Awakening Sleeping Giants – Corriegills Forms

Travel to the Isle of Arran, from the River Clyde, south past the Isle of Bute to gain a different perspective on the Firth of Clyde. It highlights, how past people may have understood the seascapes of the lochs and rivers of this part of Scotland, through longer journeys. For those able to travel across moody waters, dangerous: yet when returning with rare materials and stories of different places, empowering.

For the past few years I have been encouraging collaboration on the research of the Neolithic of the Isle of Arran but set in a wider context of how its megalithic sites can be related to Ireland and Orkney. As well as it’s remarkable archaeological heritage, Isle of Arran is also renowned for its geoheritage – from Hutton’s Unconformity to Dinosaur Footprints there is much to see.

What brings the stories of Arran’s archaeology and geology most sharply together is the role of pitchstone. The only significant source of volcanic glass like material in Scotland, it was used by people from at least the fifth millennium BC for the production of sharp edged tools. During the fourth millennium BC, people exchanged pitchstone across much of what was to become described as Northern Britain. Best known among the huge range of locations of Pitchstone on Arrran is Corriegills. According to the Book of Arran, Corriegills may relate to Norse words, Korfa (Raven) and Gil (Gulley). Situated to the south of Brodick Bay (derived from Norse Broad-Bay) and Lamlash Bay (the location of at least two Viking Age burials), Corriegills runs below a range of crags and raised beaches. For 30 years I thought I knew what to expect when I visited this location – the site of ‘Neolithic Quarries’: a neo-industrio-complex of value extraction, a node of desire and dispersal. I expected quarry faces and spoil heaps – and yes, if you seek the, they may be present.

Yet once again I was surprised.

Dark shattered glass hiding in the shoreline grasses,

an arched dark spine glistens:

suddenly imagined panther-like form, hunting Goat Mountain.

Travel further towards the headland, Clauchlands, looming above is the hillfort of Dun Fionn. As you approach the headland, the slopes covered in sea storm distorted birch and hazel, the old red sandstone shoreline has been sculpted.

Along precarious coast, there are marks of meaning which resonate through the millennia.

Between the green algae coastal pools, pock marked face, dimpled, cup-mark forms – along the sea eroded stone ridges. To the casual archaeologist, a remarkable assemblage of rock art. There was no mistaking these simple metaphoric forms.

As the shore narrows, the eye is drawn to an upright stone – monolith, it russet form resting upon two large black pitchstone boulders. Then turn, find different perspectives – distant mountain, Goatfell, calls the eye. Yet look again,

see how the foreground changes everything, when Corriegills form reveals,

Awaken, Sleeping Giant.

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I will leave others to judge, such as the experts with Arran Geopark, whether this stone has been worked to create a head like form or whether it is a natural rock splitting phenomenon encountered by my Pareidoliac tendencies. More important perhaps is when this form was first created and / or recognised: I doubt this is the first time it has been woken.

In one scenario, the head may be a fanciful relatively recent addition to the shore line. In another, it may have been created, with suggestion of helmeted form, to watch the seascapes of the Firth of Clyde, perhaps bearing witness to Norse longships. Or is it possible that when people traveled to this shore to gather pitchstone that this face was already present?

One thing is sure, with Climate Change, this giant will witness major changes over the next few generations – I wonder what it will do now it has been woken?

For some more interesting stone heads in the Clyde Region have a look at this earlier blog post: Borne of Stone

For more information on Pitchstone sources from Arran, there is a good Scottish Archaeological Internet Reports article by Torben Ballin and John Faithfull.

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Dark Enchanted Isle

The small ferry left Stromness as the storm began to rise. With the distant island mountain already backdropped by troubled skies and foregrounded by rising waves, it struggled to land briefly at Graemsay, spilling out people and packages hurrying to avoid the incoming tempest.

By the time we arrived on Hoy, cloud and rain was racing angrily towards the shore. I zipped my waterproof tight, stooping, rain driven into my face by an unforgiving wind I began to make my way uphill through the storm. With an hour or more walk along the old moorland road to Rackwick, I had resigned myself to being soaked by the time I reached my destination but began to worry about the practicalities of pitching a tent in these conditions.

And then a white van pulled up, surprised and slightly confused I hesitantly opened the door, to find a black and white collie sitting on the seat. ‘I was looking for you’ said the driver ‘Its not a night for walking’. With this kindness, I arrived at Rackwick somewhat sooner and drier than I had any right to expect.

Sea cliffs, funneled foam and fury, into the bay. Swollen waves, crashing against already saturated shoreline. Imagining scenes of chasing my tent, tattered though the night, any thoughts of canvas was abandoned, and I turned to the Bothy.

* * *

The next morning I stood between Trowie Glen and the Nowt Bield Corrie. The names reveal something deeper about this place. Trowie is an Orcadian term, derived from Norse, for Troll: important folklore and literary figures often associated with particular mounds or distinctive stones. While Nowt Bield, I think means nothing built, evoking a harsh and inhospitable character but place names can be fickle and subject to change. The Ordnance Survey name book of 1879 shows the burn was thought to be called the Burn of the Horned Bull but was crossed out and written as Burn of the Nowt Bield. Perhaps the cartographic slaying of a sacred bull?

There had been sightings of the sea eagle chick at this location. Now old enough to be left by its mother, I watched it hunt tentatively, more of a hop and glide, than a majestic soar. But this vulnerability was humbling to see, a more elemental being still learning the power of the air. It seemed appropriate it was this location, hovering between sacred bull and sleeping troll.

Perhaps five thousand years ago, people cut into a massive boulder slab, creating a short passage to a small chamber, off which are two smaller cells. The entrance had been blocked, and probably remained so for perhaps up to 4000 years, till about 1500 AD.

The Dwarfie Stane, as it is now called, may have been used for mortuary practices, with fragmented human remains being, probably temporarily, kept within. Elsewhere on Orkney, bird and animal remains have also been found in chambered cairns, perhaps showing that the rites were more complex than burial as we would understand. For example, at Ibister the remains of 14 sea eagles were also present among the bones of people.

