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  • 1782 Tiree hoard: Anglo-Saxon coins found beside Dun Mor a’ Chaolais

    1782 cuttings:
    ‘Extract of as letter from Glasgow. Aug. 29: “A very sweet Morsel for Antiquarians was lately discovered in the Island of Tyrie, one of the Hebrides: It is no less; than ten or twelve Ounces of Saxon Coins, inscribed with the Names of Æthelstan, Edmund, Edred, Edgar, &c. These Saxon Monarchs flourished from the Years 916 to 975. We have seen them and can say they are in excellent Preservation, and about Six-pence intrinsic Value. A few Years ago, a considerable Number of Saxon Coins were found in she Island of Uist”’ (Chester Courant, 10 September 1782, p. 3)

    ‘ln our paper of August 31, we gave an account of some Saxon coins, which were lately found in the island of Tyrie. As a supplement to that account, a gentleman of Glasgow, who has some of each, informs us, that they were found in an urn, in digging the foundation of an old wall, and that they are the pennies of the Kings Athelstan Eadmynd, Eadred, Eadwic, and Eadgar, with Re or Rex, and other legends ; those of Edgar have sometimes Anglie, or Anglorum, and on the reverse various moneyers names; and almost all of them of different dies or stamps. The intrinsic value of them is about three-pence sterling.’ (Caledonian Mercury, 14 September 1782, p. 3)

    Saxon Kings:
    Athelstan r. 924–939
    Edmund I r. 939–946
    Edred r. 946–955
    Edwig r. 955–959
    Edgar r. 959–975
    Edward II The Martyr r. 975–978

    1953
    Stevenson, R (1953) ‘Notes: (6) A Hoard of Anglo-Saxon Coins found at Iona Abbey.’ Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 85, pp. 170–175.
    p. 172: Table of ‘Tenth- to Eleventh-Century Coin Finds in Scotland’
    Tiree: Found 1782 Coins [only] [from the reign of] Edmund, Edred, Edwig, Edw. Martyr, Edgar (d. 975) Collection partly in the National Museum.
    Ref: ‘Don. Soc. Ant. Scot. 1 Oct. 1782 90 Anglo-Saxon Coins. Lindsay, Coinage of Scotland, 261: “Urn … 15–20 ounces of A.-S. silver pennies”’.

    1959
    Dolley, R. H. M. (1959) ‘A Note on the Chronology of some ‘Short Cross’ finds from the British Isles’ British Numismatic Journal, 29, pp. 297–321.
    pp. 318–9: ‘Mrs. J. S. Martin’s recent researches into the Ruding MSS. preserved in the British Museum enable much to be added to Lindsay’s brief mention. On the basis of a transcript of the Reverend Richard Southgate’s almost contemporary listing of a portion of the hoard presented to the British Museum, the date of discovery can be moved back a year, and we now know that both this hoard and the 1782 find of tenth-century pence had been concealed in pottery containers buried between two and three feet of the surface. The find-spots of both hoards are indicated, and that of the Short Cross hoard (see 1788 hoard) is given as the immediate vicinity of Dun Hiadin.’

    RHM Dolley (1959) A Query concerning the 1782 Find of Anglo-Saxon Coins on Tiree. Spinks Num. Circular (Sept 1959). quoted in Discovery and Excavation in Scotland 1958, 10–12.

    1966
    Stevenson, R. B. K. (1966) Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles. National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland. Part 1 Anglo-Saxon Coins. London: British Academy.
    p. viii: ‘A major accession was ninety pennies from Tiree, also in 1782, a hoard thought from other evidence to have run from Eadward the Elder to Eadgar inclusive … [see Appendix II]… So the sixty-three Eadgars to Onlaf in Dr Jamieson’s list must all be from the Tiree hoard … Some thirty have fallen victim to the Antiquaries vicissitudes [i.e. lost]. This makes it impossible to be sure that the original gift of Tiree coins did not include any Æthelstan and of Eadward the Martyr (or recte Elder), both reported by Lindsay and supported by the independent reference to Æthelstan in the Yorkshire Courant’s notice of the discovery. It should be noted, however, that the British Museum’s accessions also begin with Eadmund. The date 1780 given in A-S Coins p. 239 from Ruding’s manuscripts cannot stand against the evidence of 1782. Annotations in Dr Jamieson’s list suggest that eight of the (Tiree) coins were given to Capt. MacDonald of Inchkenneth in exchange for the eight which he gave to the Society.’
    p. xi: ‘The other frequently recurring surface feature in the collection is the presence of small spots of green corrosion, generally waxy in appearance. These are noted in the catalogue because they occur most often, and possibly solely, on coins to be identified as (Tiree hoard). Three of a group of four Normandy coins also have these spots. These observations are amply confirmed by the Tiree coins in the British Museum.’
    p. xxiii: ‘Tiree (nr. Dun a Chaolais) (1782)
    ‘Part [of hoard]: 90 coins out of 10–12 oz. or of 15–20 oz [up to 500 coins]; 71 Eadmund–Eadgar to B.M. [British Museum]; included also Eadwerd the Martyr (recte the Elder?) and Æthelstan?; possibly also Normandy.’
    Featured 54 coins.

