Jarlshof - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Jarlshof is the best known prehistoric archaeological site in Shetland, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. It lies near the southern tip of the Shetland Mainland

Shetland Mainland

The Mainland is the main island of Shetland, Scotland. The island contains Shetland's only burgh, Lerwick, and is the centre of Shetland's ferry and air connections....

and has been described as "one of the most remarkable archaeological sites ever excavated in the British Isles". It contains remains dating from 2500 BC up to the 17th century AD.

The Bronze Age

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...

settlers left evidence of several small oval houses with thick stone walls and various artefacts including a decorated bone object. The Iron Age

Iron Age

The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...

ruins include several different types of structure including a broch

Broch

A broch is an Iron Age drystone hollow-walled structure of a type found only in Scotland. Brochs include some of the most sophisticated examples of drystone architecture ever created, and belong to the classification "complex Atlantic Roundhouse" devised by Scottish archaeologists in the 1980s....

and a defensive wall around the site. The Pictish

Picts

The Picts were a group of Late Iron Age and Early Mediaeval people living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. There is an association with the distribution of brochs, place names beginning 'Pit-', for instance Pitlochry, and Pictish stones. They are recorded from before the Roman conquest...

period provides various works of art including a painted pebble and a symbol stone

Pictish stones

Pictish stones are monumental stelae found in Scotland, mostly north of the Clyde-Forth line. These stones are the most visible remaining evidence of the Picts and are thought to date from the 6th to 9th centuries, a period during which the Picts became Christianized...

. The Viking

Viking

The term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...

-age ruins make up
the largest such site visible anywhere in Britain and include a longhouse; excavations provided numerous tools and a detailed insight into life in Shetland at this time. The most visible structures on the site are the walls of the Scottish period fortified manor house, which inspired the name "Jarlshof" that first appears in an 1821 novel by Walter Scott

Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....

.

The site is in the care of Historic Scotland

Historic Scotland

Historic Scotland is an executive agency of the Scottish Government, responsible for historic monuments in Scotland.-Role:As its website states:...

and is open from April to September. In 2010 "The Crucible of Iron Age Shetland

The Crucible of Iron Age Shetland

The Crucible of Iron Age Shetland is a combination of three sites in Shetland that have applied to be on the United Kingdom "Tentative List" of possible nominations for the UNESCO World Heritage Programme list of sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common heritage of humankind...

" including Mousa

Mousa

Mousa is a small island in Shetland, Scotland, uninhabited since the nineteenth century. The island is known for the Broch of Mousa, an Iron Age round tower, and is designated as a Special Protection Area for storm-petrel breeding colonies.-Geography:...

, Old Scatness

Old Scatness

Old Scatness is an archeological site in the South Mainland of Shetland, near Sumburgh Airport consisting of mediaeval, Viking, Pictish, and Bronze Age remains. It has been a settlement for thousands of years, each new generation adding buildings, and leveling off old ones...

and Jarlshof was added to the those seeking to be on the "tentative list" of World Heritage Sites

World Heritage Sites in Scotland

World Heritage Sites in Scotland are specific locations that have been included in the UNESCO World Heritage Programme list of sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common heritage of humankind. Historic Scotland is responsible for 'cultural' sites as part of their wider...

Location and etymology

Jarlshof lies near the southern tip of the Shetland Mainland

Shetland Mainland

The Mainland is the main island of Shetland, Scotland. The island contains Shetland's only burgh, Lerwick, and is the centre of Shetland's ferry and air connections....

, close to the settlements of Sumburgh

Sumburgh Head

Sumburgh Head is located at the southern tip of the Shetland Mainland in northernScotland. The head is a 100 m high rocky spur capped by the Sumburgh Head Lighthouse. The Old Norse name was Dunrøstar høfdi, it means "The Head onto the Thunderous Noise", referring to the noise of Sumburgh Roost...

and Grutness

Grutness

Grutness is a small settlement and headland at the southern tip of the main island of the Shetland Islands, Scotland. It is located close to Sumburgh Head, and is the terminus of the ferry service between the Shetland Mainland and Fair Isle.-External links:*...

and to the south end of Sumburgh Airport

Sumburgh Airport

-Other tenants:*Maritime and Coastguard Agency *Bristow Helicopters*Bond Helicopters -Incidents and accidents:...

. The site overlooks an arm of the sea called the West Voe of Sumburgh and the nearby freshwater springs and building materials available on the beach will have added to the location's attraction as a settlement. The south Mainland also provides a favourable location for arable cultivation in a Shetland context and there is a high density of prehistoric settlement in the surrounding area. Jarlshof is only one mile from Scatness

Scatness

Scatness is a settlement on the headland of Scat Ness at the southern tip of the South Shetland Mainland, Scotland, across the West Voe of Sumburgh from Sumburgh Head.Scatness includes the housing estates of Sanblister Place and Colonial Place....

where the remains of another broch and other ruins of a similar longevity were discovered in 1975. There is a small visitor centre at Jarlshof with displays and a collection of artefacts.