Entering the Dwarfie Stane is a slightly claustrophobic experience but sealed in stone, the eyes and ears quickly attune to different spectrum. You can’t help but wonder who entered here and what activities took place. I lay down for a while, shrouded in stone, and let my imagination drift.

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• 

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As I left I wondered what changes occur

when you emerge from a sandstone cocoon?

As well as cartographic concerns, the Dwarfie Stane was increasingly in the 19^th century consciousness: referred to in Walter Scott’s 1822 The Pirate; with the Geologist Hugh Miller having carved his name in one of the cells in 1846; and on the outside carved in 1850, backwards in Latin, the name of Major W Mouncey, accompanied in Persian by ‘I have sat two nights and have learned patience’. Beneath these recent accretions of ‘men making marks’, there may be a Norse inspired Medieval folklore of Trolls. But there is a deeper horizon which can still be encountered here.

The Dwarfie Stane lies on a slope below a striking cliff line, now called the Dwarfie Hammars. The cliff line is pocked with regular indentations where the rock has split and tumbled down in blocks. Caves have also been discovered on the cliff face, in one of which a polished stone was found, suggested as perhaps akin to some prehistoric artefact.

The tradition of sky burial is known in many cultures, with bodies being exposed, to deflesh through elemental wind and rain and carrion beak. There are also many traditions of using such cliff faces, and caves or ledges, as the site for burials or ossuaries.

I now want you to imagine, people moving carefully but confidently (well used to collecting sea bird eggs) along the cliff face. There may have been cloth or hide banners hanging down or totems erected at points marking the entrance to particular caves. The cliff face may also have been covered with bags of bones and baskets of skulls, looking down at the Dwarfie Stane.

Now smell the smoke and distant sea spray.

Can you hear the songs and chants?

From up on the cliff, with the call of the Sea Eagle still higher, you would have views to the north and east to Mainland Orkney and to the west to the setting sun on the north side of Rackwick Bay.

And on days, when the banners flapped and bones rattled above with the fury of the elements, and you stood at the Dwarfie Stane you knew you were truly alive.

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Upon reflection I wonder why this matters, why these enchanted places are important in such troubled times. Perhaps it is they remind us of other times and ways and extend the possibilities of what we can work towards in the future? Our relationships to those who have gone before us, the terms we use (? ancestor, family, stranger, people) are powerful components (at least implicitly) of many contemporary debates about identity and politics. Our death cultures also matter: the way we treat our closest at times before, during and after death, how we celebrate and mourn are also fundamental aspect of cultural practices which over centuries became increasingly individualising and corporate. While there are all kinds of legal and ethical issues, at least knowing there were different mortuary and funerary practices, I hope cultivates awareness, sensitivity and respect for the variety of human and more-than-human life ways too.

For more Inspiring Island Explorations,

please have a look at some other HeritageLandscapeCreativity posts:

Imaginary Island of Ailsa Craig

Witches Whispers of St Kilda

Hoy has a remarkable series of stories of people and its landscape. Thanks to Antonia Thomas and Dan Lee for some great advice and information before my journey to Hoy. I greatly appreciated the kindness of Jimmy and Diesel and the stories shared of the Dark Enchanted Island.

The title of this post refers to the book Hoy, the Dark Enchanted Island by John Bremner – which alas I was unable to get a copy.

If you are lucky enough to be able to visit Orkney, rather than dash from monument to monument in peak season across the World Heritage Site, visit other Islands rather than just Mainland Orkney and if you can, please go out of peak season when the weather is wilder.

#SlowArchaeology #WildPrehistory

Thracian Dreamings

Months later I still daydream in Thracian,

Albeit, fragmented glimpses, a light,

Almost imperceptible, awareness.

But I still find myself wondering,

About sky temples and sanctuaries,

Among juniper scented mountains.

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• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

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I started Dreaming in Thracian due to an Erasmus+ study trip to Bulgaria. A short report on the study trip can be found here: Glimpses Of Thracian Landscapes

Many thanks to Archnetwork for organising the Bulgarian trip and to our hosts at the Devetaki Plateau Association for such an insightful experience.

On both a professional and personal level the opportunity to take time out and learn was immensely valuable. There will be further exchanges in 2020 by Archnetwork about which more details can be found here: 2020 Archnetwork Destinations

In 2020 cultural exchange and shared learning may be more important than ever to help respond and adapt to some of the great challenges we currently face. If you work in the Natural or Cultural Heritage sector in Scotland I would highly recommend undertaking an Archnetwork study trip: you may start dreaming differently after.

Ben Griam Beg – a speculative archaeology

Coblaith furiously lashed the flank of the mud splattered beast as it stumbled up the slope. They had already lost two of their bulls. The first had plunged into a bog pool, thrashing and roaring as it sank deeper, until its silence was claimed by the underworld, the other fell off a narrow path threading though the rocks, crashing on slabs below, a twisted mix of leg and horn. Its remains were quickly butchered before pushing to the summit.

Another lash, lead ropes nose bleed pulling, the bulls heaved to the top where this early in the season there were still patches of snow and wind bite with the last presence of the Cailleach. 

Early yet, dangerous, but the summit needed to be enclosed before she fully returned with the first new snow. The mountain top was where the deities stored powerful stones, treasures and trinkets, through which their energies could be drawn.

Coblaith quickly set the teams to work, iron chisels ringing on stone, thump of mallets on wedges as they split the rock. The bulls were spirited, oxen would have been easier, but the gods understood their power.

The persistent wind tugged at her braids, Coblaith sighed, looking north to the Orcades, it had taken years to persuade the group to encircle the mountain top. To go deep into Dithreabh Chat, to the peaks where the deities played, had been unthinkable but she had persuaded, threatened and promised and now they were greedy for power.

