| Details |
Remains of a cairn and site of an Early Bronze Age bronze dagger burial. The cairn, almost circular, 21m in diameter and 2.5m in maximum height, is on the summit of the Hill of West Mains. There is a triangulation point and a tall conical pillar of stones erected by William Mackison (using stones from the higher point of the cairn) in commemoration of Victoria's diamond jubilee of 1887 built upon it. The cairn is not marked as an antiquity on either the 1st or 2nd edition OS map (circa 1867 and circa 1888). It was excavated by the landowner, D. S. Cowans in September 1897. The cairn was then estimated at 19m in diameter and 1.67m high. At 1.06m below the then surface, at the centre of the cairn, a cist covered with a layer of clay was uncovered. Operations were halted when it was discovered that it contained a dagger burial. Cowans removed the dagger and invited various interested parties, including Alexander Hutcheson, to the site and resumed excavation with them present. The cist was covered with three slabs, closely jointed with clay. The cist was slightly rhomboidal, oriented northeast-southwest, and formed of four slabs. The northwest end was 0.63m wide, the southeast was 0.66m wide, the side slabs projected further than the cist, but were 0.61m apart and the cist was 0.61m deep, the space forming an almost exact cube. The flooring was the uneven natural, with a protruding stone used for the 'two heaps of bones', both showing signs of cremation. The dagger had been found with one of the bone heaps close to the southern angle of the cist. Three rivets of bronze, two plates of horn and an 'ivory pin' (actually a peg for holding the horn plates together) were discovered by these bones, the remains of the hilt. The side panels of the cist were discovered to be part of a larger structure, a second cist, smaller in size and hidden by the clay layer. It too had three capstones and was sealed with clay Another deposit of bones, this time thoroughly cremated and unaccompanied, was discovered, but this had been damaged by earth and water entering the cist. The burial was mixed with ash and burnt wood and were more burnt than the others from the first cist. A trench was dug through the side of the cairn, inwards to the cist, this revealed that the slabs were held up by a rough wall of packing stones and that the cist had been covered by a mound of black earth containing pieces of white quartz and remains of wood ash. It appears that successive layers had been tramped down or 'puddled' before the next was applied. On top of the packing stones, one north-west and the other north-east of the cist, were two green stains, probably the remains of decayed bronze implements. One was about 10 cm long and 1.3 cm or less in width, the other was 'more leaf-shaped', circa 7.5 cm in length. A kerb of large stones, circa 1m high, was also discovered. No ditch or surrounding kerb were visible when visited by the OS in 1958. The dagger, classified by Coles as of midrib type and reclassified by Gerloff as of Ridgeway group, Auchterhouse-Barrasford variant, is a flat dagger with trapezoidal heel, six rivet-holes with six peg-rivets still in position. Three loose peg-rivets, an omega-shaped hilt-mark, a triple-reeded midrib lined on each side by row of pointille (about twelve dots per cm) with damaged tip and faint line of dots along the grooves of the midrib. It is presently 16.4cm long and w 6.8cm wide. It is in good condition but covered with a layer of oxide.The remains of ox horn hilt survive in two badly warped and shrunken plates, Hutcheson recording that they warped not long after being removed from the cist, the lower end showing traces of three rivet-holes. The sheath is the remains of an animal skin sheath with horn mounts, now in three pieces. The reconstructed length, including hilt and blade, is 24.9 cm.
|
Historic Environment Records (HER) 
Angus
HER -
NO33NW0002 - HILL OF WEST MAINS OF AUCHTERHOUSE