Oban

NM83SE 6 c. 860 307.

NM c. 860 307. In 1878, during peat cutting in Dalrigh, which at that time lay outside the Oban burgh boundary, a wooden coffin, originally described as a canoe, was found buried 0.6 metres below the surface of the peat. It had been covered by a mound of broken stones and peat measuring about 12 metres in diameter and 1.2 metres in height. The coffin had been hollowed out of a trunk of oak and its ends were composed of pieces of wood inserted into prepared grooves at either side. It measured 1.8 metres in length, 0.6 metres in breadth internally and 0.5 metres in depth, and had been covered by a series of birch and hazel branches. Several logs had been carefully placed to keep the end-boards in position and to protect the corners of the coffin. Greasy soil mixed with charcoal filled the coffin, but no skeletal remains were found. Several pieces of birch bark were found in the coffin. One piece, a fragment of which is preserved in the NMAS, measured about 0.15 metres square and was pierced by a series of holes along one edge. Although there is no direct evidence for dating this coffin, it may possibly represent a wooden prototype for the well-known group of grooved stone cists of the mid-second millenium BC recorded in other parts of the county.

R J Mapleton 1879; RCAHMS 1975.

In 1878 what 'appeared...to be an old canoe' was discovered within what was probably a mortuary structure of unusual form beneath a 'mound, or rising of the land' at Dalrigh in the N part of Oban and in an area of peat-bog which was possibly a former loch. The discovery was reported at some length by Mapleton and subsequently re-assessed as a log-coffin by Abercromby, who reproduces a photograph in his account. Although there is no direct evidence for its date, it may represent a timber prototype for the type of grooved stone cist commonly found in Argyll.

The structure of 'slabs and stakes' was found 'in the peat itself'. There was 9' (2.7m) depth of peat below its bottom and 2' (0.6m) above that level; above the peat there was a deposit of 'made' ground measuring 4' (1.2m) in height and 40' (12.2m) in radius around the structure, which measured 7'6" (2.3m) in length over all, 6' (1.8m) in length internally, 2' (0.6m) in 'width' and 2'3" (0.7m) in 'depth'.

The coffin itself was 'hewn out of a solid block of oak' and aligned N-S. It measured 5'9?" (1.8m) in length by 1'7" (0.5m) in 'depth' and 2' (0.6m) in 'width'. The S end had broken away but was distinguished by grooves cut in each side to hold a board or slab. The N end was closed in a similar fashion but without a clearly-defined groove, and a possible adaptation from a previous function was indicated by the survival of part of a projecting 'keel'. Each end-slab was retained by driven stakes and further stakes along each side served to retain longitudinal logs with moss-packed interstices. Additional logs were laid parallel to the sides and obliquely at the corners while the covering comprised 'branches of birch, and probably hazel, well stuffed with moss'. Some of the timbers bore toolmarks.

Hazelnuts, split shells and charcoal were found in considerable numbers both inside and outside the coffin. Within it the soil was 'very unctuous' but contained 'no signs of bone, burnt or unburnt...and no implements of any sort'. Several pieces of birch bark (one of them probably pierced for sewing) were also found in it. One of these objects is in store at the Royal Museum of Scotland under accession number NMS EQ 192, and appears to comprise two overlapping sheets of bark which have been pierced by seven holes and bear traces of an unidentified binding material.

R J Mapleton 1879; J Abercromby 1905; RCAHMS 1975; R J C Mowat 1996; information from Mr T Cowie.