Scotland in Pagan Times; The Iron AgeAnderson, Joseph
History
Scotland in Pagan Times; The Iron Age
Anderson, Joseph
Scotland -- Antiquities
Except in the island of Westray (in which seven specimens have
occurred), there is no record of the discovery of the oval bowl-shaped
brooches elsewhere in Orkney. I shall describe the remarkable group of
graves in Westray in connection with the phenomena of burial, merely
remarking here that the presence of these brooches and this type of
sword carries the area of this form of burial into the Orkney Islands.
Two oval bowl-shaped brooches, having the usual mark of cloth on the
inside of their inner shells, are also in the museum at Lerwick. They
were found at Clibberswick, in the north end of the island of Unst, the
most northerly island of the Shetland group. Along with them there were
found a plain silver bracelet, two glass beads ornamented with twisted
streaks of white and blue, and a trefoil-shaped brooch of a type which
is also peculiarly Scandinavian, covered with a zoomorphic ornament
consisting of dragonesque forms, whose feet twist under and grasp parts
of their bodies.[33]
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Footnote 33:
This trefoil-shaped brooch closely resembles one figured in the
_Memoires de la Société des Antiquaires du Nord_, 1840-44.
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The range of these burials, distinguished (among other features peculiar
to themselves), by the presence of this peculiar type of sword and this
remarkable type of brooch,[34] has thus been traced through the western
and northern isles from Islay to Unst, in Shetland, touching the
mainland only in the counties of Sutherland and Caithness. This area,
established on archæological evidence, coincides exactly with the area
established by historical record as that which was colonised and
possessed by the Norwegians in the time of their heathenism.
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Footnote 34:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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