Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 152

Professor Diderik van der Waals was born in Amsterdam in 1925. He grew up in a family with four brothers and sisters in the big city, but the weekends they often spent in Boeschoten, a farming estate on the Veluwe in the central Netherlands owned by his grandfather and later by his mother, C E van der Waals-Nachenius. His mother inspired the family with a love of nature and landscape, but also with interest in and support for other people, for instance the farming families on the estate.

The 'Giant's Grave', formally known as Slochd Measach, Nereabolls, (SM3927) is located on the Isle of Islay in western Scotland and is one of seven confirmed Clyde Cairns on the island. We describe the standing remains and excavations between 2015-18 intended to address the origin, architecture and use of this monument. We found that the cairn was most likely constructed between 3516-336 cal BC in one continuous effort. It was modified and reused on at least four occasions during the Early and Late Bronze Age, and extensively robbed during the Iron Age. This post-Neolithic activity left a small collection of ceramic vessels may have been used for funerary purposes of votive offerings. We compare the architecture of the Giant's Grave with that of other cairns on Islay and in the wider region.

A glass toggle was found among the ashes of a domestic hearth during the excavation of an unenclosed Iron Age settlement at Kilninian, Isle of Mull, Argyll, Scotland. The hearth was radiocarbon dated to 168 cal bc–cal ad 3 (SUERC-46765). The toggle was covered with a black residue that was stuck to its surface and it looked hastily made, using low-quality aqua cullet. Chemical analyses, using LA-ICP-MS, indicate the glass used was a natron-based glass. The trace element composition suggested the glass was produced in the east Mediterranean area using coastal sands and had subsequently been recycled. The morphological examination using extended depth of field microscopy and micro-computed tomography revealed the toggle was shaped at low temperatures using contaminated glass. The black sooty residue found on the surface of the toggle was found to extend within the toggle and was fused with the object. This could only have happened during manufacture, when the glass was still hot enough to be malleable and stick to the contamination. The uncleaned residues on the surface and the presence of the unpolished pontil scar suggest the toggle may have fallen in the hearth during manufacture and was lost to its maker. Analyses of other glass toggles found in Scotland and Ireland confirmed that natron-based glass had also been used and the toggles were made in the same way as that from Kilninian.

A damaged carving of a two-wheeled horse-drawn vehicle appears on the Pictish cross-slab from Skinnet Chapel, Halkirk, Caithness (Skinnet 1). In this paper the vehicle's original design is partly re-created, with details of the pair of horses yoked to it. The slab, now in Thurso Museum, was surveyed in 2015 and 2017 by the use of RTI (Reflectance Transformation Imaging), a computer-based enhancement process. Resulting augmentation of surface relief in the processed images allows multiple overlays to be drawn/traced from various light vectors to create a composite final image. The restored components of the vehicle – cart or chariot – are discussed, with relevance to its possible role. Atypical physical features carved on the facing horse of the horse pair may hint at some ceremonial motive for their presence. After a short survey of known evidence for Pictish vehicles, direct derivation of design from antecedent archaeological finds of Iron Age chariots are assessed as unlikely due to the wide time gap. Possible construction influence (in both cultural directions) from wheels found in Scottish Roman sites is noted. The common format of wheels and vehicles on the Skinnet 1 stone and Irish High Cross illustrations of 'chariots' are described and mapped, with the appearance of the latter in early medieval times attributed to Pictish traditions of cartwrighting.

The study of chapel-sites in any part of north and west Britain and Ireland is not easy. Contemporary documentary references are rare, and archaeological work has traditionally been site-specific, with interpretations often contested. In Lewis, the northernmost island of the Outer Hebrides, or Western Isles, of Scotland, this situation is magnified due to an almost complete lack of any surviving historical documents relating to the island prior to the 17th century, and of any archaeological work other than ad hoc rescue work. As the first extensive survey of chapel-sites to be undertaken in Lewis, the completion and publication of the Lewis Coastal Chapel-sites Survey is therefore a crucially important starting point in the analysis of these understudied sites. The survey identified 37 known chapel-sites on the Lewis mainland and outlying islands, and thus testifies to a vibrant landscape of Christian belief from the early medieval period onwards. Since being published (Barrowman 2020) it has provided a baseline, to which this paper adds an overview and brief discussion of site distribution, building form, landscape setting, potential dating, relation of sites to place-names and local traditions, and the setting of chapel buildings within the local identity and culture of medieval Lewis. In common with the Hebrides as a whole, most chapel buildings in Lewis, where discernible, are single-chambered with a doorway in the south wall and a window in the east gable wall, and most have approximated length–breadth ratios of 1:1.5 or 1:1.6. The exceptions to this are the small chapels on the outlying islands of North Rona and the Flannans, and on one mainland site in Lewis situated on a high headland. Visible from the busy routeways around Lewis, associated with early place-names, it is suggested that these sites, while potentially early, were not secluded and remote from the world. The evidence within the suite of sites for Viking Age or Late Norse chapels is also explored, particularly those bicameral chapels built directly into mounds or areas of earlier material. Finally, the place of chapel-sites in the Lordship and beyond is discussed, with particular emphasis on local identity and tradition in the district of Ness at the north end of Lewis.

