Portmahomack: A Pictish Academy in Northern Scotland

265 Pages·2008·2.83 MB·English

by  Martin Carver

P
O
PORTMAHOMACK R
T
M
Monastery of the Picts
A
H
Martin Carver
O
A trail of chance finds on the outskirts of Portmahomack during the 19th and 20th M
PORTMAHOMACK
centuries culminated in 1996 in the first exposure of a Pictish monastery in northern
A
Scotland. The area soon became the subject of one of the largest research excavations ever
C
to have taken place on the Scottish mainland. Discover the world of the Picts with this
unique account of the discovery and excavation of an early monastery. K
Monastery of the Picts
Dating from the 6th to the 9th century AD, Portmahomack is one of the earliest Christian
sites to be revealed in Britain and the first in the land of the Picts. The monastery was o
M
destroyed between 780 and 830 ADand was then lost to history before being unearthed by f o Martin Carver
t
Martin Carver and his colleagues. hn
ea
In this richly illustrated book, Martin Carver describes the discovery of the site and the Pst
design and execution of the research programme, then traces the events that occurred ice
r
from the mid-6th century to the 11th century when the parish church was founded on t
y
s
the former monastic site. The book ends with the subsequent history of the church of
St Colman and a study of the Tarbat peninsula. The author’s conclusions advance the
theory that this was a prehistoric place before the monks arrived, and that they marked
out the boundaries of their estate in the late 8th century with the lives of local saints
carved on some of the greatest stone sculptures of the age.
Martin Carver is Director of Research at Portmahomack. He was Director of the Sutton
Hoo excavations, 1983–93, and wrote Sutton Hoo: Burial Ground of Kings?(new edition
2005). Appointed to the Chair of Archaeology at the University of York in 1986, he is
currently editor of the journal Antiquity.
M
a
r
t
in

