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The Megalithic Portal and Megalith Map : Index >>
General Forum >> Experts hail Pictish royal monastery find
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Experts hail Pictish royal monastery find |
coldrum
Joined:
17-09-2002
Messages: 780
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|  Posted 23-10-2011 at 22:50
AERIAL photographs showing a faint line in fields around a village in Highland Perthshire have mystified archaeologists for decades. Crop marks in the village of Fortingall, famous for its 5,000-year-old yew tree, seem to indicate an ancient boundary long since buried and forgotten.
Now an archaeological dig may have uncovered the secret: the site is believed to have been a royal monastery dating from the time when the Picts were converting to Christianity more than 1,300 years ago.
Dr Oliver O'Grady and a band of local volunteers opened up two exploratory trenches to reveal a wide bank faced with large upright stones that may have once stood as high as two metres.
O'Grady believes the bank to be the remains of a Pictish monastic enclosure, also known as a vallum monastery, possibly dating somewhere between the 6th and 8th centuries AD. "It's in a beautiful state of preservation," said O'Grady, "and one of the best upstanding pieces of Pictish archaeology that I've ever seen.
"I am blown away by what we have found in what is only the second Pictish monastery to be excavated to any great extent in Scotland. Hopefully this research will shed some more light on what really is a black hole in Scottish archaeological investigation."
The discovery supports existing evidence of an early Christian monastery at Fortingall. The village church contains a monk's hand bell and fragments of early Christian grave markers with Pictish designs.
Definitive results from the dig, carried out by the Breadalbane Heritage Society, still await radiocarbon dating, but as well as the monastic enclosure, the archaeological team found the remains of a substantial Pictish road passing though one of the enclosure's main entrances. A geophysical survey carried out within the enclosed area indicates the remains of a major settlement with many internal divisions and possible dwellings.
"It just shows how important the ancient monastery at Fortingall must have been," said Neil Hooper, chairman of the heritage society. "It is so much more significant than anyone previously thought."
O'Grady, who previously led excavations at Scone Palace, thinks that Fortingall could have once been a major cultural and religious centre in the Celtic world. "Early Christian monasteries were important sites for the development of intellectual life in Scotland," he commented. "They are likely to have been focal points for trade, metalwork and crafts as well as for prayer."
Slag deposits were found during the dig, a clear indication of metal-working in the monastery.http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/scotland/Experts-hail-Pictish-royal-monastery.6834152.jp
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