A ‘remarkable’ Pictish ring has discovered at Scotland’s largest Pictish settlement after 1,000 years.
The kite-shaped ring with a garnet or red glᴀss centre had laid undiscovered at the Burghead Fort in Moray, Scotland.
The area was thought to have been ‘archaeologically vandalised’ in the 1800s when a town was built on top of it.
Its historical value was ᴀssumed to have been lost when Burghead was constructed – covering over much of the fort and dismantling the stone that remained for building.
But now the historic ring has been uncovered in a dig led by the University of Aberdeen – and found by a volunteer whose ancestors moved to the town.
Among the families encouraged to relocate to the new town to support the fishing industry were the ancestors of John Ralph.
He is a former engineer and graduate of the University of Aberdeen who has enjoyed a 50-year ᴀssociation with his alma mater.
When he retired, John signed up as a volunteer for the Burghead digs after seeing a social media post by the University’s Professor of Archaeology, Gordon Noble.
Professor Noble has led excavation work, funded by Historical Environment Scotland, over the last three years which has shed new light on the importance of the site and enabled the development of 3-D reconstructions of how it might once have looked.
After some 500 years of continuous occupation, Burghead Fort was destroyed by fire in the 10th century.
It is possible that the inferno was set by Vikings — who were known to have raided the Moray coast in this period.
After the fire, the site remained unoccupied until the 12th century.
When the modern harbour was constructed in the 19th century, the landward ramparts and part of the seaward defences were levelled.
During this work, 30 Pictish carved stones were uncovered from the fort site, but only six carved bulls and some fragments of early Christian sculpture ultimately ended up surviving.
John, who describes himself as an ‘enthusiastic amateur’ had many moments over the two-week excavation – his third dig at the site – where he thought he had discovered something, only to for the experts to tell him he had a knack for finding ‘shiny pebbles’.
So when, on the last day of the final dig, he found something that looked interesting, he didn’t hold out much hope.
It was only when he showed it to a fellow volunteer and his eyes lit up that he realised he might ‘have something’.
Professor Noble says that what he was presented with was ‘truly remarkable’.
‘John was digging and then came over and said “look what I’ve found”. What he handed over was incredible,’ he added.
‘Even before the conservation work we could see it was something really exciting as despite more than a thousand years in the ground we could see glints of the possible garnet setting.
‘There are very few Pictish rings which have ever been discovered and those we do know about usually come from hoards which were placed in the ground deliberately for safekeeping in some way.
‘We certainly weren’t expecting to find something like this lying around the floor of what was once a house but that had appeared of low significance so, in typical fashion, we had left work on it until the final day of the dig.’
