Striking Pictish Dragon Carving Discovered During Storms in Orkney

Ancient Origins

An 8th century carving of a Pictish dragon (also called a Pictish beast) has been discovered on an eroding cliff face in Orkney, Scotland. The stone decoration is one of the most beautiful Pictish artifacts discovered in recent years.

The BBC reports that the stone is a rare find. The carving was created by a Pictish artist. The Picts were especially active in these lands between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD.
Kristy Owen, HES Senior Archaeology Manager, believes that the proper excavation of the stone provides archaeologists with a great opportunity to better understand the site’s development. The discovery may also help researchers understand other stones made by the Picts, and the symbols depicted upon them.

Three carvings of the Pictish dragon: Martin's Stone (Val Vannet/CC BY SA 2.0), Maiden Stone (CC BY SA 3.0), and Strathmartine Castle stone. (Catfish Jim and the soapdish/CC BY SA 3.0)

Discussing the discovery, The Archaeology Institute, University of the Highlands and Islands wrote:

“A dragon motif tantalizingly peered out from the emerging stone slab and pointed to a possible Pictish (3rd-8th centuries AD) origin, but further examination was difficult due to the location. This carved stone was clearly significant and needed to be quickly recovered before the next forecast storms that were due to hit the following weekend.”

• The Golden Age of the Christian Picts: Evidence for Religious Production at Portmahomack
• The Impressive Gaulcross Hoard: 100 Roman-Era Silver Pieces Unearthed in Scotland

Pictish Cross Slab, East Mainland, Orkney by Dr Hugo Anderson-Whymark on Sketchfab

Time was short, but the erosion of the cliff caused by the stormy sea which surrounds Orkney made the archaeological site very dangerous. Nonetheless, the Orkney Research Centre for Archaeology (ORCA), with support from Historic Environment Scotland, completed the difficult mission of recovering the artifact. The archaeologists needed to follow weather changes and track storms while carefully working to extract the unique stone.
The discovery was made by archaeologist Dr. Hugo Anderson-Whymark while he was examining the site of the East Mainland coast after it had been hit by a storm. During his explorations, he saw the stone, which had been ''excavated'' by the sea.

The stone discovered at the site. (UHI Archaeology Institute)

Nick Card, Senior Projects Manager at ORCA told the Scotsman more about the stone’s importance. He said:

“Carved Pictish Cross Slabs are rare across Scotland with only 2 having been discovered in Orkney. This is therefore a significant find and allows us to examine a piece of art from a period when Orkney society was beginning to embrace Christianity.   Now that the piece is recorded and removed from site, we can concentrate on conserving the delicate stone carving and perhaps re-evaluate the site itself.”

The stone has been removed from the coastline and is currently scheduled for conservation. It may be put on display in the future, but this is uncertain. Archaeologists are seeking funding to re-evaluate the site and they hope that future discoveries will help to fill in the blanks in the history of this artifact.

• Discovery of Pictish Fort Reveals Iron Age Look-Out post for Sea Raiders
• Archaeologists in Scotland investigate the mystery of the Rhynie Man

An illustration of an archaeological "Pictish Beast" symbol from Scotland. (Struthious Bandersnatch/CC BY SA 1.0)

Researchers find fascinating items related to the Picts every archaeological season. Knowledge about this mysterious culture is also increasing with the intensified work. Another great discovery related to Picts was made this past June. As Natalia Klimczak reported for Ancient Origins:
Archaeologists discovered a hoard of 100 silver items, including coins and jewelry, which come from the 4th and 5th centuries AD. The treasure belongs to the period of the Roman Empire’s domination in Scotland, or perhaps later.
Almost 200 years ago, a team of Scottish laborers cleared a rocky field with dynamite. They discovered three magnificent silver artifacts: a chain, a spiral bangle, and a hand pin. However, they didn't search any deeper to check if there were any more treasures. They turned the field into farmland and excavations were forgotten.

The surviving objects from the nineteenth-century Gaulcross hoard find. (National Museums Scotland)

Archaeologists returned to the site and discovered a hoard (a group of valuable objects that is sometimes purposely buried underground) of 100 silver items. According to Live Science, the treasure is called the Gaulcross hoard. The artifacts belonged to the Pict people who lived in Scotland before, during, and after the Roman era.
The artifacts were found by a team led by Gordon Noble, head of archaeology at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. When they started work in the field, they didn't think to search for more artifacts, but were trying to learn more about the context of the discovery made nearly two centuries ago. The researchers claim that the field also contained two man-made stone circles - one dating to the Neolithic period and the other the Bronze Age (1670 – 1500 BC).
Top Image: The front face of the Pictish Cross Slab. Source: Dr. Hugo Anderson-Whymark

5,000-Year-Old Mystery Structure Discovered Near Stone Age Temple in Scotland

Ancient Origins

A mysterious Stone Age building has been unearthed at the Ness of Brodgar in Orkney, Scotland. Researchers discovered it while excavating a Neolithic midden (rubbish dump.) It is located near one of Scotland's most famous rings of standing stones – the Ring of Brodgar.

