Loch Glashan
Logboat
Site Name Loch Glashan
Classification Logboat
Alternative Name(s) Loch Glashan 2
Canmore ID 40058
Site Number NR99SW 2
NGR NR 916 925
NGR Description NR c. 916 925
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/40058
- Council Argyll And Bute
- Parish Kilmichael Glassary
- Former Region Strathclyde
- Former District Argyll And Bute
- Former County Argyll
NR99SW 2 c. 916 925
For logboat (Loch Glashan 2) and possible paddle found in Loch Glashan at NR c. 920 934, see NR99SW 11 and NR99SW 23 respectively.
NR 9173 9252. Fragments of a dug-out canoe were found in 1961. The site was flooded by a hydro-electric scheme in 1961.
H Fairhurst 1969
The canoe fragments were excavated by J G Scott but were not preserved (information from Miss M Campbell, Kilberry Castle).
Visited by OS (JP) 23 April 1970
The OS locate the discovery at NR 9173 9252, but the annotated photograph that accompanies the published report (of medieval island settlement, Fairhurst 1969, plate 1) indicates a location adjacent to the settlement at NR 9168 9254.
Information from R J C Mowat, Sept. 1992.
In 1960-1 a crannog (at NR 9159 9249) and a medieval island-settlement (at NR 9168 9254) were excavated in advance of engineering works. During the investigation of the latter feature 'fragments of a dug-out canoe' were noticed 'at the northern end of the strait' that separated the monument from the shore. The OS locate the discovery at NR 9173 9252, but the annotated photograph that accompanies the published report indicates a location adjacent to the settlement. The vessel may remain in situ.
H Fairhurst 1969; RCAHMS 1988; R J C Mowat 1996.
Field Visit (2011)
NR 91890 92457 The lowering of the water level in Loch Glashan in August 2011 exposed the remnants of a logboat on the shore just to the S of the dam. Only a small fragment of the logboat remained and this was in a very decayed condition. It is likely that this is the same logboat observed by Horace Fairhurst during his excavations of the medieval island settlement in the loch and left in situ at the time.
The surviving fragment is an oak log just 2.7m in length and 0.48m at its widest point. In cross-section all that survives is a hollowed-out chord, 0.15m at its thickest. The upper surface is completely eroded but the lower surface is much better preserved. The curved surface of the heartwood/sapwood boundary survives over much of the surface, and scattered along this surface are clusters of shallow axe marks, probably incurred while stripping off the sapwood, the axe only glancing off the heartwood. A branch junction has not been trimmed back and still projects some 70mm from the surface, suggesting that this may have been an unfinished logboat, left in the water to prevent drying out.
A radiocarbon date from the logboat has produced a date of 1720 ± 25 BP (SUERC-36708), which calibrates, at 2-sigma, to 250–392 cal AD. This is comparable with the earliest group of dates from the nearby crannog and suggests that the manufacture of the logboat was part of the same phase of activity on and around the loch which probably saw the construction of the crannog sometime in the 2nd to 4th centuries AD.
Archive: RCAHMS (intended)
Funder: Forestry Commission Scotland
AOC Archaeology Group, 2011
