Archaeologists brave sheer drops to scale sea stack and find earliest Pictish fort off coast of Scotland

This article originally appeared on Culture24.

Dr Gordon Noble led the brave team who revealed the earliest Pictish fort on a sea stack with sheer drops on the coast of Aberdeenshire

“We knew that the site had potential as in 1832 a group of youths from Stonehaven scaled the sea stack, prompted by a local man who had recurring dreams gold was hidden there.

Unfortunately for the youths they didn’t find the gold, but they did find a number of decorated Pictish symbol stones and, as they were throwing them into the sea, they noticed some were also carved.

Several years later, when knowledge of Pictish stones began to circulate, a number were recovered from the sea.

They were recorded in the proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries for Scotland – one of the early archaeological societies that’s still going today.

This was one of their early volumes, written in the 1850s, I think. It’s recounting the discovery of the stones.

It was written by a local antiquarian at that time who was collecting the stones. They are now displayed in what was his garden in his big house on the outskirts of Aberdeen. Basically it was a wealthy gentleman who was recording all these artefacts and findings as part of the society.

We had a written account of the initial discovery, so that was a clue. But there hadn’t been anyone recently who’d done any work there. A few people had been up there very briefly since, just to have a look, but there hadn’t been any excavations.

We were keen to get up there and continue working. We’d been talking about it for years, but it was the challenge of getting up there safely.

Eventually we tracked down Duncan Paterson, of North East Mountaineering, and he was really keen. He figured a lot of things out for us.

I remember having a lot of bad dreams that week about falling down from great heights. I’d never done any climbing before. I did enjoy it but it is quite a mental challenge to start with.

You kind of get used to it by the end of the season, but it was challenging at times. It definitely put a few people off coming up there and working but others were keen to give it a go.

People had to be on ropes at all times. Duncan was great and he actually took part in the excavation, which was really good. Once you’re up there there’s not much else you can do.

We were only up there for five days evaluating the site, and we’re hoping to go back next year. We had hints from the 19th century reports of a low stone wall surrounding the site at that point, but it was really nice to confirm that there was a fortified site up on top there, and to find elements of the buildings and stuff.

We’re beginning to put the symbol stones into context in terms of where they’ve been in this fortified site from the 3rd and 4th centuries. It puts the site right at a sequence of fortifications underpinning the development of more hierarchical societies during the Pictish period.

The symbol stones were always thought to have been quite early in the sequence. Nobody had any direct evidence before, so it’s really adding up to quite an interesting picture of the time period.

We’ve had five dates, which is quite a good range. I think the next step will be to do some more work – it’d be great to do that. We’re trying to raise some money to get more radiocarbon dates and do some more excavating.

We’ve got the basics in terms of the chronology and an idea of what’s up there. We’d really like to reveal more.

The site is not going to be there forever because it’s eroding. It definitely was bigger in the Pictish period.

It looks like we’ve lost maybe half of it. It’s difficult to say how long it might take to completely go, but it will definitely disappear over time.”

• Support the work of the group on the Northern Picts; University of Aberdeen fundraising page. Visit the Northern Picts Facebook page for more.

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Three museums to see Pictish history in:

Historylinks Museum, Sutherland
The permanent exhibition shows the Cathedral, feuding clans, the shameful burning of Scotland’s last condemned witch and the treachery and violence of Picts and Vikings.

Orkney Museum, Orkney Islands
Telling the story of Orkney from the Stone Age to the Picts and Vikings and the present day. There is a large collection of old photos and activities to amuse younger visitors, not forgetting a collection of international importance and a changing temporary exhibition programme.

Tarbat Discovery Centre, Ross-shire
situated in an old church in the beautiful coastal village of Portmahomack, 42 miles North East of Inverness, this site is the only Pictish monastic settlement found in Scotland to date.

Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk/history-and-heritage/archaeology/art532918-archaeologists-scale-sea-stack-brave-sheer-drops-find-earliest-pictish-fort-coast-scotland