Seize the sacred top and all peoples of the Chat would fall beneath them. By Autumn she would know if her plan had worked.

* * *

Every Summer from birth the twins had traveled up from the mouth of the Strath to Dithreabh Chat. The journey started each year when the second light spark shower (lyrids) was seen high in the night sky.

With the cattle’s slow swaying pace, passing by spring lush hazel coppice’s and birch stands, they would take three nights to travel inland to the first grazings. In two moons time they would reach the pens on Ben Griam Beg, where the big gathering would begin.

Eithne shouted ‘Look there, the red ones, they are running down too quickly’. Uvan stopped scampering along the banks of the river, pausing together they watched the group of hinds, heavy with fawn.

Even at the distance, they could see the fear in their eyes, nostrils flaring, as they fled from two grey wolves. The riverside burst into sound, barking and growling from the groups large hunting dogs, cattle’s bellowing and calves alarmed bleats. With flashes of light, spears lifted and swords unsheathed, horns sounded and the wolves turned.

Lying on their backs, looking up at the clear night sky, they would see who would be first to spot a light spark. Uvan liked to tease his sister, pointing to the side ‘Look, there, two sparks at once !’. Eithne turned her head to a still empty sky, then thumped his arm ‘Uvan !’.

* * *

Among the mist, above his head, the ravens skipped and swirled along the raw shattered stone wall top. Gabran looked up and spat at the birds, an unwanted presence who reminded him of where those building the great wall had come.

In grey predawn light, his raiding group had burst into the small settlement of round houses, wielding iron sword and fire, they quickly torched roofs, then seized people as they exited. Cattle and people were herded alike to the great pens to the north. The youngest children had been taken in by members of his group, raised as their own, they would soon forget.

He felt little for them, clinging to the old ways, with their myths of the goddess and her black birds of time and death. Each night he chained the adults in the small hut on the mountain side and reveled in every unkindness.

Sooner they had his section of the great wall complete he could get off this sodden lump and return to his family on the coast.

Before Winter, the builders would know their fate, of those that survived, one in three would be taken into the group, the others would be sacrificed.

The dark birds played over head, Gabran spat.

* * *

I remember when mother would sit with us, when the miking was done, and the evening sun still warmed our skin. We would spin and chat at the side of the burn, a smoky fire keeping midges away. The low Summer sun, would dance through the leaves of the last stand of trees in the glen.

I would pester Maithgemm, all Summer, to tell of the beginning. Of the times before mothers mothers, when Coblaith took the mountain top from the deities. Every year, it would always be on a night after several long hot days when distant storms raged to the north and the sky flashed with light, she would remind us.

‘When Coblaith drove the great bulls through the upper glen to the sacred top the ancient trees hid them from above. Choosing the strongest bulls, Coblaith, wrapped their feet in cloth so the deities wouldn’t hear them coming.

Coblaith also knew that the deities spent much of their time on the top staring north at the green shifting skies above the Orcades, which mesmerized them, so she approached from the south.

When the lights stopped, they would wander across the Chat and interfere in the world of people.

The horned god loved to collect heads and horns leaving them in special places.

Day and night, without rest, they labored. At first the deities fought back, covering them in cloud and continuous rain, but as the days got longer and warmer they had to leave. When the deities returned, the wall was completed, and they couldn’t reach the sacred top.

All Winter the deities crashed furiously against the highs stone walls, flinging ice spears and sending there messengers of ill omen. But Coblaith had spilled the bulls blood across the wall tops and they could not enter. Every Winter the deities try to take back the sacred top and like Coblaith we must stay to hold it.

Now the deities are old and tired, like me, and perhaps we must be kinder to them.’

* * *

Standing in the citadel Talorc wrapped the heavy cloak tighter around himself. He already felt the early Winter deep in his bones. As a young man he had relished staying on the top telling stories, nålbinding and drinking with the small group who had to remain. Their continued presence resisted the gods, holding the top for generations, since Coblaith’s founding.

Despite the continuous peat fire burning in the round house, ice crystals formed from his breath and the smell of rot and damp pervaded everything. And now he doubted he would wake this spring.

Talorc’s thoughts drifted to his first year leading the group, a life time ago, when the gatherings were still large. When people traveling from across the Chat to maintain the fortifications, make exchanges and confirm marriages, and the top echoed with laughter and song.

Now the ground wetter and summers colder, the thin soils were sliding down, and the pools of water were getting darker and deeper.

For years there hadn’t been enough people to repair the great wall and many of the huts were now sagging or collapsed.

He doubted whoever followed him would be able to hold Ben Griam Beg from the deities much longer.

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This is a response, a speculative archaeology, to walking in from Strath Naver to Ben Griam Beg in March 2018.  Wildcamping below its southern flank, perhaps one of the few people who have slept in this landscape for over a thousand years, I woke up the next day to find after rainfall during the night the whole outer surface of the tent had a frozen skin. Carefully I opened the zip but the slight movements caused ice to slide, leaving a ring of water crystals around my little domain. It felt like a small moment of magic in this vast landscape.

Why did this particular archaeological site fascinate me so much?

Why was I drawn to travel to it?

In part, as Ben Griam Beg is one of the most difficult to visit prehistoric sites in Scotland, and as its highest hill fort, it captured my imagination, as a prehistorian, I felt compelled to experience where people lived 2000 years ago.

In part, because the site has never been investigated properly and I wondered what insights could be gained on the ground as opposed to scrutinizing a plan of the site, supping frothy coffee, in a library.

In part, to see what the Flow Country was like at this point and how the site related to its wider landscapes of Strath of Kildonan and Strath Naver.

In part, because I was seeking solitude and a night wild camping in a remote location is a freedom and privilege I treasure.

All these were important but what I keep coming back to

thinking about

wondering is

[when I visit rural and upland landscapes

so rich

in

prehistoric

remains]

how does the survival and presence of such archaeological sites inform debates about the future of communities and the challenges the world currently faces.