    1966
    Dolley, R. H. M. (1966) Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles. The Hiberno-Norse Coins in the British Museum. London: British Museum.
    Provisional Listing of Viking-Age Coin-Hoards from Great Britain and Ireland c. 795–c. 1105
    p. 51: Tiree 1782 120–1,199 coins Anglo-Saxon and Continental with archaeological material Deposited c. 975 AD

    1975
    Graham-Campbell, J. (1975) ‘The Viking-age silver and gold hoards of Scandinavian character from Scotland’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. 107, pp. 114–135.
    https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-352-1/dissemination/pdf/vol_107/107_114_135.pdf
    ‘The hoard from Tiree (also deposited c.AD 975) is not recorded as having contained any ingots, but the British Museum acquired, in 1807, an ingot ‘found among a parcel of Saxon and other coins in Scotland in the year 1780 upon the estate of the Duke of Argyll’ (Appendix A, note iii). There is little doubt that this is to be identified with the 1782 hoard from Tiree, Argyllshire, for even in the early 19th century Ruding believed that this hoard had been found in 1780 (p. 122)

    ‘In 1807, the British Museum was presented with an ingot (1807, 3-14, 1) which was, according to the Register, ‘found among a parcel of Saxon and other coins in Scotland in the year 1780 upon the estate of the Duke of Argyll’. The ingot can no longer be identified with certainty, although there is in the Museum an unnumbered ingot which, in the absence of any other unnumbered specimens, may be equated with this find. This hoard is probably to be identified with that of 1782 from Tiree, Argyllshire, for Ruding in the early 19th century thought that this Tiree hoard had been found in 1780 (Stevenson 1966, viii;. Confirmation of this identification is afforded by the fact that the British Museum ingot displays the ‘waxy’ green corrosion which is a characteristic feature of the Tiree coins (ibid, xi). I am most grateful to Dr Graham Ritchie for drawing my attention to this ingot, and to Mrs L Webster and Miss M Archibald for arranging a comparison between the ingot and Tiree coins in the Department of Coins and Medals, British Museum.’ (p. 128)

    ‘Hoard Tiree deposited c. 975; ingot’ p. 130

    2008
    Eagles, R. J. (2008) Sarah Sophia Banks and her English Hammered Coins British Numismatic Society, 78, p. 210–15.

    p. 209: Table 2: She had 12 Eadgar coins from the 1782 Tiree hoard

    p. 210 Tiree hoard (1782)
    ‘Apart from the twelve coins from the Tiree (Hebrides) hoard (1782), (78) the period from 925 to 1016, as Table 2 shows, is represented by only six coins. The hoard, amounting to several hundred coins, (79) was found on land belonging to the 5th Duke of Argyll whose donation to the British Museum in 1789 included fifty-four coins of Eadgar. (80) In 1807 his brother, Lord Frederick Campbell, gave the twelve coins of Eadgar to Sarah. (81) In 1819 four of these were kept by the British Museum and the remaining eight passed to the Royal Mint. (82)

    78 Ruding MS gives the year of discovery as 1780, quoted by Martin 1961, 232.
    79 Stevenson 1966, xxiii; Dolley 1959, 159.
    80 Martin 1961, 232. SCBI British Museum Anglo-Saxon Coins V lists fifty-two. Another thirty-six coins of Eadgar in the trays of the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland have also been attributed to the hoard (Stevenson, 1966).
    81 Sarah’s MS register of acquisitions.
    82 See Table 2 above