The name Jarlshof meaning "Earl's Mansion" is a coinage of Walter Scott

Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....

, who visited the site in 1814 and based it on the Scottish period name of "the laird's house". It was more than a century later before excavations proved that there had actually been Viking Age settlement on the site, although there is no evidence that a Norse jarl
Earl
An earl is a member of the nobility. The title is Anglo-Saxon, akin to the Scandinavian form jarl, and meant "chieftain", particularly a chieftain set to rule a territory in a king's stead. In Scandinavia, it became obsolete in the Middle Ages and was replaced with duke...

ever lived there.

History

The remains at Jarlshof represent thousands of years of human occupation, and can be seen as a microcosm of Shetland history. Other than the Old House of Sumburgh (see below) the site remained largely hidden until a storm in the late 19th century washed away part of the shore, and revealed evidence of these ancient buildings. Formal archaeological excavation started in 1925 and Jarlshof was one of two broch sites which were the first to be excavated using modern scientific techniques between 1949–52. Although the deposits within the broch had been badly disturbed by earlier attempts, this work revealed a complex sequence of construction from different periods. Buildings on the site include the remains of a Bronze Age

Bronze Age

smithy

Forge

A forge is a hearth used for forging. The term "forge" can also refer to the workplace of a smith or a blacksmith, although the term smithy is then more commonly used.The basic smithy contains a forge, also known as a hearth, for heating metals...

, an Iron Age

Iron Age

broch

Broch

and roundhouses

Atlantic roundhouse

In archaeology, an Atlantic roundhouse is an Iron Age stone building found in the northern and western parts of mainland Scotland, the Northern Isles and the Hebrides.-Types of structure:...

, a complex of Pictish

Picts

wheelhouses

Wheelhouse (archaeology)

In archaeology, a wheelhouse is a prehistoric structure from the Iron Age found in Scotland. The term was first coined after the discovery of a ruined mound in 1855. The distinctive architectural form related to the complex roundhouses, constitute the main settlement type in the Western Isles, in...

, a Viking

Viking

longhouse, and a mediaeval farmhouse. No further excavations have been undertaken since the early 1950s and no radiocarbon dating has been attempted.

Neolithic

The earliest finds are pottery from the Neolithic

Neolithic

The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...

era, although the main settlement dates from the Bronze Age

Bronze Age

(see below). A site nearby has been dated to 3200 BC.

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age in Scotland lasted from approximately 2000 BC to 800 BC. The oldest known remains on the Jarlshof site date from this period, although there is evidence of inhabitation as far back as 2500 BC. The remains of several small oval houses with thick stone walls date to the late Bronze Age and the structures show some similarity to Skara Brae

Skara Brae

Skara Brae is a large stone-built Neolithic settlement, located on the Bay of Skaill on the west coast of Mainland, Orkney, Scotland. It consists of ten clustered houses, and was occupied from roughly 3180 BCE–2500 BCE...

on Mainland, Orkney, but are smaller and of a later date. These buildings may have been partly subterranean at the earliest period of inhabitation, a technique that provided both structural stability and insulation.

There is also evidence of a cattle stall with a waste channel leading to a tank in a courtyard and a whale vertebra set into a wall that may have been used as a tethering post. Broken moulds from the smithy indicate that axes, knives, swords and pins were produced there and a bronze dagger was found at the site. The objects indicate the smith was trained in the Irish style of working. Bone pins and awls also survive and an extraordinary bone "plaque". This latter object is 5 centimetres (2 in) long, has three holes bored into the ends and is decorated with various linear patterns. Its function is unknown. The Bronze Age structures are overlain with sterile sand, suggesting a break in occupation prior to the next phase of building.

Iron Age and Pictish period

The inhabitants of the Iron Age

Iron Age

built part of their settlement on top of the Bronze Age one. The structures include a complex roundhouse, replaced at a later stage by an "aisled roundhouse". Neither have been dated although artefacts found at this level include querns that suggest the latter may have been constructed prior to 200 BC.

It is in this period that the broch

Broch

was built. Part of the structure has been lost to coastal erosion, and modern sea defences have been erected. The tower was probably originally 13 metres (40 feet) or more high and as with many broch sites the position would have commanded fine views of the surrounding seas. During this period archaeological sites in Shetland usually exhibit defensive fortifications of some kind, and Jarlshof is no exception. An outer defensive wall associated with the broch contained a substantial (although rather poorly constructed) house and byre at one time. This wall was utilised at a later stage to build a large roundhouse in the lee of the broch.