I worry, yes worry, that we do not engage enough with the rich prehistoric resources

(largely unknown, misunderstood and unvisited)

to be found in rural and upland places and how it should challenge us to reflect on our relationships with such landscapes. It seems to me that there is a missing wider dialogue about the ramifications of such ancient remains, what do they potentially tell us ?

The only full account of survey of Ben Griam Beg by Roger Mercer (1991) makes interesting reading, not least with the account of ‘challenges’ faced by the survey team due to the weather on the mountain. But as a ‘statement of fact’ the author is careful to present the evidence of survey and, largely due to limitations in knowledge (i.e. there has been no excavation, no dates are known for the different elements – some could be early Iron Age others could be early Historic period), it is difficult to interpret the site meaningfully in terms of anything other than a speculative archaeology.  What is clear, however, is there are several phases of return and maintenance at the site, entangled memories of previous generations and former ages, which the account tries to evoke.

One of the few interpretations posited in the CANMORE record of Ben Griam Beg is:

‘The extreme remote and exposed situation of the complex probably indicates

a temporary refuge of man and beast under threat of attack,

rather than a permanent settlement.’

In the lack of evidence, and in the face of such statements, could a speculative archaeology challenge us to think differently.  There has been so much focus in Scotland in recent years, and understandably so, on our relationships with rural and upland landscapes through the filter of the ‘Clearances’ or ‘Rewilding’. I do not belittle the importance of events in the recent centuries which have led to huge levels of rural depopulation, and recognise that there are historical injustices manifest in the ways our landscapes are managed. I do not underplay the importance of the debate about how we perceive, access and manages landscapes, in relation to degrees of ‘wildness’ and the complex range of ecological entanglements historically manifest in landscapes. But I wonder, why doesn’t the ramifications of the presence of prehistoric / deep time dimension of such landscapes appear to get meaningfully addressed in such debates.

Perhaps then there is a need for those of us who study, interpret, visit and are passionate about prehistoric sites to be more vocal about why they matter more broadly? #PrehistoryMatters

Our relationships with the prehistoric, have largely been mediated by academic research, often esoteric and obscure subjects which (until recent ‘impact’ agendas) had little interest in broader resonance or meaning.  So perhaps speculative archaeology can close the gap and act as a method of formulating research questions. 

How do questions we ask and the stories we tell change when we approach sites such as Ben Griam Beg, rather than random survivors of other eras, but as seeds of the future?

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Thanks to Jo Clements and Timespan for inviting me to contribute to the Practicing Deep Time event.  Preparing for the event and discussion with participants was an important contribution to formulating some of the views expressed here.

Mercer, R J 1991 ‘The survey of a hilltop enclosure on Ben Griam Beg, Caithness and Sutherland District, Highland Region’ in Hanson, W S & Slater, EA (Eds) Scottish Archaeology, New Perceptions, 140-52. Aberdeen University Press.

 

We are but a moment in the flow of time…

 Can we speak of love…

love of a landscape,

of the dance of light and cloud upon leaden Autumn waters,

of the sway of cotton grass in a playful Summers breeze,

of the cool green air which wisps around your Spring hair,

of those little details which reveal a world,

of the escape from mundane valley floor,

of soaring rocks, glacial scarred and Winter shattered

raptor and carrion,

your rapture and return…

Can we speak of love…..

…. from fragments,

from imperfect
traces….

from the hard cold realities….

Can we speak of love….

love of the object,

sought,

hard won,
cherished

and

curated.

Can we speak of love…

separated by 5000 years,

joined by a humanity.

Is it too hard to feel…

what it means to acquire,

to complement,
to share…

These partial traces,

spectres

of

objects desired,

with no value…
only discard,

detritus,

the waste from

greater

desires…

Yet …..

….they were hard won

by trowel,

by folded body

by stiffened knee…..

by cut finger and

aching arm…

they were hard won….

by stone upon stone,

crack and dust,
clatter and clinker,
roughed out…

waste, waste, waste, waste, waste,

the object is borne

Can we speak of love….

again revealed,
bagged and tagged
cleaned

measured,

incorporated into a world

beyond their….

… imagine,

a metric curation,

an assertion of the rationale…

suppresses

a terror of what they may reveal…

Can we speak of love…

love of the object…

a fetish beyond,

love of the insight,

of the revelation,

of the enlightenment,

beyond, we love beyond

the bounds of normal understanding…

for one moment they mattered,

the core of a world denied for millennia,

for one short moment

a sweet anticipation of display and adoration,

of wonder and desire… Can we speak of love…

Care, and ware, grind and polish…

Smoothed and caressed, a concentration,

focus,

effort,

an obsession…

material meditations…

shared and displayed…

an eternal transformation…

objects transcending moments of humanity…

…your daughters daughters sons

daughtersonsdaughtersonsdaughters

tell tale of those who pulled them from

the mother rock…

And yet we have inherited hard cold curation,

an uncomfortable,

comfort from discipline,

little known,
little revealed,
little shared,

but we are satisfied ?

with what…

with the recovery of loss,
with the ordering of disorder,
with the categorisation of the chaotic,
with the control of the uncontrollable….

with our conceit …

can we speak of love…

Look again,

look carefully,

not at the traces of the past,
but
at the fleeting glimpses

of the future…

…fragments shared,

flow

…fragments journeyed,

flow

…fragments retold,

flow

…fragments transformed,

flow

…fragments returned…

Can we speak of love…

love of the possibilities of what might be,

love of our shared humanity,

love of the intangibility of the tangible…

Dry and broken husks, pass no more on the winter stream,

occasional glints, below the surface beckon Spring rains.

Can we plant and tend,

seeds of spirit

grow

seeds of soul

grow

seeds of light

roots and radiance,

beyond generations glow.

