Our bronze community sculpture
The broch’s artist in residence, Julia Cowie, ran a fascinating session at Stoer Green last weekend, as part of the Highland Archaeology Festival, showing us her metal working process. She demonstrated how she smelts copper, by wrapping ore in ‘smelt balls’ made of clay, sand and horse dung fibre, and roasting it in a charcoal […]
Shedding new light on the artefacts: RTI of the incised stone disc
As exciting as it is to discover ancient artefacts during an excavation, our post-excavation team reveals all sorts of hidden secrets during their analyses. This stone disc (right) was found to have an incised spiral doodle decoration that was not visible until we cleaned it up back in the lab. If you click on the […]
Stone lamp – 3D model
One of the most remarkable aspects of the assemblage of artefacts from Clachtoll broch is the number of stone lamps that were found. Many were very finely made, carved to create smooth cup-shaped vessels. Others were decorated with incised lines, creating geometric patterns on the outside and handles. The lamps would have burned tallow or […]
Pushing on with post-excavation analyses
The final phase of excavations at Clachtoll may be over, but the post-excavation analyses are still in progress, with lots of careful scrutiny of the evidence to come before we can make any more solid interpretations about the construction, use and demise of the broch. Our post-excavation research design (PERD) sets out the way in […]
Is it baffling? Or just baffling?
It’s well worth making your way to Clachtoll broch this week, as the archaeologists are back, exploring the entrance path at the front of the monument. There is some lovely paving just outside the entrance, and then the path seems to start bending and becoming more roughly built. You might expect the route towards such […]
SPARKS WILL FLY ON SATURDAY!
PUBLIC EVENT Traditional Metal Working and an Iron Age Story 2.30pm, Saturday 6 October 2018 at Clachtoll Broch or Stoer Village Hall if wet Author Mandy Haggith will talk and read from her novel, The Walrus Mutterer. Julia Cowie, artist in residence, will run a traditional copper smelt and demonstrate traditional bronze casting techniques. There […]
A Spell of Casting at Clachtoll
The broch has an artist in residence over the next few months, the amazing artist in metal, Julia Cowie. She’s not actually going to be living in the broch, which is a bit draughty these days! But she will be in Assynt to create some new work and inspire local people. Her activities will help […]
More questions than answers at Clachtoll broch
The current phase of excavation the broch is complete, with many unexpected results and, as usual, more questions have been raised by the finds. The excavation focused on the ‘guard cell’ within the walls, to the left of the entrance. It has a corbelled roof but the wall at the far end is clearly a […]
Time traveling for our tea
A throng of people of all ages from the local community, visitors, volunteers and archaeologists set off back in time for our dinners yesterday, with an iron age food tasting day at Stoer Green. The fire was lit at about 10am to heat stones while a pit was dug for roasting meat. We put up […]
Mysterious stones found at Clashnessie!
Archaeologists are often non-committal. When you ask them what they have unearthed on a dig you will often get a ‘well, on the one hand it could be… but on the other hand it might…’ Here in Assynt we have a situation where ‘your guess is as good as any’ prevails, at least for the […]