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A souterrain identified in Angus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

F. T. Wainwright
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Extract

During 1949 three souterrains were revealed and recognized in Angus. The excavation of two of them, Ardestie and Carlungie I, extended over three years (1949-51) and full reports are in preparation. Both Ardestie and Carlungie I have been completely excavated, both now lie open for inspection, and both are preserved as ancient monuments under the guardianship of the Ministry of Works. The third site is Carlungie II. Its fate has been very different. After a short exploratory excavation the structure was reburied, and there is nothing above ground to catch the eye.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 33 , Issue 1-2 , April 1953 , pp. 65 - 71
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1953

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References

page 65 note 1 Scottish Popular Edition Sheets 57 and 58; Angus Sheet LI SW; and Forfarshire Sheet LI 10 respectively.

page 68 note 1 See Curwen, E. Cecil, ‘Querns’, Antiquity, xi (1937), pp. 133–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 68 note 2 In the following description of the Carlungiebrooch I have had most generous assistance from many scholars. Professor I. A. Richmond of King's College, Newcastle upon Tyne, kindly advised me on problemsof date and provenance; Dr. D. B. Harden of the Ashmolean Museum spared no pains in the examination of the brooch and guided me to a technically correct description of its composition and decoration; Dr. Harden also secured reports and comments from Monsieur F. Courtoy of the Musée Archéologique de Namur, from Dr. H. J. Plenderleith, Dr. W. Campbell Smith, Dr. F. A. Bannister, and Dr. G. F. Claringbull of the British Museum, and from Mr. E. M. Jope of Queen's University, Belfast; Mr. Jope's contribution provides the interesting and important results of spectrographic analysis. I am deeply grateful for all this help, so willingly offered, in a problem quite outside the range of my own knowledge.

page 69 note 1 Identified by Dr. Bannister and Dr. Claringbull of the British Museum.

page 69 note 2 Mr. E. M. Jope has kindly supplied the following note:‘The thin layer of red enamel can be seen between the bronze and the blue glass in section at the edges of the breaks. In this case I have been able to show by spectrographic analysis that the red material contains lead, copper, and silicon as main constituents, red enamel being a fine suspension of opaque red cuprous oxide in a lead silicate matrix. This is a most ingenious process for fixing the blue glass to the bronze, which we have been able to trace on many brooches of the Roman period in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Whether it is widespread in the Empire, or a process confined to the Gallia Belgica workshops, it is notat present possible to say, but the same process is used in earlier work in Britain, securing for example the blue settings in the Westhall mounts (British Museum Guide to the Antiquities of the Early Iron Age, 1925, pl. viii,Google Scholar no. 1; the Rise bit, no. 4 in this plate, is, however, misleadingly illustrated) and, as E. T. Leeds observed many years ago, those of a terret from Suffolk (Celtic Ornament, 1933, p. 42).Google Scholar The glass settings were presumably pressed into place in the hollows of the bronze in a paste of powdered red enamel and then heated. The red enamel melts at about 685°C, well below the melting points of both the glass and the bronze, which are thus firmly fused together. As with most early glasswork, annealing must have been skilful and efficient. The making of successful glass-copper sealshas at times taxed the ingenuity of modern technology.’

page 69 note 3 Mr. E. M. Jope has kindly supplied the following note: ‘Spectrographic analysis shows that Lead is a major constituent of this material, and Antimony is also traceable though not present in large quantities. The yellow colour of the enamel is usually considered to be produced by Lead Antimoniate. Chromium cannot be traced.’