Archaeology of Inchmarnock Research Project - St Marnock's Chapel 2002
Date 2002
Event ID 583302
Category Recording
Type Excavation
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/583302
NS 024 596 The second season of excavation concentrated on the area to the NW of the chapel, where the 2001 evaluation (DES 2001, 22) had indicated the presence of a possible 'craft zone' associated with the Early Christian monastic settlement, relatively undisturbed by later use of the site from the 19th century onwards as a stackyard.
The area was covered by a thick deposit that had been effectively homogenised by bracken roots; from this were recovered an exceptional number of pieces of inscribed slate and stone gaming boards. Provisionally dated to the 8th/9th century, possibly continuing later, this is the largest assemblage of such material known from Scotland.
The decorated and inscribed slate assemblage includes examples of abstract designs and casual graffiti, but also what are clearly practice pieces for the composition of more complex designs. Literacy at the site is attested by a number of fragments with practice writing, as well as one example with a piece of readable text. Another piece that is highly significant - a stone with a sketch on one side and practice writing on the other - provides further evidence of literacy at the site, as well as an insight into the dress, weaponry and ship technology of the time. The piece, possibly a devotional object in its own right, appears to depict a shackled figure being led off to a waiting boat by a group of long-haired, mail-suited warriors with weapons.
Sealed below this mixed deposit were at least 17 graves, several stone paths and, at the N of the site, at least two buildings. Large quantities of metalworking debris were recovered from this part of the site. A further 'craft zone', concentrating on the production of cannel coal bangles and rings, may have been located on the W side of the excavation area where many fragments of part-worked cannel coal were found.
An evaluation trench was also excavated in the trackway, to the NW of the chapel, to investigate the area in which a rune-inscribed cross was found in the late 19th century. The trench located a cist and a substantial ditch. The cist was only partially exposed, and so remains unexcavated, but a slot was excavated across the ditch. A cross-incised slab, possibly reused as a cross base, and two pieces of inscribed slate were recovered from the upper fill of the ditch. One of the slates is inscribed with a mix of Gaelic Old Irish male and female personal names, written in an Insular minuscule script.
A trench was also excavated to the E of the chapel in an attempt to locate the 'Monk's Causeway', a stone feature found by the tenant farmer in the 1950s. An uneven paved surface was exposed but no finds were recovered.
Archive to be deposited in the NMRS.
Sponsor: Sir Robert Smith.
R Conolly, E Jones, C Lowe 2002
