contrast between plain spaces in the design and spaces filled with punctulations or chequers of short parallel lines. We find this peculiar style of art employed chiefly in the decoration of metal-work in bronze and gold. The objects so decorated are personal ornaments, arms, harness, and horse-trappings. The technical skill displayed in the fabrication and finish of these objects is great, and the quality of the art displayed in their decoration is high. There is implied in their production a special dexterity in preparing moulds and compounding alloys, in casting, chasing, and engraving, in the polishing and setting of jewels, in the composition and fixing of enamels. But there is further implied an artistic spirit controlling and combining the results of these various processes, giving elegance and beauty of a peculiar cast to the forms of the objects, and increasing the intrinsic elegance and beauty of the form by the harmonious blending of its special varieties of surface decoration, in which forms that are solidly modelled are intermingled with chased or engraved patterns and spaces filled with colour. A style of art characterised by such originality of design and excellence of execution must count for something in the history of a nation’s progress, must have its place to fill in the history of art itself, when once we have begun to realise the fact that art was not the exclusive privilege of classic antiquity.

LECTURE IV. (28TH OCTOBER 1881.) THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE BROCHS.

In this Lecture I have to deal with the products of a school of architecture, Celtic in its character, and absolutely peculiar to the Scottish area.

On the small uninhabited island of Mousa, lying off the east coast of the mainland of Shetland, there stands a solitary stone structure, massive in size, peculiar in appearance, and still more peculiar in character. It is a tower of circular form, wide and lofty, but constructed of undressed stones laid upon each other without mortar or other binding material, so that the mass of its uncemented wall coheres simply by its own vertical pressure.

Its situation is peculiar. The island is small, not over a mile in length, and less than half a mile in width, bare, flat, and rocky. The tower is placed on a small promontory on the west side of the island at the point nearest to the mainland. It stands about 20 feet back from the edge of the rocks, which slope irregularly to the tide-mark about 20 feet below. There are slight remains of an intrenchment on the sides which look landward, those facing the rocks and the sea are protected by the natural features of the ground.

The material of which the tower is built is the fissile flag of the island. The stones are flat, sometimes as much as 2 feet in thickness, but mostly much less, and they rather diminish in size towards the top of the tower. The stones bear no mark of a tool, and the masonry is not coursed, but compactly fitted together. The wall goes up with a curve like that of a lighthouse, and its external appearance (Fig. 160) is suggestive of great solidity and strength. This suggestion of solidity, which is due to the bulk of the building rather than to the character of its masonry, is further intensified by the absence of external openings, the whole exterior surface being unbroken by a single aperture except the doorway. It is on the level of the ground on the S.W. side, and is about 5 feet 3 inches high by 2 feet 11 inches wide, passing straight through the thickness of the wall, but widening considerably at a distance of about 7 feet from the outside and rising in the roof. Entering by this tunnel-like passage through a wall 15 feet 6 inches thick, the visitor finds himself in the interior of a circular well-like court, open to the sky above, but completely surrounded by a wall of that thickness and 45 feet in height. From the inner circumference of this court (as seen in the ground plan, Fig. 161) there open at various places other doorways leading into oval chambers constructed in the thickness of the wall nearly on the ground level. These chambers are three in number. One placed to right of the entrance is 16 feet in length, 5 feet 9 inches wide, and 9 feet 9 inches high. Its doorway is small, 3 feet high and 2 feet wide, passing through 4 feet of the thickness of the wall. A second chamber opposite the main entrance is 14 feet long, 6 feet 10 inches wide, and 10 feet 6 inches high. Its doorway is also small, 3 feet 4 inches high and 2 feet 9 inches wide, passing through a thickness of 4½ feet of walling. The third chamber, situated to the left of the main entrance, is 14 feet long, 5 feet 6 inches wide, and 9 feet 6 inches high. Its doorway is 3 feet 2 inches high and 2 feet 3 inches wide, passing through 4 feet of walling. All these chambers are irregularly oval in form on the ground plan. They are roofed in a peculiar manner. At variable distances from the floor the walls begin to be brought inwards by projecting each stone slightly beyond the face of the stone below it. In this way the distance between the opposite walls is gradually lessened as they rise in height until they come near enough to admit of single stones being laid across the space between wall and wall. This style of converging the walls inwards to obtain support for a roof of single stones is not new to us. We have met with it in the beehive houses of the early Christian monasteries and in the inverted boat-shaped roofs of their churches, built of uncemented stones on a rectangular ground-plan. It is the style of roof which is common to all dry-built structures that are roofed, whether they be of Pagan or of Christian time, because it is the style that is best suited to the material and the manner of construction. The builders of this edifice had no stones long enough to span chambers of six feet wide, and if they had had them long enough they would have been too weak to bear the superincumbent weight of a wall forty feet in height. Therefore they made their chamber-roofs semi-vaulted, while the doors and passages, which were narrow, were simply spanned with strong flat lintels. These chambers on the ground floor are lighted by window-like openings above the doorways, which rise one over the other, and serve not only to admit light and air, but to distribute the weight to be borne by the lintels. In each of the chambers there are small ambry-like recesses in the walls, but no fireplace or chimney. They are small, dimly-lighted, dungeon-like rooms, but neither smaller, worse-lighted, or more dungeon-like than many rooms in the lime-built castles of the nobles of the Feudal ages.

Half-way between the chamber facing the main entrance and the one to the left of it there is a doorway placed at a height of four feet above the ground level. This doorway, which is higher and wider than those which lead into the chambers, is slightly larger than the main entrance itself, being 5 feet 4 inches high and 3 feet wide. It leads to a stair constructed like the chambers within the thickness of the wall. At the foot of the stair there is an oval chamber, from one end of which the stair rises in a steep slope, but following the curve of the wall to the top. The steps are single flat stones, varying in width from ten inches to two feet, undressed, and laid above each other so that they give a tread of about five inches and nearly the same of a rise. The upper part of the tower which is traversed by the stair is differently constructed from the lower part. To the height of about eleven feet above the ground level the wall of the tower is carried up solid except for the vacancy occasioned at intervals in its thickness by the chambers and their accesses. But above this height the wall is carried up with a vacancy in its centre (as seen in the section Fig. 162) so as to form a series of circular galleries placed one immediately over another, and crossed successively from the lowest to the highest by the rise of the stair which gives access to them.