Crichie

NJ71NE 16 c. 768 190.

Iron Age hoard found by Mr Tait, of Crichie, under a large stone 'in trenching some woodland on the Hill of Crichie, crowned by an old entrenchment' (presumably 'Bruce's Camp'- NJ71NE 3). The hoard was subsequently divided between the British Museum and J Hay Chalmers, the latter portion later handed over to the Anthropological Museum, Marischal College, Aberdeen. It consisted of: in the British Museum, a bronze terret, a bronze ferrule for the butt of a spear-shaft and three and a half pin-heads of shale, and in Aberdeen two more pin-heads and a fragment. The pin-heads are spherical, about 1 1/4in (32mm) diameter, with the bottoms flattened and pierced to receive iron pins, of which some remains survive.

J H Chalmers 1870; J G Callander 1927.

Don-type terret and knobbed spear-butt.

L Laing and J Laing 1987.

116. Cast bronze terret (measuring 7.4 by 6.35cm) with simple humped projection into interior; an iron bar is recessed into the base. Reported to be in good condition, but temporarily mislaid in British Museum (no accession number cited).

177. Cast bronze spear-butt of door-knob type, measuring 3.9 by 5.4cm. In very good condition and held in the British Museum under accession number BM 56.11-4.7.

M Macgregor 1976.

NJ 768 190 A previously unknown knobbed spearbutt from the Hill of Crichie hoard (NMRS NJ71NE 16) was purchased by NMS from an English antiquities dealer: it had been acquired from an antiquarian collection in the Durham area. This is further proof that early accounts of this hoard are incomplete in their listings of contents (PSAS 7, 111; PSAS 61, 243-6). Registration no. FA 127.

F Hunter 2001b.

The accession number of these shale pin-heads in Marischal Museum, Aberdeen, is ABDUA:15645.

Information from RCAHMS (JRS), 10 September 2003.