Part 1 of this study, in Proceedings volume 151 (Cleary 2022), analysed a tradition of descent built by the Gordon Cummings of Altyre, Moray, from a mix of historical fact, legend and romance, claiming descent from one of the two 'Red Comyns' killed by the Bruce party in Dumfries, 1306. In a 150-year genealogy linking the Red Comyns to the first verifiable Cumming resident of Altyre, only two of the names were demonstrably historical persons. Part 2 examines the historical evidence for these two individuals and for whether they were related in the way the Altyre tradition claims. It is argued that one of them, but not both, was a lineal ancestor of the Altyre Cummings. The two were more distantly related than tradition claims, and the first – Sir Richard Comyn the Crusader (c 1340–1412 × 1415) – founded a different line of Cummings, that of Couttie, Perthshire. The other, Alexander Cumyne, who contracted to marry a sister of the Dunbar earl of Moray in 1408, almost certainly is the Altyre line's founder, and through him the Gordon Cummings may be descended from the Red Comyns, but in a different way to constructed tradition. In a remarkable series of letters by the antiquarian lawyer John Riddell, a sound account of the Cummings' origin was put forward in the 1820s, before being overlooked for 200 years. Transcriptions are presented in an appendix to this article.

This paper explores the origin of the Drummond surname in the Portuguese archipelago of Madeira. Used by Portuguese subjects from the early 16th century, the name is claimed to derive from João Escórcio ('John the Scot' or 'Scottish John'), a settler of the 15th century. The first aim of this paper is to provide an initial analysis of Escórcio's existence in the record of the Council of Funchal, between 1470 and 1486, to contextualise his emergence in Portugal's first Atlantic colony. As part of this approach, the historiography of Scottish migration is engaged with drawing upon examples of Scots overseas. The secondary purpose of this paper is to present the correspondence between Escórcio's descendants, the Chiefs of the Clan Drummond and their kinsmen in Scotland, spanning the 16th to 18th centuries, to complement the chronology of Escórcio in Madeira. This same correspondence reconciles his identity with that of John Drummond, considered a son of Sir John Drummond of Stobhall and Cargill and Lady Elizabeth Sinclair, and reveals a tie of kinship between the Portuguese Drummonds and their Scottish namesakes. Through the research presented, currently Escórcio could be considered the earliest known example of a Scottish settler in Portuguese history, written into the historical record of the Clan Drummond. As a result, this paper may be considered a contribution to the study of Scottish migration within the Iberian world during the late medieval period, a field that is largely unknown.

Although ligatures have a long history and can be found on a range of artefacts, they are particularly characteristic of gravestone inscriptions of the 17th and 18th centuries in several parts of Western Europe. The grouping of two or more letters as a ligature can be attributed to minimising mason's costs and workload, or stone brittleness, but it is suggested that their function was primarily a space-saving device. This research, based solely on statistical analysis, suggests that there may be other, possibly more common, reasons as to why they were employed in gravestone inscriptions. Ligatures have an uneven distribution throughout Western Europe. They are especially frequent in gravestone inscriptions from north and south-west Scotland, Northern Germany and the French Basque region. These areas were selected for analysis. Ligatures were recorded from 36 sites in northern and south-western Scotland, 35 sites in Northern Germany and 24 sites in the French Basque region. Frequencies at each site were calculated. The most common ligature in Scotland and north Germany was HE and in the French Basque region it was DE. All ligature frequencies were compared with the frequencies of bigrams in English, German and French to determine whether or not this influenced their frequency in gravestone inscriptions. It was found that there was no evidence of correlation between gravestone ligatures and bigrams in any of the three languages. The possible reasons for the use of ligatures are discussed.

Recent investigations in Gleann Leac-na-Muidhe, Glencoe, have provided an insight into the practising of transhumance and related industries in these uplands in the post-medieval period. Survey has identified a number of new features within this landscape, allowing us to build a nuanced picture of how this landscape was being used and managed for both grazing and fuel. The interaction of the chiefly settlement of Gleann Leac-na-Muidhe with the associated shieling grounds provides an opportunity to explore the expression of power and protection by local elites upon the upland landscape during periods of civil strife. Excavations carried out within the glen provide an insight into some of the practices associated with these structures, from the domestic rituals of daily life to acts of resistance, including illicit whisky stilling, through which the exercise of social and economic control of the uplands can be read.

The origins and development of Archibald Young, an Edinburgh family firm of surgical instrument makers, are examined. Over five generations the firm developed from a cutler's apprenticeship in 1771 into a prominent manufacturer of surgical instruments at the Edinburgh International Exhibition of 1886. Archival sources include parish registers, business receipts, newspapers, Annual Directories, the Register of Edinburgh Apprentices and Burgesses, Minute Books of the Incorporation of Hammermen of Edinburgh, and the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh Cash Books. The documentary evidence is augmented by examples of instruments held in museums and archives in Britain. The research provides a business history that will aid the dating of artefacts in museum collections and offer an insight into Young's contribution to Edinburgh's medical heritage.