Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 147

A large prehistoric pit was uncovered during a watching brief on a water main installation. The pit was partially stone-lined and two small scoops were identified at the base. These contained one complete and one partial Beaker vessel. The fills of the pit produced a small quantity of cremated human bone which represented a minimum of four individuals (three adults and a juvenile). Also mixed into the fills were sherds of other Beaker vessels, a few lithics, a stone axehead, and fragments of Neolithic pottery. Radiocarbon determinations produced early Neolithic dates for four samples of human bone and a grain of wheat, and one human bone sample produced a Bronze Age date later than the generally accepted currency of Beaker pottery production in Scotland. Interpretation of this strange collection of material is discussed with reference to Neolithic and Bronze Age burial practices; the evidence for the use of this pit in the Neolithic for cremation burial is a rare find and provides a valuable contribution to our understanding of this period and type of monument.

This contribution describes the discovery and subsequent investigation of a cist in a rock-cut pit at Achavanich, Highland. Discovered and excavated in 1987, the cist was found to contain the tightly contracted skeletal remains of a young woman, accompanied by a Beaker, three flint artefacts and a cattle scapula. Initial post excavation work established a date for the skeleton together with details of her age and sex, and preliminary pollen analysis of sediments attaching to the Beaker was undertaken. The findings were never fully published and, upon the death of the excavator, Robert Gourlay, the documentary archive was left in the Highland Council Archaeology Unit. Fresh research in 2014–17, initiated and co-ordinated by the first-named author and funded by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland with assistance from National Museums Scotland, the Natural History Museum and Harvard Medical School, has produced a significant amount of new information on the individual and on some of the items with which she was buried. This new information includes two further radiocarbon dates, a more detailed osteological report, isotopic information pertaining to the place where she had been raised and to her diet, histological information on the decomposition of her body, and genetic information that sheds light on her ancestry, her hair, eye and skin colour and her intolerance of lactose. (This is the first time that an ancient DNA report has been published in the Proceedings.) Moreover, a facial reconstruction adds virtual flesh to her bones. The significance of this discovery within the Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age of this part of Scotland is discussed, along with the many and innovative ways in which information on this individual, dubbed ‘Ava’, has been disseminated around the world.

The portrait of St Columba was made on the last page of a version of The Life of St Columba by Adomnán. The book, Cod Sang 555, was written at the monastery of St Gallen in the later 9th century and the drawing possibly added shortly afterwards. The image shows Columba both on a mountain and inside a church, both alive with hands raised in prayer and dead, represented by his adjacent reliquary. The shape of the reliquary is matched by an illustration of the Ark of the Covenant, made at St Gallen at about the same time. This reveals the meaning of the picture: as God spoke to his people from the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant, Columba speaks directly to his reader and devotees through his relics in the shrine. It is proposed that the smaller container beside the reliquary is a satchel, possibly for containing this book itself. Typological exegesis relating the Old Testament to Columba explains Columba’s mystical appearance simultaneously on the mountain and in a church; and his ability to appear in person after his death. The concept of praesentia accounts for his active role as intercessor for his followers. The picture was composed at a time when illustrated saints’ lives were beginning to develop with detailed narrative sequences. This image stands apart because it does not illustrate events from the accompanying text. The text of Cod Sang 555 had already excised details of Columba’s Irish/ Scottish background on Iona to make it more relevant to a continental audience. Likewise, this image places Columba, through the power of his relics, no longer on Iona but directly before his followers in St Gallen Abbey.

The Sainte-Chapelle at Vic-le-Comte is one of the most important religious buildings surviving from the 16th century in the Auvergne. It was the last of ten French royal and ducal chapels founded, broadly following the precedent set by Louis IX’s foundation of the Parisian Sainte-Chapelle in 1248. The primary function of this, and the other Saintes-Chapelles, was to provide a dignified structure within which to house fragments of the Passion relics inherited from Louis IX. For their patrons, such foundations served as important public expressions of piety, advertised the patrons’ connections to the French crown, and simultaneously functioned as valuable diplomatic tools, encouraging important guests to venerate their relics. The Sainte-Chapelle at Vic-le-Comte has received limited scholarly attention, particularly in relation to its patron John Stuart, Duke of Albany, and his position as Regent of Scotland. This paper examines this foundation and its ambitious programme of decoration in relation to the aims and ambitions of its founder. The motivations behind the project are analysed in relation to Albany’s position in Scotland, his growing prominence in France, and his strengthening ties to the Florentine Medici family. Investigated in relation to other examples of his patronage, Albany’s foundation demonstrates how issues of ancient lineage, sacred kingship, and dynastic commemoration were of central importance.

Caisteal Ormacleit [Ormiclate Castle], on the west side of South Uist, was constructed in the early 18th century by Clanranald for his wife Penelope, reputedly in the style of a French chateau, incorporating building materials imported from or via the east coast of South Uist at a time when there were neither roads nor carts. This high-status building (arguably more a fine house than a castle) and its origins and construction are reviewed in the context of historical sources, geology and topography. The history of the building and that of the couple for whom it was built had close associations with the Jacobite battles of 1689 (Killiecrankie) and 1715 (Sheriffmuir). The possible canal sections are reviewed in detail and a convincing case is provided for the existence of a canal network between the east coast of the Uists and the western situation of Caisteal Ormacleit, linking the Olaidh lochs, thus confirming the local tradition that the inland lochs of the Uists were used for boat-based transport and supporting the case for the existence of a wider navigable network within the Uist interior. Past intervention in water management has to be investigated in order to plan for future climate change impacts, and the Olaidh network is reviewed in this context.

A Viking Age or Late Norse gold finger-ring in Glasgow Museums (A.1979.19), previously thought to have been found in the Isle of Skye, is here identified with a ring said to have been found in the Isle of Jura in 1869 (together with another, now lost). This identification is based on an illustration published in 1875 by the ring’s then owner, the Rev Dr P H Waddell (1816–91). Waddell’s use of the ring as a piece of evidence in his attempts to prove the authenticity of James Macpherson’s Ossianic poems is discussed. The ring subsequently passed into the possession of the Austrian Countess Vincent Baillet de Latour (d 1942), who had developed an interest in the archaeology of Skye during her first marriage to Norman Macleod of Macleod (d 1895). Focusing on the ring as a collector’s possession, the paper takes a biographical approach, following its trajectory from antiquarian discovery to museum object.