Burghead Fort
Burghead Fort was a Pictish Promontory Fort on a small peninsula in the northeast of Moray in the region Grampian in Scotland and from 300 to 800 probably the capital of the Kingdom Fortriu. The remains of the Promontory Fort, which took advantage of the strategic position of the peninsula, were built over to more than half from 1805 to 1809 by the construction of the city of Burghead . At that time the fortification was still considered to be a Roman fort .
description
Burghead is the largest known Pictish fort with an area of three hectares . The peninsula was separated from the mainland by three high walls and moats. The area within the section ramparts is divided into an upper and a lower district. The complex was built between the 4th and 6th centuries, attacked by Vikings in 742 as the earliest raid on the British Isles , and destroyed by fire in the 9th or 10th centuries.
The importance of the complex is underlined by finds. During excavations in the fortification, 30 rock slabs with representations were found. Six of them, which show bulls, are known today as "Burghead Bulls". One of these stone tablets can be seen in the British Museum . Not far from the fort, the symbol stone of Easterton of Roseisle was found in 1894 .
Burghead Well
The Burghead Well (spring) was rediscovered in the course of work on the new village of Burghead which began in 1809. In a process in which the Promontory Fort was badly affected, it was necessary to find the reliable source of fresh water for the new village, which, according to tradition, had been part of the fort.
Twenty stone steps led down to one of the most mysterious places in Scotland, a square room five square meters cut into natural rock at the base of a cliff. Inside the chamber, a square opening in the floor was surrounded on all sides by a 0.9 m wide ledge. The spring pit, fed with water from an underground spring, was 1.3 m deep. During the clearing of the chamber, various objects were discovered, including a stone with a bull relief, one of many found in the remains of the fort, part of a Pictish stone cross and a number of Spanish coins. However, as the amount of water from the spring was insufficient to supply the new village, the well was abandoned.
literature
- Anna Ritchie, Graham Ritchie: Scotland. Archeology and Early History. Thames and Hudson Ltd., London 1981, ISBN 0-50002-100-7 ( Ancient places and people 99).
- JA Graham-Campbell: The ninth-century Anglo-Saxon horn-mount from Burghead, Morayshire, Scotland . In: Medieval Archeology 17 1976 pp. 33-47
Web links
- Burghead Promontory Fort Description
- Burghead description and sketch of the plant
- The source and pictures
Coordinates: 57 ° 41 ′ 56 " N , 3 ° 28 ′ 41" W.