Bulletin
5, 1999
Research in Progress
Finds Research: The 1999 season unearthed 1167 artefacts which have been given a preliminary examination and inventoried by the Finds supervisor, Cecily Spall. The assemblage includes 152 pieces of carved stone, a silver-gilt copper-alloy boss decorated with a spiral motif, and moulds and crucibles for early medieval bronze-working of a type previously found at Birsay, Orkney. Dr Sarah King has begun the analysis of the human bone assemblage excavated beneath St Colman's Church.
Sculpture: The new harvest of fragments includes fine relief carvings of key pattern, stylised horses, interlace with possible traces of paint, possible architectural sculpture and a human effigy, most probably one of the apostles. This last-mentioned piece and many of the other fragments are likely to come from the large 8th century memorial of which the largest piece to be found to date is TR20, which carries a fanged beast on one side and a frieze of apostles on the other. The recording of stones from the Glebe Field site (Sector 2) has been extended to all pieces (whether carrying ornament or not) with an eye on the eventual reconstruction of the monument. Research on the provenance of quarried stone by Nigel Ruckley has continued with the thin-sectioning of samples at the National Museum of Scotland. His provisional conclusions (Bull. 4) have so far been maintained, namely that the large memorials here and at the neighbouring sites of Hilton of Cadboll, Shandwick and Nigg are made of stone imported onto the peninsula from an area yet to be pinpointed.
Click on each thumbnail image below to see an enlargement: 
 
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| Examples of new decorated pieces of sculpture excavated from Sector 2 in 1999: (a) Affronted, hooved creatures resembling horses 24/3844[N244/26] (b) Interlace,24/3890 [N247/34] (c) Beaked head , 24/3841 [N246/12](d) Fragment of prokrossos or other architectural or sarcophagus fragment, 24/2338.[N246/20] (e) Fragment of architectural or monumental scultpture in high relief [N244/18]. |
Sculpture discovered adjacent to the Tarbat site on the estate of Mrs Anne
Perry by Mr Richard Blosse.
TR 40 Part of a cross shaft with interlace [Slide MOHC/ 3241]
| Click on each thumbnail image below to see an enlargement: | |
(a)  |
(b)  |
| Evidence for bronze working: (a) A bag-shaped crucible (b) clay moulds | |
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