The journey, the narrative continues….

how will you love

heap more order upon disorder

or narrate the next chapter, the next journey

share and tell,

show and reveal,

one year to this day…

is

but a moment in the flow of time…

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One interest I have are the threads which can be drawn out and traced through the millennia.  So slight, so fine, they can only be seen from certain angles – a flash, a glint, in peripheral glances – but I am sure they are there.

One fragile thread I have been teasing out was originally found in the uplands.  Five thousand years ago people quarried stone from mountain places such as the Langdale, Cumbria and Craig Na Caillich, Perthshire.  From the stone they produced polished stone axes. Polished stone axes may have been considered prestige objects and often traveled significant distances, perhaps handed from person to person.  Each time a polished stone axe moved, its story may have traveled with it linking time and space through the memories of generations.

The piece I present in part here traces these threads and looks forward.  Some images show a small quartz cairn I first created in the uplands six years ago and how it has changed.  Other images show large waste flakes from making rough out axes 5500 years ago: they had been excavated by archaeologists and they were going to be disposed of as no longer wanted for curation.  Many of the images relate to the burn which flows down from Craig Na Caillich axe factory, other relate to prehistoric sites where polished stone axes may well have been used and deposited.

The piece was presented in the Creative Archaeologies session, co-organised by Antonia Thomas, Dan Lee, Carolyn White and Ursula Frederick, at the 2015 European Association of Archaeologists conference.

As part of the piece 25 boxes were given away and an invite extended to those who took them to collaborate in exploring the future chapter of what was inside.

The piece extends :

In The Flow Of Time We Are But A Moment ….

Fire and Moon

Fire and Moon are a powerful combination.  There is no doubting the importance both had in the past, both moon and fire were clearly incorporated into rituals and ceremonies for thousands of years.  What may be less apparent is the power of groups of people building together, a communal effort to create not only structures but more importantly lasting memories of striking events.

A week of preparations, involved felling trees, and hand breaking trenches through bedrock to hold the timbers.

Posts were decorated using pigments found from local sources.

Special objects were made in preparation of the events which were to follow.

Everything was set for the arrival of extraordinary figures.

Preparations completed, we were ready…

for transformations through fire…

for remembering ancient stories of the landscape beyond…

for remembering the people who had explored before us…

for measuring things in a new light…

for transformation, to find a different beauty in wood.

An illumination cloaked in possible pasts.

An intensity of insight, focused at night.

Fire beckoned darkness and called another light.

A monument captured a lunar moment…

… of rhythms hunted through the ages.

  Memories,

of figures and festivities, fire and moon blended,

blazes.

Could never be revealed in mornings traces ?

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The BuildNBurn approach has been developed with Kenny Brophy and Corinna Goeckeritz.  For some partial insights into other BuildNBurn events, please look at:

Burning the Circle 2013

and

Burning the Circle 2014

Please contact me, if you have any ideas for other BuildNBurn events, we are happy to collaborate.

The BuildNBurn presented above was produced as part of the Joseph Anderson 150 Festival organised in collaboration by the University of Glasgow, Cardiff University, Northlight Heritage, the Yarrows Heritage Trust, Venture North and Northshore Pottery. The Joseph Anderson 150 Festival was supported with funding from the E.ON Camster Community Fund, supported by Foundation Scotland and by Eneco and Venture North. 

The BuildNBurn performance ‘Joseph Anderson Presents The Mysteries of Prehistories’ could not have happened without the support, hardwork and creative efforts of: Tom (Performance and Build); Andrew Baines (Performance); Cara Berger (Technical Advice); Nan Bethune (Storytelling); Alex Carnes (Performance and Build); James Dilley (Performance); Helen Green (Performance and Build); Steve (the sound man) Mills (Audio);  and Brianna Robertson (Song and Technical Advice).  Thanks also to Ian Giles for providing two carved oak plaques for carbonisation.  Many thanks to Islay MacLeod and Catherine MacLeod for providing copious quantities of wood and putting their faith in the BuildNBurn team.  A special thanks to Amelia Pannett who made Joseph Anderson 150 Festival happen and dealt with too many challenges during the week : but we got there in the end !

Lands of the Caillich

There are traces of time every where in the Lands of the Caillich.

Some are obvious, such as the tumbled drystone walls which had been constructed about 200 hundred years ago as the land was enclosed and more sheep introduced.

Other traces are more elemental, the different states of quartz rocks revealing greater time depths…

…angular outcrops, shattered by a thousand winters or more…

…rounded quartz rocks, rolled by glaciers, and washed for ten thousand years in burns.

On my way to my intended destination, Creag na Caillich, I pass by a collapsed cliff line,

scattered boulders creating a maze of shelters, for a range of creatures.

The cliff face reveals other scars.  Probably a result of where quartz has been extracted.  When this took place is difficult to tell.

What is clear is that there has long been a fascination for special stones in the Lands of the Caillich – with examples of healing stones and talismans in folklore and history.  Even today the property of Triboluminescence which quartz displays, visible in darkness, has a hypnotic, slightly unnerving effect : materials releasing other energies and powers.

Quartz may have been extracted by the people who occupied the nearby summer shielings, tending their cattle in the uplands, over two hundred years ago.

Or it could have been 5000 years before when people came to the uplands to acquire another special stone.  A ragged hole still visible in the mountain, visibly seeping more water than elsewhere, is the result of quarrying for rock suitable to produce polished stone axes at Creag Na Caillich.

*                                                                  *                                                        *

I have explored this part of Scotland many times before and occasionally at times encountered the wintery veil of the Caillich.  I had been to Creag Na Caillich twice before. The first time I arrived, hail immediately fell on me : perhaps no surprise in March.

The second time going to Creag Na Callich, I never actually made it, after climbing Ben Lawers earlier in the day, I was turned back by overhanging snow in a small corrie and to be honest due to a nagging sense of not to go any further.

Further west I have explored Gleann Calliche several times and encountered weather anomalies : but that is another tale.

