By Dr Megan Kasten, UK Postdoctoral Researcher
In 1984, John Hunter’s excavations at Pool, Orkney, uncovered a slab which bore unmistakeable traces of an ogham inscription. The upright stone, now on display at the Orkney Museum, had been erected in a relatively formal paved structure, in a context which was radiocarbon dated to the 6th century AD. This presented truly remarkable evidence of an ogham inscription found in a scientifically dateable context and purported to be evidence of the existence of ogham in Orkney at the very early date of the 6th century. It turns out, however, not to be quite as anticipated.
Katherine Forsyth examined the ogham stone for her PhD in 1995 but then she had only incomplete information about its find circumstances, namely that the secondary context in which it was found partially obscured the text, and the stone was set vertically. She offered two alternative readings depending on the orientation of the slab: -SRO TA TR- or –RV AV ORC-, and drew attention to the correspondence between ORC and the local tribal/geographic name Orc, as in fecht Orc (‘expedition to Orkney’, Annals of Ulster 580.3) and bellum for Orcaib (‘battle against the Orcadians’, Annals of Ulster 708) (Forsyth 1996, 456-9).
The excavations were not fully published until 2007, but this brought to wider attention photographs which showed the slab in situ. Not only was it clear which way up the ogham read, but also it was apparent that the lettering occupied the space free above the setting, meaning it could post-date the 6th-century date of the paving after all. I used photogrammetry to record the slab in 2024, and it was a team viewing of the resulting 3D model which prompted David Stifter to propose the reading ARV AV ORC. Kenneth Jackson had considered it ‘impenetrably obscure’ (Hunter et al 2007, 115) but to Stifter the most straightforward interpretation appears to be in Old Norse: arf af Orc ‘inheritance of/from Orkney’ [or ‘of an Orcadian’], with arf understood as the accusative of ‘inheritance’ (Figure 1). This new interpretation means that the large blank spaces before and after ‘af’ were intentional and separated the words of the inscription. But was this possible? Could the stone have been visible late enough for an Old Norse speaker to have used it for an inscription given the arrival of Norse speakers is dated after 800AD?
The Norse use of ogham is not an issue – there is ample evidence for Norse interest in the script and examples of its use in Ireland (Killaloe [I-CLA-004] and the Dublin comb [I-DUB-002]), Isle of Man (Kirk Michael [M-IOM-005] and Maughold [M-IOM-006]), and Shetland (Bressay [S-SHE-001]). Of these examples, however, Bressay’s is the only other inscription that arguably contains one or more Old Norse words written in ogham; one could argue that Bressay and Pool form a subgroup within the wider Viking Age use of ogham.
The question at Pool is, how much longer after the 6th-century paving of this part of the site, was the stone visible? To answer this, I revisited the excavation archive in the HES Archives and Library for a better stratigraphic understanding of the stone’s context, for reasons that will become clear below.
The site of Pool on Sanday, Orkney is a palimpsest of structures from different periods. The site began as a Neolithic farming community, and it was reoccupied thousands of years later in the Iron Age by people who built their stone structures into the mound of Neolithic material. Though the semi-subterranean Iron Age settlement began as two paired structures (Phase 5), over time the inhabitants added new structures and renovated the layout of old structures to suit their needs (Phase 6). This was followed by the ‘Interface’ period: though local traditions continued, contact with Scandinavia had a clear impact on the material culture and layout of the site (Phase 7). This influence intensified; in its final phase, the settlement at Pool had been reconstructed into a typical Late Norse farmstead (Phase 8). The frequent creation, maintenance, and restructuring of the settlement evident in the archaeological record often made it difficult for excavators to clearly define sub-phases (Hunter et al 2007).
When the site was excavated, the stone was described as an ‘orthostat’ (Hunter et al 2007, 101) and a ‘thin, earthfast slab, leaning badly’ (Hunter et al 2007, 115) associated with the construction of Structure 23 in Phase 6.4. Further records in the excavation archive indicated that the stone was leaning at a 30-degree angle, with the inscription made on the upper half of the stone. When excavated, the leaning stone’s highest point was roughly 23cm above the flagged floor. If the stone had been positioned upright, it would have stood about 45cm above the floor. Despite its leaning position, after scaling and superimposing the series of Phase 6 excavation plans over each other, the inscribed upper half of the stone was visible even after the repaving activities of Phase 6.6; it also appears on the excavation plan for Phase 6.7 (Figure 2). It is in Phase 7 that the appearance of steatite, artefacts of non-native types and a corresponding shift in the ecofactual record and structural changes are cited as evidence for the arrival of settlers of Norse origin, who appear to have lived alongside the existing native population (Hunter et al 2007, 122-123). During Phase 7.1, though the western end of Structure 23 was altered and continued in use, the ogham stone was covered with 20cm of ‘loose rubble flagging spreading down from the original centre of the building’ (F352 in Hunter et al 2007, 125-126) as part of these renovations.
It is unclear whether the stone was upright or leaning at the time the inscription was carved. If it had been upright like the smaller orthostat situated next to it, most of this stone would have been visible through the end of Phase 6 and at the start of Phase 7. Even if it were leaning as it was when it was excavated, the upper half of the stone would have been visible. However, the impact caused by the deposition of large rubble to shorten Structure 23 in Phase 7.1 could have easily caused the lean after the inscription had been carved. Katherine Forsyth has noted that the splaying of the strokes on the right-hand side of the inscription implies that the stone was upright when it was carved (pers comm).
Whether it was upright or laying almost flat, it seems most likely that the stone would have been encountered by an Old Norse speaking individual before the rubble that buried the stone was deposited, after Phase 6.7 but early on in Phase 7.1. It is also possible that it was encountered during Phase 7.2 when the wall to the north of the stone was reused and incorporated into Structure 27, as this likely would have required some movement of stone and earth, but there is no clear evidence for this in the archaeological record. The radiocarbon dates for Phase 6.7 and Phase 7.1 tend to fall within the range from the seventh century into the mid-ninth century AD, though a date prior to 793 AD seems very unlikely given the context. It therefore seems likely that the inscription was made in the early ninth century AD.
But now we are posed with a second question: what would have drawn the Norse-speaking oghamist to use this particular stone to declare the ‘inheritance of Orkney’? Further analysis of the 3D imagery has revealed that, much like the site of Pool, the ogham stone was a palimpsest of different carvings (Figure 3). At least two human figures done in different styles are visible, though severe weathering has taken its toll, and, if the stone was leaning at the time, only one figure would have been clearly visible during Phase 7 without removing the Phase 6.6 paving stones. It seems most likely to me that the stone was upright at the time the inscription was carved, to add to the existing graffiti figures, and the stone was knocked into its leaning position during Phase 7.1 renovations to Structure 23. The addition of the inscription may then be another instance of how Hunter characterised the Norse occupation of the site: the ‘impression of retrospect and of “fitting in” beyond simply that of practical convenience’ (2007, 520). Though this does not help us understand why a stone in Structure 23 would have attracted so many graffiti figures in the Early Medieval period, it does help to explain why an Old Norse speaker would have been compelled to inscribe it as part of the ‘inheritance of Orkney’.
Bibliography:
Forsyth, Katherine 1996. The Ogham Inscriptions of Scotland: An Edited Corpus. Unpublished PhD thesis, Harvard University.
Hunter, John, Bond, Julie and Smith, Andrea. 2007. Investigations in Sanday, Orkney Vol 1: Excavations at Pool, Sanday. A multi-period settlement from Neolithic to Late Norse times. The Orcadian Ltd, Kirkwall.