According to The Herald Scotland, the site contains a Stone Age temple, and the discovery of the structure helped to re-date the location.
While digging at the Ring of Brodgar on Orkney, the researchers found the layout of a series of slabs which are unlike anything previously found on the island. The structure is 4 meters (13 ft.) long and it was unearthed amongst the remains of Neolithic rubbish.

Aerial view of the structure. (James Robertson/Orkneyskycam.co.uk)

The walls of the construction are 10 meters (33 ft.) wide and the researchers say that the structure is about 5,000 years old. They speculate that the building was covered over by the huge midden, but it could possibly be a chambered tomb. The researchers also found human remains – a human arm bone.
DiscoverStone AgeScotlandNeolithicExcavation (archaeology)
The team of researchers is led by Nick Card, an archaeologist at the University of the Highlands and Islands, who believes that the bone was deliberately placed and could possibly be the remains of a respected original founder of the large complex.

• The Ring of Brodgar, the Neolithic Henge of Orkney Island
• Stone Age Orkney Islanders Dismembered Deceased Relatives and Defleshed their Bones

The slabs, also called orthostats, have rounded edges and appear to have been weathered or worked in the same way as standing stones found at Stenness just 0.3 miles (0.48 km) away.

Sunset at the Standing Stones of Stenness, Orkney. (Fantoman400/CC BY SA 3.0)

As the site director, Nick Card, said:

"The sheer size and scale of the stones unearthed are unprecedented on this site. The way the stones are built into the construction is also unique to the Ness. This all suggests that they may have been re-used and taken from elsewhere. Perhaps they may be part of a stone circle that pre-dates the main Ness site. It is all a bit of mystery and we won't know more until we do more work."

Since 2002, the researchers have discovered many impressive artifacts, including artwork, pottery, animal bones, stone tools and parts of buildings at the site. These findings make this location one of the most interesting Neolithic sites in Scotland. It was inhabited between 3,200 and 2,200 BC - the same period as another famous site located just a few miles away on Orkney – Skara Brae.

Old settlement Skara Brae in 2012, Orkney Island, Scotland. (Chmee2/CC BY SA 3.0)

The site in the Ness of Brodgar is located on a peninsula of land just a few hundred meters wide that divides two saltwater lochs.
It seems that the two or three constructions (i.e. the Ring of Brodgar, Standing Stones of Stenness, and the recently uncovered structure) were a ceremonial corridor. However, the exact purpose of the Stone Age temple, nicknamed ''The Neolithic Cathedral'', is unknown. The director of excavations suggests that it could have been a whole complex that created a ceremonial center.

• Incredible sophistication of 5,000-year-old temple complex on Orkney Island
• Storms wash away sand revealing 4,000-year-old child skeleton in Orkney

2014 image of work at the Neolithic settlement at Brodgar, Scotland. (AlastairG/CC BY SA 2.0)

On August 19, 2016, Natalia Klimczak reported on another discovery related to Orkney on Ancient Origins. She wrote that a team of researchers from the University of Adelaide revealed an explanation to one of the greatest mysteries of the British standing stone monuments. They say that the great stone circles were constructed specifically in line with the movements of the Sun and Moon 5,000 years ago.
An article in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports says the researchers used innovative 2D and 3D technology to construct quantitative tests of the alignment patterns of the standing stones. The researchers explained in their article that nobody had ever statistically determined that a single stone circle was constructed with astronomical phenomena in mind.
Earlier, researchers supposed that it may be so, but there was no concrete evidence which could confirm this belief before the present study. The researchers examined some of the oldest great stone circles built in Scotland, for example Callanish, on the Isle of Lewis, and Stenness, Isle of Orkney ─ both predating Stonehenge's standing stones by about 500 years.

The Neolithic stones of Callanish. (Chris Combe/CC BY 2.0)

Thus, Orkney Island continues to be a hotspot for archaeologists – what will be unearthed there next?
Top image: Ring of Brodgar, a Neolithic stone circle and henge monument, with the Loch of Harray in the background. (Stevekeiretsu/CC BY SA 3.0) Detail: Aerial view of the newly-uncovered structure. (James Robertson)
By Natalia Klimzcak

Excavations at British sites are Revolutionizing Prehistoric Studies and Revealing Secrets of the Past

Ancient Origins

You might say British archaeology is in a golden age, especially with excavations and discoveries at two sites that are adding great knowledge of the prehistory of the islands. One site, from about 2500 BC, is on the Orkney Islands off Scotland’s northern coast, and the other, from about 1000 BC, is not far from London.

