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Iron Age Forts and Epic Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

J. R. C. Hamilton
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Extract

The excavation of the Clickhimin site in the Shetland Islands by the Ministry of Public Building and Works revealed the arrangement of living quarters inside a small stonebuilt fort occupied between the 4th and 1st centuries BC [I]. With the exception of a large communal stonebuilt hut in the centre of the enclosure, the inhabitants dwelt in a series of half-timbered storeyed ranges attached to the inner face of the fort wall (FIG. I). The pent-roofs of these ranges were supported by a dwarf, or casement, wall built on the wall walk, and access between the rooms at first-floor level and the walk was obtained through a series of doorways. Two stonebuilt duns in the Western Isles, Dun Ringill and Dun Grugaig, still retain the jambs of such doorways and at Clickhimin a similar door was preserved in the blockhouse guarding the fort entrance though here it led to a passage which gave access to a stair to the parapet walk at second-floor level [2].

Type
Articles
Information
Antiquity , Volume 42 , Issue 166 , June 1968 , pp. 103 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1968

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References

Notes

[1] Hamilton, J. R. C., ‘Forts, Brochs and Wheel-houses in Northern Scotland’ in (ed.) Rivet, A. L. F., The Iron Age in Northern Britain (1966), 111–30Google Scholar; see also Excavations at Clickhimin (H.M.S.O., 1968 (forthcoming))Google Scholar.

[2] Ibid., 119, fig. 4.

[3] Frey M., Horand, J., Pümpin F., ‘Die ersten Grabungen auf der Hohensiedlung Burgenrain bei Sissach 1933–34’, Tätigkeitsberich der Natf. Ges. Baselland 1933–35, 42 ff.

[4] J. R. C. Hamilton, op. cit. 118–19.

[5] Cross, T. P. and Slover, C. H., Ancient Irish Tales (1935), 224Google Scholar.

[6] Ibid., 225.

[7] Ibid., 226.

[8] Ibid., 233.

[9] Ibid., 235.

[10] Henderson, G., Fled Bricrend (Irish Texts Society, 1899), 1, 3Google Scholar.

[11] Ibid., 1, 7.

[12] Ibid., II, 13.

[13] Ibid., III, 17.

[14] Ibid., III, 20.

[15] Ibid., III, 25.

[16] Ibid., VIII, 44.

[17] Cross and Slover, 242.

[18] See, for example, Cross and Slover, 375.

[19] Cross and Slover, 165.

[20] Ibid., 234.

[21] Ibid., 121

[22] Ibid., 101.

[23] Ibid., 201.

[24] Niesiolowska-Hofĩmann, A., ‘Ze Studiow nad Budownictwem plemion Kúltury Luzychiej’, Slavia Antigua, X, 1963, 52 Google Scholar, fig. 9.