C
a
r
ISBN 978 0 7486 2442 3
v
Edinburgh University Press e
r
22 George Square
Edinburgh
EH8 9LF
www.euppublishing.com E
Cover design: www.paulsmithdesign.com di ‘A gripping tale of rediscovery and detection,
Cover images courtesy of the author n
b at once accessible and scholarly’
u
r
g William Dalrymple
h
Portmahomack
Colum Cille, Colum who was, Colum who will be
(Tiugraind Beccáin, in Clancy and Márkus 1995: 149)
Portmahomack
Monastery of the Picts
Martin Carver
EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS
© Martin Carver, 2008
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh
Typeset in 10/13pt Adobe Sabon
by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and
printed and bound in Great Britain by
MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7486 2441 6 (hardback)
ISBN 978 0 7486 2442 3 (paperback)
The right of Martin Carver
to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All illustrations are copyright Martin Carver and
University of York, unless otherwise stated.
Contents
List of figures vi
List of plates ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgements xii
Abbreviations xv
PART 1 Exploring
11 Welcome to Portmahomack 3
12 Designing the expedition 16
13 What we found 37
PART 2 Age of Fame
14 The monks arrive 73
15 Carvers and thinkers 94
16 Architects and artisans 118
17 Serving new masters 136
PART 3 Legacy
18 Aftermath: St Colman’s church 151
19 Ritual landscape, with portage 173
10 A holy place in history 191
Digest of evidence 203
Bibliography 227
Index 235
Figures
1.1 Early Historic Scotland, showing the location of Whithorn, Iona and
Portmahomack 4
1.2 The lower portion of a cross-slab, found east of the church (TR1) 6
1.3 A large carved stone boss retrieved by grave-diggers (TR6) 7
1.4 Portrait of the inscribed stone (TR10) 9
1.5 Aerial photograph of Iona 12
1.6 Cropmark recorded at Portmahomack in 1984 13
1.7 Caroline Shepherd-Barron and Gillian Mackenzie raising money for
the Tarbat Historic Trust 14
2.1 Early kingdoms of the North Sea 18
2.2 Prehistoric cultures: distribution of henges and carved stone balls 20
2.3 Early historic cultures: map of place names and Pictish symbol stones 21
2.4 Areas of evaluation, with contours 27
2.5 Duncan Johnson 28
2.6 ‘Strip and map’: inspecting the surface of the archaeology without
harming it 29
2.7 The excavation design 35
3.1 The excavation of the Smiths’ Hall (S1) 38
3.2 Church under scaffolding in 1996 40
3.3 Annette Roe, supervisor, and Fred Geddes, architect, consider the
options 40
3.4 Areas excavated in the church 42
3.5 The ‘Boar Stone’ (TR22) in situin the foundation of Church 2 43
3.6 Katie Anderson and Donna Urquhart look into the crypt 44
3.7 Cist grave under excavation 46
3.8 Medieval burial under excavation 47
3.9 Overview of Sector 1 50
3.10 Enclosure ditch under excavation 52
3.11 The sequence in Sector 1 55
3.12 Overview of Sector 2, seen from the south 56
3.13 Nicky Toop sampling the main east section in Int. 14 57
3.14 The sequence in Sector 2 63
3.15 Last-minute preparations before opening day at the Centre in 1999 65
Figures vii
3.16 Prince Charles opening the Centre, 1999 66
3.17 Overall plan of the excavated area 68
3.18 Timeline 69
4.1 Carved stone ball from St Colman’s church 74
4.2 Filtration pit, for purifying water with charcoal 75
4.3 Monastic period burials 77
4.4 Sarah King’s identifications of age and sex 78
4.5 Cist burials from Portmahomack 79
4.6 Head support or pillow burials from Portmahomack 79
4.7 Elevation east wall of the crypt (F3) 83
4.8 The churchyard, showing its development from an oval original 84
5.1 The Craw Stane at Rhynie, Aberdeenshire 95
5.2 The simple scratched cross on TR24 98
5.3 The grave marker TR33, found inside the church 99
5.4 Examples of grave markers at Portmahomack and on the west
coast of Scotland 100
5.5 The Calf Stone (TR28/35, detail) 101
5.6 Pictish symbols on the Tarbat peninsula 108
5.7 Model of the form of Cross C 109
5.8 Fragments of Cross D in situ, scattered over the demolished
workshops 111
5.9 Fragment of Cross D, showing double strand interlace 112
5.10 Corner of the shaft of Cross D 113
5.11 The Dupplin Cross 114
5.12 Fragments from the Portmahomack corpus being studied at York 115
6.1 The culvert (F431) leading from the pool 119
6.2 The road leading to the terrace wall, culvert and cistern 120
6.3 The tawing tank (S4) 121
6.4 S9 and yard, finds distribution 122
6.5 Cattle bones set in rows at right angles 123
6.6 Model of the vellum-making process 123
6.7 S1, in its first phase, and S8 127
6.8 S1 – a post-pit being dissected 127
6.9 Objects from the neighbourhood of S1 associated with metal-
and glass-working 128
6.10 X-ray of glass stud inlaid with metal 129
7.1 Excavators defining the pebble Road 2 136
7.2 Metal-working hearth (F148) 137
7.3 Small hearths for workers with precious metals 137
7.4 Plan of Period 3 metal-working area beside the pool 138
viii Portmahomack
7.5 S1, after its refurbishment, and S8 141
7.6 Hoard of silver coins and ring-silver found in the Portmahomack
churchyard 143
8.1 St Colman’s church from the south-west 153
8.2 The evolution of St Colman’s church, twelfth–twentieth centuries 154
8.3 Foundations of the west wall of Church 2 155
8.4 Chamfered plinth of Church 4, seen in the architect’s test pit 157
8.5 Medieval burials under excavation in the nave 160
8.6 Fragment of leather shoe from Burial 43 161
8.7 Grave cover seen at the east end 162
8.8 The tomb and memorial of William Mackenzie 165
8.9 Recording the memorials of the seventeenth–nineteenth-century
churchyard 167
8.10 Monumentality at Portmahomack 169
8.11 Graffiti in the twentieth-century church 170
9.1 Map of the Tarbat peninsula 174
9.2 The site of the Shandwick monument in its shelter 179
9.3 The Hilton of Cadboll replica 181
9.4 The Tarbat peninsula as represented on John Speed’s map, early
seventeenth century 185
10.1 Sunset over Portmahomack 191
Plates
Between pages 144 and 145
1a) Portmahomack: members of the digging team relax on the beach
1b) St Colman’s church, with the Dornoch Firth beyond
2a) The Dragon Stone (TR20)
2b) The Apostle Stone, reverse side of the Dragon Stone (TR20)
3a) Excavating the nave of St Colman’s church in 1997
3b) Ard marks in Sector 1, cut by the inner enclosure ditch
4a) Sector 2 under excavation in 2005
4b) What became of the mill: the road foundations, culvert and cistern of the eighth
century being dissected
5a) Features under excavation in 2007 (Sector 2)
5b) Excavation of cattle bones in situin the vellum-working yard
6a) Fragment, possibly from the Apostle Stone, found in the workshop area (TR201)
6b) The Calf Stone (TR28) under excavation by Katie Anderson
7a) Evidence for vellum-working from Sector 2
7b) Evidence for the working of precious metals from Sector 2
8a) The sequence captured in the south-facing section on the east side of Sector 2
8b) The sequence captured in the west section of Sector 2