argyll-1971/01-064

Transcription

INTRODUCTION: THE MIDDLE AGES AND LATER
Southend (p. 150 Fig. 152), a small undecorated cruciform stone at Clachan (p. 109, no.3), and two stones bearing simple Latin crosses carved in relief on Cara (p. 120) and at Kilmichael, Ballochroy(p . 139). The Gigha ogam is irish and as might be expected, a number of the other stones -particularly the smalol cross-decorated slab at Killean and the cross-head from Southend- show strong Irish influence.
As regards secular monuments, a Dark age origin has been suggested for the fort on Ranachan Hill (No. 173), but the possibility of an earlier date can not be ruled out. Several duns in the region are, however, known from excavation to have been occupied in the early Christian period. Thus, at Kildalloig (No 219) the upper occupation levels yielded sherds of Class E ware, an imported pottery current in Western Britain from the late 5th to the 7th or 8th century A.D., and a glass bead of dumb-bell shape, similar to examples found in the Dark Age crannogs at Ballinderry Lough, Co. Offaly, and Lagore, Co. Meath. At Kildonan Bay (No. 220) the most important single piece of evidence is a bronze penannular brooch, probably of 9th-century date, which could not, however, be assigned specifically to any particular structural period represented in the dun. Single Dark Age beads were also found at both Dun Fhinn (No. 203) and Ugadale (No 238). At the former site the bead was dumb-bell shapedand similar in date to the one discovered at Kildalloig; at the latter it was rounded with spiral motifs, and probably belonged to the 8th century.
A recent examination of the relics recovered from Keil Cave (No. 243) has indicated that it, too, was inhabited intermittently from the 3rd or 4th century onwards. On the other hand the only Viking objects so far recorded in Kintyre are the balance and weights, said to have to have been found on the island of Gigha in association with a cist burial (No. 245), which were presented to the Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow, in 1849. The balance is thought to have been made in Ireland and to be of 10th-century date.


6. THE MIDDLE AGES AND LATER
Motte
The only Motte to have been identified during the course of the present survey is an artificially trimmed natural mound at Macharioch (No. 257), and this has no recorded history.

ECCLESIASTICAL MONUMENTS

Kintyre contained only one religious house, namels the Cistercian monastery of Saddell (No.296). The founder was probably either Somerled or his son Reginald, lord of Kintyre, one or other of whom seems to have inroduced a colony of monks from Mellifont in Ireland at some time during the third quarter of the 12th century. The plan of teh church with its aisleless nave, follows the pattern adopted in the earliest English Cistercian houses, and subsequently

1 Cornish Archeology, vi (1967), 35 ff.
2 PRIA, xlvii (1941-2), Sectrion c, 51 f.
3 Ibid., liii (1950-1) Section c, 1 ff
4 Cf. PSAS, lxiii (1938-9), 215 and 224 f., where an earleir date is suggested for the brooch.
5 Ibid., lxxxviii (1954-6), 19 f.
6 Ibid., xcix (1966-7), 104ff
7 Ibid., xlvii (1912-13), 425 ff., fig. I Shetelig, H (ed.), Viking Antiquities in Great Britain and Ireland, part ii (1940), 29 f., fig. 12
8 Shetelig, H., op.cit., part vi (1954), 74 f.