The earliest part of the wheelhouse complex has been dated to 200 BC, although other parts were built later, post-dating the 1st century BC–2nd century AD profusion of these structures in the Western Isles by several centuries. Construction used the stones of the broch itself and two of the four main structures are amongst the best examples of their type. Three successive periods of construction were undertaken, and the best preserved retains a significant proportion of the stone part of its roof and displays a series of corbelled bays. One structure was built as a circular building and the radial piers were inserted afterwards. This may have been an earlier, less stable design. In one case the piers are alternately rectangular and V-shaped, in another all are to the latter design, again suggesting a developing style. Unlike many wheelhouses elsewhere in Scotland that are built into the earth, the Jarlshof structures seem to have been built from ground level upwards.

Amongst the artefacts dated to the later Pictish period is a bone pin with a rounded head probably used as a hair or dress pin. It has been dated to AD 500–800. "Painted pebbles

Painted pebbles

Painted pebbles are a class of Pictish artifact unique to northern Scotland in the first millennium AD.- Appearance :They are small rounded beach pebbles made of quartzite, which have been painted with simple designs in a dye which is now dark brown in colour. The size varies from 18 mm by...

" are associated with more than two dozen Pictish sites and one such stone was unearthed at Jarlshof. This rectangular slate fragment had a cross painted onto it and two small "S" shaped scrolls suggesting an association with Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

beliefs. One of only two Pictish symbol stones found in Shetland was found here, exhibiting a double disc shape and a Z-rod. Pottery finds include buff ware from the period after AD 10, including bowls with flat rims. The quality of the pots appears to decline in the period prior to Viking settlement, becoming thinner-walled and generally more crude in design.

Norse period

Remains from this era used to cover most of the site, and it is believed the Norse

Norsemen

Norsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language belonging to the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, especially Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish and Danish in their earlier forms.The meaning of Norseman was "people...

inhabited the site continuously from the ninth to the 14th centuries. Excavations in the 1930s by Alex Curle found the first confirmed Norse longhouse in the British Isles and later digs in the 1950s found evidence of fishing and farming activities. Sheep, cattle, pigs and ponies were kept, Atlantic cod

Atlantic cod

The Atlantic cod, Gadus morhua, is a well-known demersal food fish belonging to the family Gadidae. It is also commercially known as cod, codling or haberdine....

, saithe and ling

Common Ling

The common ling or simply the ling, Molva molva, is a large member of the cod family. An ocean fish whose habitat is in the Atlantic region and can be found around Iceland, Faroe Islands, British Isles, the Norse coast and occasionally around Newfoundland, the ling has a long slender body that can...

were eaten, and whale and seal bones have also been found along with the remains of a single dog. Chicken

Chicken

The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...

bones are absent from the Norse levels.

There are seven Norse-era houses at Jarlshof, although no more than two were in use at one time. There were several outbuildings, including a small square structure with a large hearth that may have been a sauna

Sauna

A sauna is a small room or house designed as a place to experience dry or wet heat sessions, or an establishment with one or more of these and auxiliary facilities....

and which was later replaced by two separate outhouses. The largest house from this period is a 20 metres (65.6 ft) by 5 metres (16.4 ft) rectangular chamber with opposing doors, timber benches along the long sides, and a hearth in the centre. Unlike the earlier structures that had conical thatched roofs, those of the Norse buildings had ridged timber frames. At a later period this large structure was also used to shelter domesticated animals (at which stage it had a paved centre and animal stalls along the sides) and later still may have become an outbuilding. The door to the byre puzzled archaeologists as it appeared to be too narrow to admit a cow. The mystery was solved when a byre door was excavated at Easting on Unst

Unst

Unst is one of the North Isles of the Shetland Islands, Scotland. It is the northernmost of the inhabited British Isles and is the third largest island in Shetland after the Mainland and Yell. It has an area of .Unst is largely grassland, with coastal cliffs...

which had a narrow base similar to Jarlshof's but which widened out to become cow-shaped. Another outbuilding has been interpreted as a corn-drying room. Later houses were built at 90 degrees to the longhouse and these are of a type and size that is similar to croft

Croft (land)

A croft is a fenced or enclosed area of land, usually small and arable with a crofter's dwelling thereon. A crofter is one who has tenure and use of the land, typically as a tenant farmer.- Etymology :...

houses that were common in Shetland until the mid-19th century.

One hundred and fifty loom weights were found suggesting wool

Wool

Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....

was an important aspect of Norse-era life. Line weights from the later Norse period and associated evidence from elsewhere in Shetland indicates that deep-water fishing was also a regular undertaking. The Jarlshof site also produced ample evidence of the use of iron tools such as shears, scissors, sickles, and a fish-hook and knife. The ore was locally obtained bog iron

Bog iron

Bog iron refers to impure iron deposits that develop in bogs or swamps by the chemical or biochemical oxidation of iron carried in the solutions. In general, bog ores consist primarily of iron oxyhydroxides, commonly goethite...

