caithness-1911/05_038

Transcription

INVENTORY OF MONUMENTS, ETC., IN COUNTY OF CAITHNESS. -- xxxv

on their surfaces with spots in a blackish or brownish pigment (pl. B.),
which came from the broch of "Wester" and the "Road Broch"
at Keiss, and bear a close resemblance to others found in the cave
of Mas d'Azil in the Pyrenees, ascribed in that case, to the transition

[Photographs inserted]
FIG. E. - Bronze Pin from the Broch of Bowermadden. Front and side views
(actual size).

period between the palæolithic and neolithic cultures. Fragments
of Roman pottery were found in three of the brochs. One small
piece of 1st-century Samian ware (Dragendorff, type 29), and a small
portion of the rim of a Roman glass vessel, came from the Everley
broch (No. 36). The Nybster broch yielded a fragment of the same
ware, but too much worn for exact identification; while from the
"Keiss broch" there came two fragments of Samian ware bowls of
2nd-century type - one showing a figure of Venus (Déchelette, No. 173)
- and also two pieces of white ware, covered with a black slip and
decorated with a scroll ornament in white, of the same period. The
Roman pottery found in the Keiss broch was not in the lowest level
of occupation disclosed in the interior court. From the "Road
Broch" at Keiss came a small sandstone disc (fig. F.) bearing on both

[Photographs inserted]
FIG F. - Obverse and Reverse of Sandstone Disc from the "Road Broch,"
Keiss (slightly enlarged).

sides incised markings, unintelligible but suggestive of an attempted
inscription. An object of unusual interest was the crown of a human
skull found in the Hillhead broch, and which had been pierced near
the centre with three holes forming roughly an equilateral triangle.
A skull similarly pierced was found associated with late Celtic
relics, by Sir Henry Dryden, in his excavations at Hunsbury,
Northamptonshire.