And – while I have encountered the different faces of Ben Cruachan in both Summer and Winter many times before – I only recently learned about the story of Cailleach Bheur.

     *                                                                  *                                                        *

This time the weather was relatively kind to me at Creag Na Caillich, perhaps to be expected in July.  Having completed the piece I was creating I began my return journey when my eye was caught by a rock I had never spotted before on the distant horizon : the slopes of the mountain side meant it can only be seen briefly from a very limited position.

I continued to move on down slope, but something nagged at me to go upwards and explore further : perhaps, upon reflection, the rock reminded me of the trolls stones I had seen in Iceland.

I eventually found myself crossing an area of peat hags, situated in an enclosed amphitheater like area of ground.

As I approached the rock, I realised it had an almost figure like form.

Perhaps it was tiredness or low blood sugar but at this point I had the strangest sensation.  I suddenly felt very cold, began shivering, and walking became like swimming through treacle : a minute or so and it passed but slightly disorientated I continued.

The rock, perhaps 10 m tall, has a remarkable profile and presence in the landscape.

Like a seated watcher,

contemplative,

brooding,

patient.

The back of the stone reveals a series of almost step like levels as it narrows towards the top of the head.  They appear worn, probably just weathering, but I ponder whether others have stood here in the past to experience…

…the view of the stone…

…which has sat for over ten thousand years,

watching the Lands of the Caillich.

———————————————————————————————————————

The top of Creag na Caillich is located c 900 metres to the north west from our stone figure.  However on the Ordnance Survey Map the name Creag na Caillich is located significantly distant from the top and closer to where the figure is situated.  I wonder if the association of the name Caillich at this location was in part due to the presence of the stone figure.  The Caillich (or Cailleach) has significant antiquity in folklore, referring to a deity, associated with winter weather, who manifests in the form of an old woman.

The times I have spent up the mountains have been in exceptionally varied weather conditions and different states of tiredness.  When I approached the stone figure of the Caillich, the sensation was like nothing I have experienced before and it left me somewhat unsettled for quite some time.

Perhaps in remote, rarely visited places, where the elements rage with such power at different times of the year, there are residual energies which can be encountered… ?

Druid Landscapes

‘They are the faults of archaeology rather than art’

Earlier this year I was privileged to see The Druids: Bringing in the Mistletoe by George Henry and Edward Atkinson Hornel (1890) in the excellent Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.  Only seeing the original painting does it proper justice and I urge you to visit the Kelvingrove to see its full wonder.

The painting was supported by interpretative signage, one of which explained:

Needless to say this required further investigation.

In his biography of Hornel, Smith notes in relation to the composition of The Druids,

‘The half-sphere of the moon on the background is reflected in the curve of the hill and the shapes of the priestly insignia, all echoing the cup-and-ring markings‘.

Looking at the Druid Landscape, Smith underplays the extent to which the lunar has been evoked through the cool silvery quality of the light and exaggerated topography of the hills upon which the Druids process.  Rather it as if they wander from and across the very surface of the moon itself, in turn implying the Druids emerged directly from the cup-and-ring markings themselves and those who produced them.

A similar blurring between the realities of topographic forms and the layers of mythological liminality which we inhabit can also be seen in an earlier work by Hornel, The Brownie of Blednoch (1889).  In the background we can again see a full moon resonating cup-and-ring marks.

Gallovoidian shepherd beast, beard of circles and cup-marked eyes.  A manifestation of the living rock, tor like outcrop, it dominates a landscape (which would typically be portrayed as a pastoral idyll), above which swoop dark clouds suggesting eldar forms and witch-like figures.

Smith emphasises the importance to these works of the discovery of cup-and-ring markings near Kirkcudbright in 1886 and says,

‘Hornel searched for other markings in the rocks in the region‘

during which searches, the idea for The Druids came to him.  Smith continues to explain that on a visit by Hornel to some carvings with an old man, they returned to the old man’s house, where according to an account by A S Hartrick (1939),

‘….he took from a shelf a small china bowl in which was a small bluish stone like bead*.  Holding this in his hand, in a few minutes he seemed to go off in a sort of trance, and then began to describe,…,a vision of a procession of priests with sacred instruments and cattle which were somehow connected with the cup-and-ring markings.  I cannot remember the details of it; all I can say is the vision appeared genuine, and that he was not drunk. After a time he became normal again, but would not talk anymore on the subject.‘  *I like to imagine this could be a Bronze Age fiance bead most often having been found associated with burials.

The particular cup-and-ring markings which Smith says first inspired Hornel were published in an article by F R Coles (1888).  He explains ‘Some of the most remarkable of these Petroglyphs were those found by Mr E A Hornel and myself on the 23rd February, 1887‘ (ibid 44) and were portrayed as a photo-lithograph:

In the same paper Coles reveals ‘While preparing this I hear to-day (14th September, 1887) of the discovery of yet more and more peculiar petroglyphs on the same piece of rock at High Banks by Mr Hornel and Mr Thompson.’ (ibid 46)

Other papers on the discovery at High Banks reveal a few further details about the nature of the discoveries.  In a paper by Hamilton (1887) it is recorded that

‘Mr Rigg, who has been tenant of this farm for many years, states that a great many of such carvings were destroyed about fifty years ago, when the surrounding stone dykes were built from the quarry here;’ (ibid 157)

So it is likely without archaeological intervention the High Bank rock art may have been destroyed completely by now.  Hamilton explains:

‘The Lady Isabella Hope, of St Mary’s Isle, who is proprietor of this farm, has kindly consented to allow this part of the field to be stripped of turf,…‘

Hamilton portrays the same panel of rock art as in Coles but explain his paper was

‘…illustrated by sketches made for me by an artist friend, Mr E Hornel, of Kirkcudbright‘ (ibid 152)

So not only did Hornel first identify the carvings but he also recorded them.

