Pot GLAHM:B.1914.535, pot 200 BC–AD 500, Middle Iron Age / Late Iron Age
‘This small, plain vessel is of a distinctive Iron Age fabric, being a hard-fired, smooth-surfaced ware with orange-red and dark grey exterior and buff interior. It appears to be a miniature version of the classic Everted Rim jar of the middle Iron Age in the Atlantic Province (c. 200 BC to AD 500). Although the book catalogue of the Bishop Collection gives only ‘Tiree’ as a provenance there is in fact a faded ink label on the rough part of the surface which says ‘Moss, Tiree”. This gives us a provenance probably in the 1km square NL/9644, just N of the settlement of Barrapoll at the west end of the island. A. H. Bishop was on Tiree in 1912, excavating the Iron Age settlement at Balevullin, not far away to the NNW, and one could surmise that he obtained the pot from the crofter who found it at that time. It is very rare to get a complete pot of this age which has not been put in with a burial.’