Wheelhouse from Sollas

The Wheelhouse of Sollas ( Scottish Gaelic Solas ), excavated in 1957, is located in the Middle Quarter on the north coast of the Scottish Hebridean island of North Uist .

The Sollas rescue excavations involved a well-preserved Iron Age wheelhouse and rotunda. The unstructured complex with previous buildings from period A1 and A2 received the characteristic radial niches in period B1 (14). One was completely separated from the interior by a partition. Niche 1 was remodeled in period B2 to pass through to a large, oval structure outside, called cell A. Cell 3 formed the entrance to the round house. Cell 5 was later opened to another passageway to the outside.

The central room is about 9.8 m in diameter. In its center there was a hearth structure, a pit lined with stones, a hand mill and pits with the bones of cattle, sheep / goats, pigs and other animals, as well as broken ceramics and worked bones. The characteristic of Sollas is the discovery of about 200 sheep. Most were upside down in small, conical pits. On the island of South Uist , about 20 deer jawbones were deposited in the wheelhouse of A Cheardach Bheag in an arch around the central hearth, and 32 bovine teeth were found next to one of the pillars in the neighboring Cheardach Mhor.

Waste from Sollas was piled on the roof, creating a near-subterranean structure over time, accessible through a long, funnel-shaped corridor.

The construction of the wheelhouse could be dated to the 1st or 2nd century AD by a series of radiocarbon measurements and artifacts . Since Sollas was the first excavation of a wheelhouse, it had an impact on the chronology and function of these buildings.

The amount of ornate pottery was salvaged from stratified contexts, so sequencing was found for a number of shapes and decorative motifs in the much discussed Hebridean pottery and in the development of round houses.

literature

• E. Campbell: (1991) Excavations of a wheelhouse and other Iron Age structures at Sollas, North Uist, by RJC Atkinson on 1957. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 121 1991 pp. 117-173. ISSN  0081-1564

Web links

• Excavation report (PDF; 4.3 MB)

Coordinates: 57 ° 39 '17.6 "  N , 7 ° 22' 5.2"  W.