Part 8

In July 1869 the late Mr. George Petrie investigated the contents of a burial-mound, situated on the crown of a ridge overlooking the sea, at a place called Orem’s Fancy, in the island of Stronsay, Orkney. The burial-mound is a low, elongated accumulation of stones and earth, partly indistinguishable from the natural ridge, and apparently about fifty yards in length. Several burials had been discovered in it from time to time in the process of bringing it under cultivation. One of these (Fig. 51, No. 1), which was carefully examined by Mr. Petrie, was contained in a cist of rough slabs, the sides being 25½ inches and 22 inches in length, and the width and depth of the cavity about 23 inches. The bottom of the cist was formed of a rough slab, and the covering stone of a larger slab of the same character. The cist contained a large and somewhat irregularly-shaped urn of stone, hollowed evidently by a metal tool. The urn (Fig. 52) stood on the bottom slab of the cist (as shown in the foregoing section) and was covered by a thin slab of clay slate, rudely dressed [Illustration: Fig. 52.—Urn of Steatitic Stone from Cist No. 1, at Orem’s Fancy, Stronsay (17 inches high).] at the edges to a circular shape. The urn was filled to a depth of about 5 inches with burnt bones, largely mixed with vitrified matter, and run together in masses. No fragments of implements, weapons, ornaments, or other articles were present among the bones. The fragments of bone were greatly comminuted, but portions of the long bones, vertebral processes, and fragments of the skull were recognisable. The urn of stone was therefore the only remarkable feature of the interment. It is a rudely-formed vessel of irregularly-conical form, narrowing from the brim to the bottom. At the brim, which is oval in form, it measured 20¾ inches in its longer, and 18 inches in its shorter diameter. Its depth is 17 inches, and the greatest width across the bottom 15 inches. The rim is smooth and slightly rounded, and the marks of the tool by which the vessel was scooped out of the block of stone are distinctly visible. The stone is a soft and easily-worked steatite.

Adjoining this cist there was another 31 inches long, 21 inches wide, and 12 inches deep (Fig. 51, No. 2), which had been previously opened, and contained nothing but earth. Underneath it was a smaller cist, 13 inches long, 9½ inches wide, and 12½ inches deep (Fig. 51, No. 3). On the bottom stone of this under cist was a quantity of clay, in the centre of which there was a bowl-shaped cavity (_i_) nearly filled with burnt bones, and covered with a thin slab of clay slate, dressed to a circular form, over which was another layer of clay (_k_) about 2 inches thick, with a depression (_h_) in the middle, leaving a portion of the centre of the stone visible when the upper cover of the cist was lifted.

At a little distance another burial was discovered, placed simply in the mound without the protection of a cist The deposit of burned bones was contained in an urn of stone similar to the first, but slightly smaller, measuring across the mouth 19 inches in the longer and 15 inches in the shorter diameter, and 15 inches in depth. The urn had been simply set in the ground, the mouth covered with a flat stone, and a quantity of stones and earth heaped over it, so that its covering stone was scarcely more than 18 inches beneath the surface.

Another urn of the same character was found, also set in the ground about a foot below the surface. It had no covering stone. Two small cists containing burnt bones and ashes, but no urns, were also found in the mound separately. At a distance of seven yards from one of these there was a circular enclosure, formed of oblong beach stones, each about a foot long, and standing on end about a yard apart. Within this circle two other cists were discovered, each containing the usual indications of a burial after cremation—burnt bones, ashes, and charcoal—but no urns and no deposit of arms, implements, weapons, or ornaments.[42]

Footnote 42:

Described by Mr. Petrie in _Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot._, vol. viii. p. 367.

In a large burial mound at Stennis, Orkney, excavated by Mr. Farrer[43] in December 1854, another burial was found, accompanied by an urn of stone of this special character. The mound was 62 feet in diameter, and about 9 feet high, circular and flat on the top, the sides sloping at a considerable angle. Near the centre of the mound, and at a height of about 3 feet above the original level of the ground, there was a cist formed of massive side stones about 6 feet in length, and end stones about 2 feet in length, set in the middle of the space between the side stones, so that the cavity enclosed was only about 2½ feet long, 2 feet wide, and 2 feet deep. In the cist was an urn of steatitic stone (Fig. 53), 22½ inches [Illustration: Fig. 53.—Large Steatite Urn, found at Stennis, Orkney (20 inches high).] diameter across the mouth, and 20 inches high. It was filled to about one-third of its depth with calcined bones, largely mingled with vitrified matter. It differs from the Stronsay urn in having a triply incised border immediately underneath the rim. The burial-mound also differs from the Stronsay mound in being higher and more regularly-shaped. like the Stronsay mound, it contained more interments than one, although the excavation only revealed two.[44] The second burial was a little beyond the centre of the mound, to the northward of the first, and at about the same height above the original surface of the ground. It was contained in a cist formed of rough flagstones placed on edge, which measured 33½ inches in length, and 19 inches in width. A small urn of baked clay, 5 inches diameter, and 5 inches deep, stood in the north-west corner of the cist. It contained fragments of calcined bones, and was unaccompanied by any other relics whatever. The urn fell to pieces, and has unfortunately not been preserved. In his account of it Mr. Petrie does not state whether it was plain or ornamented, and we are thus left with no more definite indication of its characteristics than that it was made of clay.

