Sculptor's Cave

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Sculptor's Cave

The 1928/29 excavated Sculptor's Cave ( German  "Cave of the sculptor" ) is a sea nearby natural cave near Elgin in Moray in Scotland whose entrance with Pictish decorated symbols. These include a. Flowers ( English pictish flowers ), fish, crescents, pentagrams, mirrors, V-bars, triple ovals and rectangular symbols. There are variations in the number of symbols given. Despite careful research in 1979, no symbols were found in the cave itself. Groups of symbols are normally near the two entrances.

description

The almost inaccessible cave is located in a small bay on the south coast of the Moray Firth . It has two adjacent entrances. The east entrance is 3.0 m wide and 2.5 m high. The west entrance is 2.0 m wide and 4.5 m high where the excavation was carried out. Two corridors about 11 m long run from the entrances into a 20 × 13.5 m and about 4.0 m high cavern .

Finds

The excavation finds from the cave, including Iron Age ceramics, range from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age (4th century AD) and are in the Elgin Museum. The layers of the cave also yielded bones of humans and animals, including fish and bird bones, a Viking rivet and Roman finds: bracelets, ceramics, coins, needles and rings. The Roman finds from the 2nd century consist of terra sigillata and heavy ceramics, those from the 4th century consist of brooches, needles, pins, rings and ring brooches made of bronze and glass beads. Seven amber beads were found in a layer from the younger Iron Age mixed with that from the Roman period.

Time position

In 1929/30 the excavation of S. Benton provided evidence of two periods of high activity. The earlier of the cultural deposits are indicated by metalwork from the Ewart Park phase (around 1000–800 BC) of the late Bronze Age. A later layer contains a rich accumulation of Roman material from the 2nd to 4th centuries AD. The second phase of use of the cave therefore took place in the Pict time, roughly at the same time as that of the nearby Burghead Fort .

The most noticeable feature of the cave is the significant number of human remains. S. Benton removed around 1,800 human bones from the sediment. The adult cervical vertebrae show traces of decapitation. Shepherds found other bones, including several youthful jaws, which may be signs of severed heads at the cave entrance. In spite of the limited stratigraphic control and the lack of evidence of dating, all human bone material has long been assigned to the Late Bronze Age. However, a renewed examination of the cervical vertebrae raised doubts, because at least some cutting marks must have been caused by sharp iron blades. A first sample showed a C14 date from 231 to 395 AD, i.e. from the Roman Iron Age.

See also

literature

  • I. Armit & R. Schulting: An Iron Age decapitation from the Sculptor's Cave , Covesea, Northeast Scotland 2007
  • Sylvia Benson: The Excavation of the Sculptor's Cave, Covesea, Morayshire In: Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Vol. 65 1930

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Detail of triple-oval and flower Pictish symbols on the ceiling of entrance to Sculptor's Cave, Covesea
  2. ↑ heavy clay ( English coarse ware ) is the descriptive term for prehistoric daily use goods, the different cultures, make up the more than two-thirds of all finds. The vessels were used for the transport and storage of goods, the preparation of meals and as cooking vessels. Coarse pottery stands in qualitative contrast to the special design of ceremonial vessels, both in terms of the way they are manufactured and in their generally undecorated appearance

Web links

Coordinates: 57 ° 43 ′ 7.3 "  N , 3 ° 23 ′ 11.3"  W.