Archaeology Notes

Event ID 673634

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/673634

NY27NW 4.02 c. 219 751

For stone head from 'Middleby' (presumably Birrens), see NY27NW 38.

Three heads are noted from the Roman fort:

1. That published by Toynbee was presented to the Dumfries Burgh Museum in September 1951 along with two Roman altars found in the vicus of the Roman fort at Birrens; the three objects had been preserved at Burnfoot House, Birrens, and were believed by the Irvings, the owners, to come 'from the adjoining fort'. The head is slightly under life-size and was initially said to have 'an air of spiritual detachment more Celtic (?) than Classical; in the light of subsequent research the question mark can now be removed. The eyeballs are flattened in a manner unparalleled... elsewhere in Roman art' while 'the mouth [is] rather tight-set and drooping'; both these features are characteristic of a Celtic origin. The slight droop of the lips is more marked on the left than the right side, a feature which is paralleled on Celtic heads from Ebchester and Housesteads in northern England. The treatment of the hair is unusual but is paralleled on female heads in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne. The Birrens head is undoubtedly a very fine piece of early sculpture and even if not an actual likeness may well represent a goddess, probably Bridget or Rhiannon.

2. A slab 10.5 ins (267mm) by 9.5 ins (241mm) with a grotesque head in high relief and, below, a five-letter inscription which has, so far, defied attempts at elucidation. This appears to be a horned head with one horn damaged and the other represented as being folded back over the top of the head in a similar fashion to examples from Newcastle upon Tyne and Corbridge. More important features are the unusual eyes (one having a squint), the nose (which is narrow and columnar) and the asymmetrical mouth with strongly-marked muscle lines from the sides of the nose to the corners of the mouth and with a general bias to the left; this treatment of the mouth is seen on several northern heads and (in the form of a moustache) on the Rheinheim jug-handle from Saarbrucken.

3. A head similar to (3) but with a second (peculiar) face carved on the brow, which seems to have horns or ears above the eyes; this may well represent a form of those on 'Hercules lion skin' or the beast-skin cloak of a legionary standard-bearer in the Roman army.

J M C Toynbee 1953; W Dodds 1972.