Publication Account
Date 2002
Event ID 585401
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/585401
HY22 4 OXTROW (‘Oxtro’, 'Haughster Howe' or 'Okstrow')
HY/25372678
A probable solid-based broch in Harray with exceptionally thin walls and standing on flat ground near a loch.
Mr. Leask of Boardhouse (Birsay) employed men to move a pile of stones in 1847: he first found many cist graves and fortunately George Petrie was able to examine them before they were destroyed [2]. They were made of flagstones and from 75 - 90 cm (2.5 - 3 ft.) long and about 45 cm (18 in.) wide and deep, and contained burnt bones and ashes. An "eagle" was supposed to have been cut boldly into one of the capstones but this was built into a wall before Mr Leask could recover it for Petrie. One of the cists had a bowl-shaped stone vessel with ashes and fragments of bone.
Petrie continued the excavations below these cists and found the ruins of a circular building, probably a broch, the walls of which were at that stage still standing up to 1.8 m (6 ft.) high; the ruins now stand scarcely 60 cm (2 ft.) above the surrounding field. Petrie [2] and Laing [ ] supposed that the broch belong to the Stone Age at the latest because they thought the cists to be of Bronze Age date; the broch was of course in ruins and covered by earth before the cists were inserted into the “howe”. This diagnosis was made in spite of the fact that a sherd of Roman Samian ware had been found in the broch.
Part of the wall in the west arc had been destroyed before Petrie arrived and this doubtless contained the main entrance. A mural stair was uncovered at about 3 o'clock, with a stair-foot cell to the left and steps rising to the right. A long mural cell was at about 11 o'clock with the doorway to the central court at one end of it instead of, as is more usual, at the centre. A well was found in the central area with a drain leading from it towards the broken area where the entrance probably was. There was supposed to have been a straight wall running across the inner court and overriding the well: it would therefore have been a secondary insertion. Also probably secondary were several radial slabs on edge against the inner wall face. Doubts about the reliability of the drawings of these feature on the site plan have been expressed [8, 56]. Part of the wall of the cell is still visible.
The date of the broch can be assigned to within the Iron Age because of the fragment of Roman pottery if for no other reason. The cist graves inserted into its ruins are therefore not Bronze Age in date but even later than the broch. The "eagle" supposed to have been seen on one of the capstones suggests that the cemetery may have been Pictish, in part at least, but even so the cremations inside the cists, sometimes in pots, suggest that a very ancient funerary tradition had survived on Orkney from pre-Iron Age times.
Dimensions. According to Petrie the overall diameter is about 21.0 m (69 ft.), the internal diameter exceptionally large at 13.7 m (45 ft.); thus the walls proportion is unusually low at 34.8%. Measurements from SSW to NNE in 1963 gave an overall diameter of 21.8 m (71 ft. 7 in.) and a wall thickness at the latter end of 3.8 m (12.5 ft.); the wall proportion would thus be 34.9%. Accurate measurements of the surviving inner wall face in 1985 revealed that the central court is constructed very precisely around a true circle with mean radius of 6.83 +/- 0.12 m, or a diameter of 13.66 m (44.79 ft.)
Finds [5]: all are unstratified, some have not been traced [8, 57] and the more important include the following.
Bronze , 1 zoomorphic penannular brooch ([3] fig. 2; [4] fig. 218: GD 52), 1 decorated pin with loose ring-head of Viking age ([9, 148-9]): [5] fig. on 85: [3] fig.2: GD 52), 1 Iron Age tankard handle [3, fig. 219; 10 pl. IX.2: 12, 2, no. 291) and 1 ring.
Silver: after the excavation a cylindrical piece of silver some 6.3 cm (2.5 in.) long and 1.9 cm (0.75 in.) in diameter was found in the well but melted down ([2] 87).
Bone objects included at least 3 long-handled combs (GD 26 and 27), 1 femur-head whorl or button (GD 23), a globular head of an iron pin (GD 22), 1 ring (GD 23), a pin with a decorative terminal and a hipped shank, and a possible slotted handle.
Stone objects include lamps, one of which seems to be an imitation of a Roman lamp (GD 9, 10 and 11), several "very rude" vessels of various sizes, several beads or whorls, including one decorated (GD 19) , 5 hammerstones, 1 polished disc 9.5 cm (3.75 in.) in diameter, 1 chipped disc 6.3 cm (2.5 in.) in diameter, and 3 whorls. There was also a Pictish symbol stone.
Pottery: among the sherds found is preserved an everted rim (GD 47) and the rim of a coarse, gritty urn (GD 50). A complete list of the finds has been compiled [8: 9, 57].
Roman finds included half the base of a Samian vessel of the late 2nd or 3rd century AD ([6 Curle 1932, 395].
In the Hunterian Museum there are also a stone spindle whorl and a bone awl from the site, probably from the J W Cursiter collection (B.1914.551 and 552).
Sources: 1. OS card HY 22 NE 4: 2. Petrie 1890, 76-8 and 86-7: 3. Laing 1867, 64: 4. Anderson 1883, 2, 240-1: 5. Proc Soc Antiq Scot 11 (1876-77), 86-7 (donations): 6. J. Curle 1932, 394-5: 7. RCAHMS 1946, 2, no. 11, 11-13 and fig. 67: 8. Hedges et al. 1987, 55-8 (including other sources not mentioned here) and pl. 3.1 (ms elevations by Dryden): 9. Grieg 1940: 10. Corcoran 1952: 11. Fraser 1925: 12. MacGregor 1974.
E W MacKie 2002
