Armit Celtic Scotland

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-78885-765-9
Verlag: John Donald
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten

This authoritative and handsomely illustrated book is aimed at the general reader who wants to know about the mysterious people who inhabited Scotland from the Bronze Age onwards. They created wonderful works of art in gold and silver and their brochs and hillforts are scattered over the Scottish landscape. Many modern-day Scots are descended from them. Using the results of modern archaeology and historical sources, Ian Armit answers the key questions about who the Celts were, wherethey came from, their relationship with other Celtic tribes throughout Europe, their customs and beliefs and their daily life. It is a fascinating story told with flair and clarity by one of Britain's leading experts on the Celts.

Ian Armit is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Bradford.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Armit, Ian

Leseproben

List of plates and figures

Plates

1 Dun Beag, Skye

2 Dun Beag, Skye

3 Mousa, Shetland

4 Dun Carloway, Lewis

5 Gurness, Orkney

6 Woden Law hillfort in the Cheviots

7 Barry Hill, Angus

8 The blockhouse at Clickhimin, Shetland

9 Ardownie souterrain, near Dundee

10 The terminal of a gold torc from Shaw Hill, Peeblesshire

11 The Mortonhall scabbard

12 The Stichill bronze collar

13 The Balmaclellan mirror

14 Inside the Sculptor’s Cave, Covesea, Moray

15 Scotland’s only known chariot burial, dating to around 520–370 BC, on the outskirts of Edinburgh

16 The square barrow cemetery at Red Castle, Angus, during excavations in 1997

17 House 4 at Broxmouth, East Lothian

18 The Brown Caterthun, Angus

19 Edinshall broch, Berwickshire

20 A gilt silver flask from the Traprain Law hoard

Figures

1 Map showing the spread of Celtic languages

2 Map showing the spread of ‘Celtic culture’, as measured by the occurrence of certain artefact types and art styles

3 The natural environment and physical geography of Scotland

4 The main stone setting at Calanais in Lewis

5 Some Bronze Age artefact types, such as the hair-rings shown on this map, circulated over wide areas

6 The Corrymuckloch hoard from the Sma’ Glen in Perthshire

7 Map showing discoveries of European-influenced slashing swords, found mainly in ritual deposits, along the eastern river valleys

8 The prehistoric landscape at Pitcarmick in Perthshire

9 A comparison of the ground-plans of Hut Circles at Kilphedir in Sutherland, the complex roundhouse of Dun Bharabhat in Lewis, and the broch tower of Mousa in Shetland

10 Hut Circle 7 at Kilphedir

11 Ring-ditch houses at Hawkhill Quarry in Angus

12 Artist’s impression of daily life as it might have been in a ring-ditch house around 500 BC

13 Artist’s impression of an Iron Age crannog.

14 Map showing the locations of crannogs in Loch Tay and homesteads in Glen Lyon

15 The broch tower of Dun Telve in Glenelg

16 Artist’s cut-away drawing showing one interpretation of daily life in the broch tower of Dun Carloway in Lewis

17 The complex Atlantic roundhouse of Dun Bharabhat, Lewis

18 Broch villages at Gurness and Howe in Orkney

19 Old Scatness in Shetland

20 Gurness: broch tower and village from the air

21 Wheelhouse plans from Sollas, North Uist; Cnip, Lewis; Kilpheder, South Uist; Clettraval, North Uist

22 Four stages in the construction of the wheelhouse at Cnip on the west coast of Lewis

23 Map showing the main concentration of hillforts across Britain and Europe in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages

24 Hilltop enclosures at Traprain Law, East Lothian; Eildon Hill North, Roxburghshire; and the Brown Caterthun, Angus

25 Corsehope Law in the Borders

26 Sword recovered from the River Tay near Perth

27 Bronze boar’s head, found in 1916 in a peat bog near Deskford, in Banffshire

28 The Hownam sequence showing hillfort development

29 The hilltop enclosure of Eildon Hill North, near Melrose

30 Traprain Law, East Lothian

31 Detail of the rock art from Traprain Law

32 Hoard of Late Bronze Age axes found during recent excavations near the summit of Traprain Law

33 Palisade trenches under excavation at the site of Myrehead, near Falkirk

34 Aerial view of Dryburn Bridge in East Lothian

35 Broxmouth, in East Lothian, is the best-dated and most thoroughly excavated hillfort in Scotland

36 Early excavations on Abernethy hillfort in Perthshire

37 The Chesters fort in East Lothian

38 Dodridge Law

39 Maps showing the distribution of enclosed settlements around Traprain Law

40 A light covering of snow shows up fields of cord rig here at Orchard Rig in Peeblesshire

41 Iron Age cultivation of freely draining slopes in Holyrood Park is shown in this artist’s reconstruction

42 The landscape around Castlesteads in East Lothian was divided into long pit-defined fields interspersed with enclosures and roundhouses

43 The field system outside the Roman fort at Carriden, near Bo’ness, consists of small enclosures unrepresentative of native farming practices

44 Cut-away drawing showing the construction of the souterrain complex at Pitcur in Perthshire

45 Artist’s impression of using rotary querns

46 The souterrain at Crichton

47 The bank and ditch of a linear earthwork are clearly visible as they pass close to the Borders hillfort of Milkieston Rings

48 Map showing the tribes in Scotland, according to Ptolemy

49 A modern reconstruction of the Deskford carnyx

50 Snake-headed bronze armlet from Culbin Sands

51 Hebridean Iron Age pottery

52 Map showing the distribution of some artefact and site types: square barrow cemeteries and ornate bronze bracelets of the early centuries AD; and much earlier carved stone balls

53 The bronze pony cap and horns from Torrs, Kirkcudbrightshire

54 The Bargany House scabbard from Ayrshire

55 The Ballachulish figure shortly after its discovery in 1880

56 The Ballachulish figure in an artist’s reconstruction

57 Cairnpapple, West Lothian

58 Wooden ard, or early ploughing implement, from Pict’s Knowe in south-west Scotland

59 Exterior view of the Sculptor’s Cave, Covesea

60 Human cervical vertebra from the Sculptor’s Cave showing several cut-marks characteristic of decapitation

61 Part of a hoard of Later Bronze Age metalwork recovered from Duddingston Loch, Edinburgh

62 Human sacrifice? A possible ritual drowning at the hands of a grim ‘Celtic’ deity depicted on the Gundestrup cauldron from Denmark

63 This skull fragment, from Hillhead broch in Caithness, has been perforated to enable suspension

64 The upper part of an adult male skull from the Cnip wheelhouse in Lewis was buried as a foundation deposit for a small structure associated with the main wheelhouse

65 This diagram shows some of the processes by which human remains might turn up on domestic sites

66 This photograph shows the capstones of one of the graves from the small Iron Age cemetery at Broxmouth hillfort, East Lothian

67 Double burial of a young woman and child from the Broxmouth cemetery

68 A cist burial under excavation at Moredun, Edinburgh, in 1903 69 Two pairs of bronze ‘spoons’, from a grave at Burnmouth, Berwickshire, and from Westmorland in England

70 Plan of the floor of the wheelhouse at Sollas

71 The Roman Empire in the early second century AD

72 Two examples of rectilinear enclosures at East Bearford in East Lothian (unexcavated), and Dalhousie Mains

73 Aerial photography has revealed a notable cluster of rectilinear enclosures in the vicinity of Traprain Law shown on this distribution map

74 The scooped settlement of Orchard Rig, Peeblesshire, contains small, stone-walled houses typical of the early centuries AD

75 Roman marching-camps, like this one at Dalginross, can help us chart the progress of the various advances into Scotland

76 The Antonine frontier system

77 The Antonine Wall, seen here at Wailing Lodge near Falkirk, cut across the native landscape

78 This carving from the Bridgeness distance slab, found at the east end of the Antonine Wall, shows a typical celebration of the Roman victory

79 The Roman fort at Ardoch

80 A scene from the Column of Marcus in Rome, showing Roman soldiers torching a native village...