Footnote 43:

_Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot._, vol. ii. p. 50.

Footnote 44:

The unscientific method of opening a burial mound by driving a trench across it cannot be too strongly condemned. No such investigation can be regarded as scientific which leaves any part of the mound or of the site beneath it unexamined; and no one should touch a burial-mound who is not prepared both to investigate and record its phenomena in a scientific manner.

Quite recently a cluster of burial mounds at Corquoy, in the island of Rousay, Orkney, was examined by Mr. George M'Crie. The largest mound was about 50 feet in circumference, and 5½ feet high. It contained a cist in the centre, and on the level of the surrounding ground, composed of four side stones, a bottom stone, and a covering stone, the joints being coated with tempered clay. The cavity of the cist measured 2½ feet in length, by 2 feet in width, and 18 inches in depth. It was almost filled with clay, ashes, and fragments of bones. In the centre was an urn of steatite (Fig. 54), oval in shape, with a slightly bevelled rim. It measures 9¾ inches in its longer, and 8 inches in its shorter diameter, across the mouth, and stands 7 inches high.

The other mounds contained cists, but no urns or remains of any kind except comminuted fragments of bones.

There is in the Museum another urn of this material (Fig. 55) also from the island of Rousay, but unfortunately there is no record of the circumstances of its discovery. It is of steatite, oval in shape, the sides bulging from the bottom upwards. It measures 11 inches by 10 across the mouth, and stands 7½ inches high. It is rudely ornamented by incised lines cut round the outside immediately under the rim, and is still about one-third full of calcined human bones.

An urn of the same character (Fig. 56) was recently found in making a road through a sand hill about a mile north-east of Balfour Castle, in Shapinsay, Orkney. It was enclosed in a cist in a small tumulus, the cist being composed of four slabs for the sides and ends, and a slab for the bottom, with another flat stone for a cover. When found the urn was in fragments, but the fragments had been united by some kind of string, the fibrous texture of which was discernible in the holes which had been bored on either side of the fractures, and through which the cord had been passed to repair the breaks.

In 1874 a small burial mound, about 8 feet in diameter and 2½ feet high, was removed in the course of the construction of a road between the North and South Havens in Fair Isle, lying midway between Orkney and Shetland. In the mound there was found a large, oval-shaped, rudely-formed, and unornamented urn of baked clay. Although imperfect it measures upwards of 12 inches in height. Beside it there was a smaller urn of steatite (Fig. 57), also oval in shape, but [Illustration: Fig. 57.—Urn of Steatite, found in Fair Isle (4 inches high).] much more neatly formed. It measures 5½ inches in its longer diameter, and almost 5 inches in its shorter diameter across the mouth, and stands 4 inches high. Under the rim is a bevelled band, giving it something of an ornamental character. Close by this mound, in a flat space, there were found at intervals a number of flat stones, from 6 to 12 inches under the surface, and below each stone there was observed what is described as “a carefully-rounded hole, about 6 inches deep by 10 inches broad, very smooth in the inside, and lined with about an inch thick of a soft, black, adhesive substance, resembling a mixture of peat-moss and clay, and containing in the bottom a whitish substance resembling bone ash.” These phenomena thus imperfectly observed indicate in all probability a small cemetery of urns set in the ground, with stone covers, and having no mounds heaped over them.

In 1821 a mound in the island of Uyea, in Shetland, yielded a group of six interments, each consisting of an urn of this character filled with burnt human bones and ashes. Hibbert describes one of the urns as a well-shaped vessel, constructed of a soft magnesian stone, having the bottom made of a separate piece, and fitted into its place by a groove.[45]

Footnote 45:

Mr. Petrie notices a similar instance in Orkney, the bottom being formed of a lozenge-shaped piece of stone, fitted into its place by a groove cut round its circumference.

In the month of August 1863, when some excavations were being made on the summit of an eminence called the Meikle Heog, at Haroldswick, in the island of Unst, Shetland, for the purpose of planting a flag-staff as a fishing signal, the labourers broke into a place of sepulture formed of upright flagstones, and enclosing a number of skulls and bones. Further examination disclosed another cist similarly formed. Unfortunately there is no record of the dimensions of these cists. In the one last mentioned there were found a human skull, some bones of the ox, and six urns or vessels of chloritic schist or steatite.[46] They were of different shapes and sizes, as follows:—

Footnote 46:

These vessels are figured and described by Mr. G. E. Roberts in the _Mem. Soc. Anthrop. Lond._, vol. i. p. 296.