    Refs:
    Dolley, R.H.M., 1959. ‘A query concerning the 1782 find of Anglo-Saxon coins on Tiree’, NCirc 67/9, 159.
    Martin, J.S., 1961. ‘Some Remarks on Eighteenth-Century Numismatic Manuscripts and Numismatists’, in R.H.M. Dolley (ed.), Anglo-Saxon Coins (London), 227–40.
    Stevenson, R.B.K., 1966. SCBI 6. National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland – Edinburgh, I, Anglo-Saxon coins with associated foreign coins (London).

    p. 212 Tiree hoard (1787)
    ‘Sarah acquired eighty-six Short Cross pence, which she took to represent the first coinage of Henry III. Of these, twenty-two from the mints of Canterbury, London and Bury St Edmunds were the gift of Lord Frederick Campbell, who also gave her the coins of Eadgar from the Tiree hoard of 1782, referred to above. The hoard containing these coins was found in the Hebrides in 1787 and weighed ‘several ounces’, three ounces representing about sixty coins.94 According to a note in the British Museum’s copy of Thompson’s Inventory, forty-three coins were acquired by the Museum, suggesting that their and Sarah’s holdings represented the totality of coins discovered. The five coins retained by the British Museum from Sarah’s collection are still identifiable, but both Webster and Hocking catalogued only five of the remaining seventeen coins passed to the Royal Mint Museum. It thus appears that the twelve missing coins were most likely culled by Webster in 1874. The twenty-two coins recorded by Sarah in her manuscript catalogue as emanating from Lord Frederick Campbell are listed in Table 3. The dates on which the Museum and Sarah acquired the coins from Lord Frederick Campbell are not recorded.

    94: Thompson 1956, 136

    TABLE 3. Sarah’s coins from the Tiree hoard (1787). 22 coins listed on p. 213

    1993
    Manville, H. E. (1993) ‘Additions and Corrections to Thompson’s Inventory and Brown and Dolley’s Coin Hoards’, pp.91–115.
    p. 103: ‘No. 358. [reference to Scots Magazine, SM, of December 1788] Note: A shorter version of this account was printed in GM [Gentleman’s Magazine] 58, Dec. 1788, 1112-3. Footnotes in the Inventory correct some of the attributions: e.g. probably CIC instead of LIC and FOLCE for Fulpe – although the SM text has Fulre.’

    Collections:

    Currently 21 short cross silver pennies in the British Museum and 1 ingot ascribed to Tiree

    No coins National Museum of Scotland ascribed to Tiree

    No coins Glasgow Museums Collection ascribed to Tiree
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  • Elizabeth Gibb Collection

    Evelyn Elizabeth Balfour Gibb (née Milne) (1914–2000) was the daughter of Lady Frances Balfour, herself the daughter of the 8th Duke of Argyll. She married and lived in Sussex, but was a frequent visitor to the island, usually staying at The Lodge. She developed an interest in archaeology, and spent a lot of time in the 1970s and 80s roaming Tiree, particularly its Iron Age forts. She donated some material to the National Museum of Scotland, but this collection from 16 find spots was donated to An Iodhlann by her granddaughter Stephanie Clarke.

    Dun, Caolas (which one is not described): 1983; 4 small sherds, 2 large pieces of slag.

    Dun Mor Vaul: 13 thick sherds (2 rims, one of which is everted; 1 comb decoration), 1 possible lug.

    Dunes between Brock and Ruaig Post Office: 11 small sherds.

    Kirkapol: 1 sherd.

    Dùn an t-Sìthein, Gott: 13 sherds (1 flat base).

    Old Manse garden, Gott: 2 sherds.

    Island House (possible location): hammer/smoothing stone (see photo).

    Stream on boundary of Heylipol and Balinoe (NL 98686 42460): 9 sherds, 1 glazed pottery piece, 1 piece of slate, 1 of 3cm tapered nail, 1 hammer stone, whelk, limpet, scallop shells, animal bones and teeth, 4 bits of hard dark unidentified material.

    Barradhu, Hynish: 1 piece of pumice, 2 small smoothing stones, 1 piece of slag, 1 limpet shell, 3 pieces of iron (possible cartspring).

    Barradhu, Hynish (rock shelter): around 60 worked flints, 15 sherds (1 with comb decoration).

    Dunes between Hynish Farm and Dùn nan Cleite: 1 worked flint (awl), 3 sherds, 1 3-cm iron cylinder with two notches (see photo).

