North Uist, Loch Eport

NF86SE 10 unlocated

Found in 1896 in a peat bog near Loch Eport. About 710mm in length and similar to another trough found near Stornoway (NB43SW 29).

C Earwood 1993.

In June 1895 an open-topped dish or trough which was found during the construction of a road through 'a rising ground of solid peat' along the side of Loch Eport and ' a little distance to the east of the kelp works'; this provenance cannot be precisely identified. It lay in a slanting attitude at a depth of five or six feet (1.5-1.8m); there was a similar depth of peat below the object, which MacRitchie believed to have sunk from the surface when the peat was in a more liquid condition. The object was 'quite empty' when discovered and apparently worked from the root portion of a Scots fir. The object has evidently been formerly accessed as 1896.375 and 1954-692 and is described on the museum label as a 'dish or butter boat'.

At the time of discovery, MacRitchie cited the principal external dimensions as being 2'4" (0.71m) in length and 11" (0.28m) in breadth. The depth of the hollow was 5" (0.13m) and the internal volume may thus be tentatively estimated at about 1.4 litres. The 'underpart of each extremity' had been fashioned to form a 'rudely shaped hollow' which was 'evidently for lifting'.

In store at the Royal Museum of Scotland (under accession number NMS ME 993) there is an object which bears a (loose) label describing it as this object, but is more probably to be identified as that from Cunnister (HU59NW 14).

D MacRitchie 1896; C Earwood 1993; R J C Mowat 1996.