No. 1, a flat-bottomed vessel, with an unsymmetrical four-sided outline, the corners slightly rounded, and the sides bulging from the bottom upwards, about 7 inches high.

No. 2, a tolerably symmetrical four-sided vessel of similar form, but thinner and better made, measuring 5½ inches in length, 5¼ inches in width, and 3½ inches high.

No. 3, a rude thick-sided vessel of the same form, 6½ inches long, 4½ inches high, and 4½ inches wide.

No. 4, a rudely-made and unsymmetrical vessel, oval in outline, flat-bottomed, the sides bulging from the bottom upwards, and slightly contracting towards the rim, about 4 inches in length, 3¾ inches in width, and 4 inches high.

No. 5, a small cup-shaped vessel, oval in shape, 4½ inches long, 3 inches broad, and 2¾ inches high.

No. 6, a rather neatly-made oval vessel, 4½ inches long, and 4 inches wide at the brim, contracting to 2½ inches long, and 2 inches wide at the base. It is the only one in the group which bears any ornament, the ornament consisting of two incised lines scored round the upper part of the vessel, immediately under the rim.

These burials in the Meikle Heog differ from all the others that have been described, inasmuch as they are burials unburnt. The character of the vessels is also different, inasmuch as they are not cinerary urns placed in the grave for the purpose of containing the burned bones of the interment. But the general form of the vessels is similar to that of those which are found in Orkney and the Fair Isle, containing burnt bones, and the character of the ornament and the nature of the material of which they are made is identical.

Two vessels of stone, of the same irregularly oval shape, but slightly more ornate in character (Fig. 58), were turned up by the plough on the farm of Aucorn, in the parish of Wick, in Caithness, in 1853. The larger vessel is flat-bottomed, oval, and furnished with handles projecting from its ends. It measures 17 inches in its longest diameter, and 16 inches in its shortest diameter at the mouth, and stands 13 inches high. The smaller vessel is without handles, measures 10 inches in greatest, and 9 inches in its least diameter at the mouth, and stands 8 inches high. The ornamentation of both these vessels is similar in character to that of all the others, consisting of incised lines drawn round the outside, immediately below the rim. Unfortunately their contents were neither examined nor preserved, but Mr. Rhind states that it has been observed that the grain grows greener and richer on the spot where they were turned up than anywhere else in the field; and he infers from this, as well as from the character of the vessels themselves, that they were deposited with an interment or interments after cremation.

The largest vessel of this description which has been recorded is one which was presented to the museum in fragments in 1834. It was dug out of a mound called Wilkie’s Knowe, in the island of Westray, in Orkney, and an account of its discovery, which has not been preserved, was read to the Society in April 1835. The form of the vessel is oval, narrowing from the brim downwards. The circumference of the upper part is about 6 feet, and the thickness of the sides of the vessel 1½ inches. The material is the same chloritic or steatitic stone of which the others are formed.

These examples will suffice to show the general characteristics of this peculiar class of interments. They are interments of bodies usually burnt, but sometimes unburnt; usually placed in cisted mounds, sometimes singly, at other times in groups; and generally unaccompanied by any manufactured article except the urns. The character of the urns is peculiar. They are not of clay, but of stone. They are not circular, but oval or irregularly four-sided in shape. They vary extremely in size, the largest known being 6 feet in circumference, and the smallest less than 5 inches long and 3 inches high. They are characterised by extreme simplicity of form and decoration. When they are ornamented the decoration is confined to the scoring of two or more lines underneath the rim, and rudely parallel to it. Their range, so far as is at present known, is confined to Caithness, Orkney, and Shetland, the area proper of the old Norwegian Earldom of Orkney.

Urns of steatitic stone are of common occurrence in the burial mounds of the Viking time in Norway.[47] But they are rarely placed in cists of stones, and they are usually accompanied by such deposits of arms, implements, and ornaments, as have been described in the previous Lecture. This form of burial, which is found in the area of the Norwegian colonisation of the north of Scotland, is not completely comparable to the common form in Norway. But it presents as its characteristic feature the single point in which Norwegian burials of that period differ from all others. Nowhere else in Europe are urns of steatite the characteristic feature of any class of burials. In this respect, therefore, these northern interments in Scotland link themselves with interments of the Viking time in Norway. But they are so far differentiated from the common Norwegian type as to constitute a distinct variety of that type peculiar to the area proper of the Norwegian colony which founded the earldom of Orkney in the time of the Scandinavian Paganism.