In a later paper, Hamilton elaborated on the earlier memories of Mr Rigg:

 ‘and there must have been many more, for to the east of it a quarry has been worked about fifty years ago, to procure stones wherewith to build adjacent dikes, and the tenant, then a boy, but now a hale old man, distinctly remembers carvings like those now described being visible on the surface of the rock quarried.’ (Hamilton 1889, 130)

He also reveals the extent of the exavations:

‘Last autumn we carried out our intentions, and laid bare a large portion of glaciated rock. Towards the centre of the northern side of this knoll, from which we removed a foot and a half of soil and turf, we exposed a great many more of theses sculptings‘ (ibid 125)

The 1889 Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland paper has a series of black and white engravings of the newly discovered rock art

and about which George Hamilton notes:

‘These engravings are made from photographs taken from casts of the portions of sculptured rock-surfaces, obtained with much trouble by Messrs M’Kie, Hornell, and Thomson, members of the Local Natural History and Antiquarian Society. These casts are to be seen in the Local Museum at Kirkcudbright, and in the National Museum of Antiquities, Edinburgh.’

So in the late 19th century, rock art about 5000 years old, was being uncovered, casts of which were made, of which photographs were taken, of which an engraving was produced, which is now represented digitally !

With such a tantalising set of resonances from the past, a road trip was then in order to investigate further.  On the way to The Stewarty Museum in Kirkudbright there was good omen that cup and ring marks still resonates with significance to this day

And upon asking about the plaster casts at The Stewarty Museum, I was quickly pointed to:

‘made by early copper prospectors to invoke the help of the sun-god in their search’

And thus I quickly looked outside to see a nest of carved stones sheltering together through the ages: piled up in front of the casts, quern stones and fonts, Medieval cross and prehistoric rock art reworked as architectural elements of later buildings.  A glass and steel framed disparate assemblage of esoteric forms revealing : a compelling urge to collect and display over the ages?

Yet, the most elaborate cast slab has been set aside, finding no shelter,

familiar but forlorn.

Behind the cast slabs an inscription with further details :

witness to M’Kie then curator of the museum.

So where did these casts derive ?

Upon hillside with pastoral views

Overlooking sea and routeway.

Situated in a changing world, alive with movements.

With depths of skies and shifts of perspective.

Casts derived from rock,

and its seductive pretense of permanence.

Stone reworked and represented, filling the void of times lost.

Five thousand year old forms, copied and transformed.

In the library of Broughton House, the residence of Hornel in Kirkcudbright, there are letters which reveal another dimension to this trajectory.  Twenty seven letters written to Hornel by artist and archaeologist (or is it archaeologist and artist) F R Coles – replies missing – provide a one sided insight to a friendship hungry for discovery and portrayal, a glimpse of hobbied obsessions and tentative grasps at Druid spectres.

In a letter of 2 May 1887 Coles writes to Hornel

‘I was up yesterday at High Banks rock and saw traces of your spadework‘

It is also clear then that prior to producing paintings incorporating cup-and-ring marks, not only had Hornel been exploring the Galloway hills searching for exposed rock outcrops bearing prehistoric rock art but when discovered had been illustrating them too.  In the case of High Banks, he had also been excavating to uncover more rock art panels : very much then artist as archaeologist.

In the same letter to Hornel, F R Coles sketches three cupmarks in the corner, a simple trace of his artistic background, and in the earlier letters refers to cup-and-ring is markings written in full.

Not much later F R Coles would move to Edinburgh where he was Assistant Keeper of the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland from 1897 to 1911.  Five years since the original discovery at High Banks, letters from F R Coles (now as archaeologist) continued to Hornel.

They reveal another dimension of the ways in which cup-and-ring markings were being portayed by F R Coles, rather than written in full he uses shorthand symbols for cup-and-ring markings.  No other abbreviation, or short hand is evident for long or frequently used phrases, only the archaeological subject is reduced : a form of categorical abstraction only too regularly used in the work of the archaeologist.

The mark of the archaeologist is, for many, the excavation trench : a theatrical arena which temporarily opens the veil between past and present.  Powerful indeed then that the presencing of the rock art at High Banks was through Hornel’s spade work, without which they would never have been revealed and transformed – cast, photographed, engraved, digitised – (re)presented through the ages.

Yet ironically, it is the artists striking imagery of the Druids or the Brownie inhabiting the moonscapes of Galloway, which more actively invites us to dwell in the same landscapes as the rock art may have emerged in – 5000 years ago when it was produced, even then a place thick with myths and legends.

Paradoxically, a richness of cultural expression, copied and transformed, can also  be reduced by an archaeologist to the simple potency of

. & o

---

Many thanks to Denise Briggs (The Stewarty Museum), Sarah Jackson and Sheila Faichney (NTS, Broughton House) for helping with my investigations.

The phrase ‘They are the faults of archaeology rather than art‘ derives from a review in the Glasgow Herald (20th Feb, 1892) of the 1891 painting Summer which was particularly poorly received in some quarters of the press when first shown in public (Quoted in Smith 2010.)

In fairness, F R Coles was engaged in archaeological practice at a time when there was an overwhelming need to identify and record archaeology.  His work stands out at the time for his large number of illustrations of sites which he recorded effectively in no small part through his skills as an artist.

Hornel the artist (informed by the visceral experiences of landscape and archaeology) produced The Druids which, despite its power as a painting, may actually appeal to a limited audience.  In contrast, the simple abstraction to . & o by F R Coles, in part anticipated later scholars views that cup-and-ring marks were potentially very powerful as it is their very simplicity of form which allows multiple meanings and interpretations.

The image of The Brownie of Blednoch is from the BBC

More information about High Banks can be found at RCAHMS Canmore site.

Coles, F R 1888 ‘The recent Cup and Ring Mark Discoveries in Kirkcudbrightshire. (Abridged.)’ Trans Dum Gal Nat His Antiq Soc 5, 41 – 52.

Coles, F R 1895 ‘A record of the cup- and ring-markings in the stewarty of Kirkcudbright’ Proc Soc Antiq Scot 29, 67-91.