    Dùn na Cleite: 1972; 8 sherds (2 with everted rims and 1 with comb decoration), 1 worked flint, 3 animal teeth.

    Dùn Hiader: 1972. 5 sherds (1 decorated, 1 with an indented, raised cordon), 1 smoothing stone, 1 hammerstone, 1 piece of iron 2 cm long, 1 piece of burnt bone.

    Balephuil: 2 worked flints, 14 thick sherds, 1 small bone awl, 1 small pointed bone tool. ‘Sand dunes below Balephuil – just over the fence, not in the field you go down to the shore from, but the next along to the NW. 1982 May. Dr Brown knew this was an old settlement. Jean has a finger bone!’

    Balephetrish: 1 hammerstone.

    Sorisdale, Coll: 1 large fine sherd, 6 small sherds, 3 worked flints, 12 cowrie shells, 3 large pieces of bloom.

    Included was a note [about possible rock art]: ‘I’m sure I found some [cup marks] on the non-seaward side of Dun Moor Vaul above the well/spring. I have a photograph somewhere. Quite small depressions in a circle about 12 of them. [?] “votive” holes in rock in Crete. 1994. EG’
  • Broch site: Dun Mor a’ Chaolais



    DUN MOR A’ CHAOLAIS

    Euan W. MacKie

    NM083477. This is another very dilapidated and turf-grown site of which little more than the irregularly circular outline can be made out. It stands on a hilltop. A probable mural cell on the south-east and traces of an entrance passage with a guard cell (which has been reconstructed in modern times) on the north-west suggest that the structure is a broch. There are signs of an outer rampart.

    Discovery and Excavation in Scotland 1962, pp. 20–1.

    Beveridge, E. (1903) ‘Tiree and Coll’. p. 75.
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  • Dun site: Dun Beag a’ Chaolais



    Dun Beag
    Surface finds of pottery and hammer-stones found in the spoil of a recently cut drainage ditch around the perimeter of Dun Beag:
    • NM 0780 4938 Three pottery sherds, decorated with single zigzag pattern.
    • NM0781 4939 Pottery, nine small flakes of same type. One well-rounded quartzite hammer-stone, measuring 9 by 4 by 3 cm, with wear on both ends.
    • NM 0773 4932 Fourteen pottery sherds
    • NM 0773 4938 Three pottery sherds, including one rim. One well-rounded quartzite hammer-stone, measuring 9 by 7 by 4 cm, with wear on both ends.
    • NM 0777 4944 One well-rounded quartzite hammer-stone, measuring 14 by 10 by 5.5 cm, with heavy wear on both ends. Sponsors: Univ of Edinburgh Dept of Archaeology, Holley & Assoc (Discovery and Excavation in Scotland 1995, p. 68)

    See Beveridge E. (1903) Coll and Tiree, p. 109
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  • Standing stone, Caolas

    Standing stone at Caolas photographed by Dr John Holliday in 2000. One of three probable prehistoric standing stones on Tiree (but see Gott below). There are a number of other standing stones, but these are believed to be modern.
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  • Early Medieval harbours

    Photocopy of an academic paper ‘Dun Ara: a Norse-period harbour in Mull?’ by Dr James Petre, 2020. Explores the history of the site known as Dun Ara in Mishnish, north Mull. Comparisons are made with sites at Dun Mor Vaul, Kenavara and Milton, Tiree. A digital copy of the full article is held in An Iodhlann.
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  • Tiree hoards

    There were two Tiree hoards:

    In 1782, a large hoard of coins and an ingot dated c.975 was dug up at Dùn Mòr a’ Chaolais, Caolas

    In 1788, a large hoard of coins dated c.1240 was dug up near Dùn Shiadair, West Hynish

    In 1789, ‘The Duke of Argyll has presented the British Museum with a curious collection of Saxon, English and Danish coins by the hands of Lord Frederick Campbell’ (Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, 16 July 1789, p. 1)
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  • NOSAS visit to Tiree in 2017

    Blog writer by John Wombell, including intertidal trackways on a Ruaig beach; nousts and kelp sites on Fadamul, Salum; drilled holes at the harbour, Milton; huts on Kenavara; rock art and the Ringing Stone.

    NOSAS, the North of Scotland Archaeological Society, has made several visits to Tiree, in particular, surveying all the rock art.

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