. Hazel, birch and willow grew in the area at this time but the pine and oak must have been driftwood or imported timber.

Drawings scratched on slate have been found of dragon-prowed ships, portraits of an old man and of a young, bearded man and of a four-legged animal. The drawings were found in the Viking levels but are Pictish in style and may either pre-date the arrival of the Norse or indicate a continuity of art and culture from one period to the next. Similarly, although the rectangular shape of the Norse-era buildings are quite unlike the earlier rounded Pictish style, the basement courses of the two periods are constructed in the same way. The Viking-style loom weights, spindle whorls and other vessels were found with stone discs and other objects of a Pictish design. A bronze

Bronze

Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...

-gilt

Gilding

The term gilding covers a number of decorative techniques for applying fine gold leaf or powder to solid surfaces such as wood, stone, or metal to give a thin coating of gold. A gilded object is described as "gilt"...

harness mounting made in Ireland in the 8th or 9th centuries has also been found and many items from this period are in the Shetland Museum

Shetland Museum

The New Shetland Museum and Archives at Hay's Dock, Lerwick, was officially opened on 31 May 2007 by HM Queen Sonja of Norway and the Duke & Duchess of Rothesay .-New building:...

. Jarlshof contains the most extensive remains of a Viking site visible anywhere in Britain.

Old House of Sumburgh

The castle, now known as Jarlshof House, was built during the Scottish period. Originally a medieval stone farmhouse, it was converted into a fortified house during the 16th century, by Robert Stewart, 1st Earl of Orkney

Robert Stewart, 1st Earl of Orkney

Robert Stewart, Knt., 1st Earl of Orkney and Lord of Zetland was a recognized illegitimate son of James V, King of Scotland, and his mistress Eupheme Elphinstone....

after Scotland annexed Shetland. The building was named "New Hall" at this time. It was further modernised in the early 17th century by his son Patrick Stewart, 2nd Earl of Orkney

Patrick Stewart, 2nd Earl of Orkney

Patrick Stewart, 2nd Earl of Orkney and Lord of Shetland was the son of Robert Stewart, 1st Earl of Orkney.On the death of his uncle, Lord Robert Stewart, junior, in 1581 Patrick was given the gift of the Priory of Whithorn...

who re-named it the "Old House of Sumburgh" but it was abandoned in the late 17th century. The structure was also formerly known as "The laird's house" and "Stewart Mansion".

Cultural references

Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....

set part of his 1821 novel The Pirate
The Pirate (novel)
The Pirate is a novel by Walter Scott, based roughly on the life of John Gow who features as Captain Cleveland. The setting is the southern tip of the main island of Shetland , around 1700...

in the Old House of Sumburgh during the 17th century, which he named Jarlshof.

"Man, however, had in former days considered this as a remote or unlikely event; for a Norwegian chief of other times, or, as other accounts said, and as the name of Jarlshof seemed to imply an ancient Earl of the Orkneys had elected this neck of land as the place for establishing a mansion-house. It has been long entirely deserted, and the vestiges only can be discerned with difficulty; for the loose sand, borne on the temptestuous gales of those stormy regions, has overblown, and almost buried, the ruins of the buildings; but in the end of the seventeenth century, a part of the Earl's mansion was still entire and habitable. It was a rude building of rough stone, with nothing about it to gratify the eye, or to excite the imagination; a large old-fashioned narrow house, with a very steep roof, covered with flags composed of gray sandstone, would perhaps convey the best of idea of the place to a modern reader. The windows were few, very small in size, and distributed up and down the building with utter contempt of regularity. Against the main structure had rested, in former times, certain smaller compartments of the mansion-house, containing offices, or subordinate apartments, necessary for the Earl's retainers and menials. But these had become ruinous; and the rafters had been taken down for fire-wood, or for other purposes; the walls had given way in many places; and, to complete the devastation, the sand had already drifted amongst the ruins, and filled up what had been once the chambers the contained, to the depth of two or three feet.

"Amid this desolation, the inhabitants of Jarlshof had contrived, by constant labour and attention, to keep in order a few roods of land, which had been enclosed as a garden, and which, sheltered by the walls of the house itself, from the relentless sea-blast, produced such vegetables as the climate could bring forth, or rather as the sea-gale would permit to grow; for these islands experience even less of the rigour of cold than is encountered on the mainland of Scotland; but, unsheltered by a wall of some sort of other, it is scarce possible to raise even the most ordinary culinary vegetables; and as for shrubs or trees, they are entirely out of the question, such is the force of the sweeping sea-blast."

External links

The Pirate at Walter Scott Digital Archive, the University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...

library

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Location and etymology

History

Neolithic

Bronze Age

Iron Age and Pictish period

Norse period

Old House of Sumburgh

Cultural references

See also

External links