Hamilton, G 1887 ‘Notices of rock-sculpturings of cups and circles in Kirkcudbrightshire’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot 21, 157-8.

Hamilton, G 1889 ‘Notice of additional groups of carvings of cups and circles on rock surfaces at High Banks, Kirkcudbrightshire’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot 23, 125-30.

Hartrick, A S 1939 A Painter’s Pilgrimage Through Fifty Years. Cambridge: Cambridge U. P.

Smith, B 2010 Hornel. The Life and Works of Edward Atkinson Hornel. Atelier Books: Edinburgh.

Ice Axes

Freezing temperatures and snow means that ice axes can sometimes prove useful.

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The axe has been a powerful tool, both functionally and symbolically, through out much of prehistory.  The polished stone axe in the Neolithic (c 4000 – 2500 BC) clearly has a significance beyond the functional with highly polished examples, that clearly were never used for felling trees, but had circulated long distances.  Yet this belies the fact that in experienced hands the axe is an effective tool to fell and clear woodland, and as such has played a role historically in the transformation of many a landscape.

In the Copper Age / early Bronze Age in Britain c 2500 BC the first metal axes were cast in flat open stone moulds.  Some examples of Bronze Age axes we have in museums were recovered from bogs and / or rivers during the 19th and 20th centuries as parts of groups of objects.  They had been collected together into groups (often described as hoards) during the Bronze Age and deposited as votive offerings in bogs and rivers.  Thus in some cases, objects born of stone and fire were plunged seemingly forever into a watery death.

Inspired by bronze castings I have seen in recent years, and with low temperatures, I wondered if I could cast ice axes?

So I took a replica of a Bronze Age axe and used it to create templates of early Bronze age axes forms : the earliest Broad Butt forms and later more developed forms with more splayed cutting edges and a narrow butt.  I then used these templates to create snow moulds to cast boiled then cooled water into : I couldn’t resist some colour too !

The next morning a small collection of axes were removed from the mould. Collected together I now have a small hoard of ice axes.  As temperatures rise they will probably be gone in a few days time, unlike some examples from the Bronze Age in Britain which have lasted for 4500 years.

Iron Age Twilights

The prehistoric site at Barr A’ Chaistealain has been described as a dun.

Around which the remains of a Medieval or Later Rural Settlement can be found.  The settlement is associated with the Clan McNab.  It is said to have been occupied by the McNabs in the mid fifteenth century AD and that they were armourers and blacksmiths to the Lairds of Glenorchy.

Apparently one building was still occupied in the 1950’s,

perhaps the bedstead relates to this last dwelling.

Ironic perhaps, in the twilight of a settlement associated with metalworking,

that such abandoned artefacts slowly corrode.

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Barr A’ Chaistealain was clearly occupied, at least intermittently, for over a thousand years and had a strong association with iron working.  It could be described as an example of  ‘the long iron age’.

The site of Barr A’ Chaistealain was surveyed in 1992 by ACFA 

Further information about Barr A’ Chaistealain can be found via RCAHMS

Langdale Axescape

Harnessing

elemental

powers

 

 

 

 

with rush and splash.

 

A  pressure change

 

 

 

 

brings new perspectives.

 

 

 

Rock washed,                                     rain cleansed,

 

 

 

offerings of eras,

 

 

found to remind us.

 

 

Clink and clack.

Clack and clink.

Stone scarred                                  millennial,

pillar standing sentinel.

Slow,                                        clink and clack,                              flow the rocks,

industrial residues                                              pooling

            downwards.

Sharp

smooth

 

 

 

 

 

shards of light.

Clack and clink.

Stone whack                                                                                                              crack

 

cold traces.

 

 

 

 

Pillars mark                                        special places,

 

fling,                                                                                                          the stones sing.

 

 

 

 

Rush and crash,

sharp echoes below.

 Damp sun streams,

 

 

 

 

slowly warmed

banded sedimentary secrets.

 

Silent sanctuary

 

from rivulets of stone,

 

 

 from richochets of time.

                             

Stone and earth,

slide,

scree flow.

 

Clack and clink.

 

 

Crush and rush.

 

 

Elemental source

 

fades

 

 

with twilight’s shades.

 

 

 

 

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Many thanks to Peter Style who kindly led me through the Langdale Axescape: please visit his blog Mountains of Meaning.

In the Central Lakes, high up on the mountain sides, there is a marked band of geology, a fine grained tuff, which was sought in the Neolithic period for producing stone axes.  The lumps and flakes of stone which can be found prolifically on the mountain side (and should be left where there), are the working debris from quarrying and from roughing out stone axes from this tuff approximately 5500 years ago.  The rough outs would be worked further and typically polished to create a smooth lustrous finish to the axe.

Descent from Pike of Stickle beyond the edge of the scree slope is possible only with great care: indeed as a sensitive archaeological site it really should be avoided.  This is demonstrated by example of the cave found down the stone shoot.  It has clearly been quarried into the rock face and there is a photo from the 1940s (in the Clare Fell 1950 article ‘The Great Langdale stone-axe factory’ in Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society) which apparently shows that only the top of the cave was visible.  The remainder was sealed by several meters of axe working debris.  In the intervening sixty years, tons of material has moved down the hill, despite probably having remained largely untouched for several millennia.  Why the cave was quarried and what this cave was used for within a wider axescape is unclear.  Whether as a location for polishing stone axes, or perhaps a place where one or two people could shelter as stone showered down from quarrying taking place above, the sounds echoing on the sides of the shoot.

Further background information on prehistoric axe working sites in the Lake District can be found in the Oxford Archaeology survey report On Axe Working Sites On Path Renewal Schemes.

For further thoughts on the circulation of polished stone axes in the Neolithic can be found in the classic text by Richard Bradley and Mark Edmonds ‘Interpreting the Axe Trade: production and exchange in Neolithic Britain.’