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RCAHMS Emergency Survey (Archaeology)

An Emergency Survey of archaeological sites in military training areas was undertaken by RCAHMS between June 1942 and November 1943. The fieldwork was undertaken by the Secretary of the Commission, Angus Graham, and one of the Commissioners, Professor Vere Gordon Childe.

The project was described in the preface to the Edinburgh Inventory:

'The war brought special risks to ancient monuments in all parts of Scotland, not only through enemy action but through field-training of troops, and we endeavoured to forestall such damage by preparing emergency records. Under this programme some two thousand three hundred photographs were taken of buildings situated in counties not yet covered by Inventories, and six hundred and thirty-six monuments were visited by and recorded in military training areas. We have to thank Professor Childe, who was then a member of the Commission, for having done the bulk of this later work himself.'

(RCAHMS 1951, xxvii)

Archive material from the project includes field notebooks, handwritten manuscripts (with sketch plans) and photographs.

Information from RCAHMS (G F Geddes) 2015.

See also Geddes 2017