The excavations at the two sites coincide with a two-week British Festival of Archaeology that wraps up this weekend.
Though they are separated by many years and about 650 miles (1,050 km), the two sites are providing insights into what life was like in the British Isles before there were written language and historians to record the lives of the people.
In the Orkneys are a settlement, monumental stone circle and temple complex called Ness of Brodgar that has been under excavation since 2003. For about 4,500 years, the earth held the secrets of an ancient people who worshiped, farmed and lived there. Over the years archaeologists have been extracting those secrets and now want to share them with the world. (See here for a website about Brodgar.)

The site in England, at Whittlesey in Cambridgeshire, was a settlement of roundhouses that burned, perhaps in an attack by hostiles, and fell into the river, where the silt preserved the settlers’ stuff so well that some are calling it Britain’s Pompeii.

A bronze socketed ax was one of many Bronze Age tools found at Must Farm, a site that dates back about 3,000 years and is the finest site of that era ever found in Britain and one of the finest in Europe. Photo by Cambridge Archaeological Unit.

And though they are so far removed from each other in time—one site is from the Neolithic (Stone Age), the other from later Bronze Age—the sites hold some similarities. The ancient people of both sites farmed, kept animals, had pottery and tools.
At these sites and at a thousand other places across the width and length of the British Isles, the Council of British Archaeology’s Festival of Archaeology is being celebrated in the last two weeks of July.
“The festival showcases the very best of archaeology, with special events right across the UK, organised and hosted by museums, heritage organisations, national and countryside parks, universities, local societies, and community archaeologists,” says the council’s website.
The festival’s Facebook page announces events about the Dark Ages, the Iron Age, the Roman era and many other historic and prehistoric features and eras of the British Isles.
Before all those eras came was the new Stone Age and its Ness of Brodgar in the Orkneys. The site is in part a temple complex of 21 buildings and covers an area of over 6 acres. It consists of the ruins of housing, remnants of slate roofs, paved walkways, colored facades, decorated stone slabs, and a massive stone wall with foundations. It also includes a large building described as a Neolithic ‘cathedral’ or ‘palace’, inhabited from at least 3,500 BC to the close of the Neolithic period more than 1,500 years later.

Excavations at the Ness of Brodgar on mainland Orkney (genevieveromier photo/ Flickr)

The Ness of Brodgar is on the largest island of Orkney, called The Mainland. It includes a henge and stone circle known as The Ring of Brodgar. It is the third largest stone circle in the British Isles after Avebury and Stonehenge. Built in a true circle, the Ring of Brodgar is thought to have been originally composed of 60 individual stones, though presently 27 are intact. The stones themselves are of red sandstone and vary in height from 7-15 feet. The stones are surrounded by a large circular ditch or henge.
Excavations have discovered thousands of artifacts at the Ness of Brodgar, including ceremonial mace heads, polished stone axes, flint knives, a human figurine and miniature thumb pots. Archaeologists have found beautifully crafted stone spatulas, highly-refined colored pottery, and more than 650 pieces of Neolithic art, by far the largest collection ever found in Britain.
Far to the south, about 120 km (75 miles) north of London in Wittlesey is the Must Farm archaeological site, where that possible arson occurred. An archaeologist discovered the site in 1999 when he saw wooden stakes or palisades sticking out of the mud and silt, which preserved them and many other artifacts as well. Scorching and charring of the wood from when the settlement burned also helped to preserve some of the material.
While the entire site is fantastic, with its nine log boats found nearby, five roundhouses and many important artifacts, two of the most important finds were textiles and vitrified foods. Also, beads, likely from the Balkans and the Middle East, showed there was long-distance trade in Britain, where the Bronze Age began about 4,000 to 4,500 years ago.

The purpose of this tiny, finely made pot from Must Farm is unknown. Photo by Cambridge Archaeological Unit.

The Must Farm website states: “We’ve found everything from textiles and boxes to wheels and axes. The Must Farm settlement has one of the most complete bronze age assemblages ever discovered in Britain and it is giving us an unprecedented insight into the lives of the people there 3,000 years ago. Two artefact types we haven’t discussed are metalwork and textiles, both of which offer another important layer of detail to the homes we are excavating.”
The British Archaeological Council’s Festival of Archaeology continues through Sunday. For more events, see the Facebook page or council website linked to above.
Featured image: The Ring of Brodgar. Photo source: geography.org.uk
By Mark Miller

History Trivia - Orkney and Shetland islands given to Scotland

February 20

1472 Norway gave Orkney and Shetland islands to Scotland in lieu of a dowry for Margaret of Denmark.