Archaeology Notes

Event ID 708270

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/708270

NT02SE 4 c. 080 203

A marble male head which was ploughed up close to the ruins of an old chapel (NT02SE 3), situated within half a mile of Hawkshaw Castle (NT 080 203) was donated to the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS) in 1783. No remains of the chapel now exist and its precise location is not known. Toynbee and Robertson consider that the sculpture is of Trajanic date (97 - 117 A.D.), Toynbee adding that it is not a portrait of Trajan himself, though it may represent a general or a provincial governor.

The appearance of this head in a remote Peeblesshire valley is difficult to explain, but it is thought that it may have formed part of a triumphal monument erected in the principate of Trajan to commemorate the Roman conquest of the region. (NMAS K64)

J Curle 1932; J Toynbee 1962; RCAHMS 1967; A S Robertson 1970.