Archaeology Notes

Event ID 706201

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/706201

NS89NW 14 8324 9736.

NS 832 973: A fort is situated just over 1000' OD, on the un-named part of the shoulder c.500 yds SW of the summit of Dumyat. The innermost feature is an oval stone enclosure, occupying the highest part of the site and measuring 90' x 55' within the massive debris of a ruined stone wall (A on plan). No facing stones can be distinguished among the rubble, which is spread to c. 15'. The entrance is not distinguishable with certainty, but was probably in the W arc. The interior is featureless. A shallow depression with a slight external upcast mound, which borders the E arc of the debris may be the result of robbing the outer face of the wall.

A ragged band of rubble (B) appears on the steep slope 35' NE of the NE arc of wall A, and runs thence through S and SW at about the same interval for c.90' before turning sharply to merge with the debris of

A. Another line of rubble (C) branches from the SW arc of A to the debris of the outer walls described below. Possibly B and C represent the ruin of a single wall, partly overlaid by A.

The outer walls D and E are drawn across what is in effect the neck of a promontory. The inner wall, D, a mass of rubble c.18' wide, among which some vitrified material was found, starts on the steep N part of the site, and thence runs W and S to the 20' wide entrance. It continues thereafter along the crest of a knoll for 130' and ends where the flank of this begins to slope steeply S.

Wall E, similar in appearance to D, starts on the lip of a rocky gully; it runs at distances varying between 40' and 65' from D, to the N side of the entrance where it is 40' outside the similar point in D. It resumes on the S side of the entrance only 22' from D, and continues at the same interval, past the end of D, to die out 60' further on, on the crest of a natural rocky slope. On each side of the entrance, D and E are linked by lines of rubble, probably ruined walls. Attached to the outside of E are two enclosures, bounded partly by natural slopes, and partly by ruined walls F and G, only 3' 6" thick. The N enclosure is subdivided by a similar wall.

The chronological relationship between enclosure A and walls D and E is not apparent from the remains and can only be established by excavation. Feachem (1955) assumed that D and E were the contemporary outer

defences of a citadel formed by A. However, A could be a structure of the dun class, built in the interior of an older, presumably abandoned, fort represented by D and E.

The name Dumyat was considered by Watson (1926) to represent Dun Myat, the fortress of the Maeatae, probably the Miathi of Adamnan, and this view is generally held today.

RCAHMS 1963, visited 1952

NS 8324 9736. A fort as described by the RCAHMS. A covering of snow prevented a detailed examination of the site and it is therefore impossible to say whether this is a two-phased fort or whether it is a nuclear fort of Pictish origin.

Surveyed at 1:10,000.

Visited by OS (JP) 14 February 1974.