Footnote 47:

A few notices of these are appended to show the character of the burials:—At Hof, in the district of Hedenmarken, round the church are several grave-mounds. In some of these there were found, in 1842, four axe-heads, three spear-heads, fragments of two double-edged swords, a pair of stirrups, two bridle-bits, ten arrow-points, a fire-steel, fragments of a shield-boss, a ring, a kind of pincers, and other fragments, all of iron, along with two vessels of steatite, the one having an iron handle, and the other containing burnt bones and oxidised iron fragments.—_Nicolaysen’s Norske Fornlevninger_, p. 59. In a circular grave-mound at Gaarden, Ostre Alm, Hedenmark, there was found an urn or vessel of steatite with remains of its iron handle, a two-edged sword contorted and broken into three pieces, a bent spear-head of iron, an iron axe-head, two shield-bosses of iron, a bridle-bit, a pair of stirrups, a strap-buckle and two iron tags, a portion of a comb of bone, pretty long, and toothed only on one side, made of small pieces of bone held between two slips of bone riveted together, two hemispherical table-men of bone, and a small figure in bone of animal resembling a dog. In the urn lay ashes.—_Foreningen for Norske Fortidsmindesmækers Bevaring_, 1866, p. 88. At Nordby Sagbrug, Akershus, there were found in a small low grave-mound, the pieces of a bowl-shaped urn of steatite, 7 inches diameter, in which were ashes and burnt bones, and along with it a two-edged sword of iron, the blade 30¼ inches long, a spear-head, an axe-blade, and other iron relics.—_Foren. for Norske Fortids. Bev._, 1867, p. 49. At Elset, in Solum parish, province of Bratsberg, there was found a bowl-shaped urn of steatite of the kind so commonly occurring in graves of the later Iron Age. It had an iron hank round the rim and an iron bow-handle, and was full of burnt bones.—_Foren. for Norske Fortids. Bev._, 1868, p. 115.

* * * * *

I now pass to the description of another series of objects, having no distinct connection with interments, but possessing associations and characteristics which also link them with the intrusion of the Norwegian element into the northern districts of Scotland.

In the month of March 1858 a boy, chasing a rabbit into a hole in the links of Skaill, in the parish of Sandwick, Orkney, found a few fragments of silver which had been unearthed by the rabbits at the mouth of their burrow. The news of this discovery soon spread in the neighbourhood, and a number of people having joined in the search, a large quantity of silver articles were found in the sand. Mr. George Petrie of Kirkwall (a zealous corresponding member of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland) was speedily upon the spot, and fortunately succeeded in securing the bulk of the articles, which had become dispersed in various hands, and they finally found their way through the Exchequer to the National Museum. The aggregate weight of silver thus recovered amounted to 16 lbs. avoirdupois.

The hoard, which had apparently been deposited in one spot, consisted of three classes of objects—personal ornaments, ingots of silver, and coins. The personal ornaments formed the bulk of the deposit. They were of three varieties—brooches, neck rings, and arm rings, all of silver.

The brooches are of great size, and unusually heavy and massive in their construction. The metal is brittle, and most of them are more or less broken. The largest of those that are entire (Fig. 59) consists of a plain penannular ring, formed of a solid cylindrical rod of silver, ¼ inch thick, the ring forming an incomplete circle 6¼ inches diameter, and terminating in bulbous knobs, which are furnished with expansions giving them a strong resemblance to thistle heads. These knobs are each 1¼ inches in diameter. They have been cast hollow, with a short cylindrical collar at either side, through which the ends of the ring of the brooch pass, to be riveted at their terminations. A similar knob with similar collars at either side fits loosely on the ring of the brooch. Its upper part terminates in the conventional thistle head, and its lower part is prolonged into a stout pin of great length. This pin, which is fitted by a socket at its upper end upon a projection of the bulbous head, is, like the ring of the brooch, a solid rod of hammered silver, cylindrical in the upper part, passing into a squarish section in the middle of its length, and tapering gradually to a bluntish point. The total length of the pin from head to point is 15 inches. The only parts of the brooch that are ornamented are the knobs and their collars, and the terminal expansions which give their suggestive resemblance to thistle heads. The spherical surfaces of the knobs are plain on one hemisphere, and the other is decorated with engraved designs of zoomorphic character (Figs. 71-73), to which I shall direct attention at a subsequent stage, for the purpose of determining the typical relationship of the style of ornament. The collars are decorated by a series of bands of engraved parallel lines, passing obliquely across the spaces they fill. The terminal expansions are decorated with triangular spaces, filled with parallel lines, and alternating with spaces that are plain.

Another brooch, the pin of which is gone, is a similar ring of hammered silver, ¼ inch thick, and 6¾ inches diameter, with bulbous knobs, which are plain, though the collars and terminal expansions are ornamented with a T-like fret, and with bands of triangles filled with parallel lines.