ARCHEOLOGY. 



These are formed by the centre of the whole circu- 

 lar wall being left hollow, so that between the 

 inner and outer shell there is a vacant space of 

 three to four feet. Across this vacancy there are 

 laid at different heights level ranges of flat slabs, 

 which bind the two walls together, while the upper 

 side of each range forms a floor, and the under 

 side a roof, to the respective galleries. These 

 galleries extend round and round the building 

 between the concentric walls. The stair goes up 

 at a considerable slope, and thus traverses nearly 

 half the circumference of the structure, giving 

 access to the different galleries as it crosses them. 



Fig. 19. Section of Mousa, shewing Structure of a 

 Broch, 45 feet high. 



Vertical ranges of windows open from the galleries 

 and from the wall of the staircase to the inside 

 area only, thus providing light and air with 

 security, and shewing that the central area was 

 not intended to be covered in. Although nearly 

 400 examples are known in the north and west of 

 Scotland, the borg of Mousa, situated on a small 

 island off the Mainland of Shetland, is the only 

 well-preserved specimen of its class. It is still 45 

 feet high, and has six galleries remaining above 

 the chambers on the ground floor. Three of the 

 structures in Glenelg were nearly as perfect as 

 Mousa, but were sadly destroyed in the end of 

 last century. Theyare most numerous in Shetland, 

 Orkney, the Western Isles, Caithness, and Suther- 

 land, and less common in Ross and Inverness. 

 One example occurs at Coldoch, near Doune, in 

 Perthshire; another at the Tappock, Torwood, 

 Stirlingshire. One at the Laws, near Monifieth, 

 Forfarshire, is surrounded by extensive ramparts ; 

 and another of great size on Cockburn Law, in 

 Berwickshire, is similarly defended. Reindeer 

 remains have been found in the refuse-heaps of 

 those of Caithness and Sutherland ; but, as has 

 been already noticed, there is an historical record 

 of the hunting of the reindeer in Caithness in 

 the middle of the i2th century. We have also 

 notices in the Sagas of two occupations of Mousa i 

 in the loth and I2th centuries. The architectural ' 

 features of the structures imply that they were the \ 

 work of a people possessed of some measure of j 

 civilisation ; while the contents of their cells and 

 refuse-heaps shew that their inhabitants were cul- 

 tivators of grain, kept flocks and herds, and were 

 able to command considerable supplies of venison, 

 that they practised the arts of spinning and weav- 

 ing, worked in metals, melting and moulding 



bronze (but a bronze alloyed with zinc, and thus 

 the Iron Age, which they imported in the 

 manufactured state), and smelting and foreine 

 iron. 



Nurhagi and TaUyoU. 



The nurhags, a singular class of round towers, 

 of which upwards of 3000 exist in Sardinia, antf 

 the talayots of the Balearic Islands, bear a close 



Fig. 20. Nurhag of Goni, Sardinia. 



resemblance to the Pictish towers of Scotland 

 in their external form and dimensions, though 

 structurally they are totally dissimilar. The Pict- 

 ish tower is a hollow shell, with all its chambers 

 in the thickness of the wall surrounding the central 

 area. The nurhag is a solid cone of masonry, 

 with vaulted apartments occupying its centre, and 

 placed vertically above each other, which arc 

 reached by a corkscrew stair or ramp, winding 

 round between the chambers and the exterior of 

 the tower. The galleries in the brochs were 

 lighted by windows opening to the central area ; 

 the chambers of a nurhag seem to have had no 

 opening save the door. Captain Oliver, the latest 

 investigator of the nurhags, considers them de- 

 fensive strongholds, in which the people shut 

 themselves up in times of danger ; and in this they 

 are exactly analogous to the brochs. Among the 

 Mainotes, says a recent traveller, every house was 

 a fortress, and the whole country was a country 

 of towers. In the Caucasus, the valleys are dotted 

 with stone-built towers. The Koreish Arabs live 

 in towns of lofty castle-like houses of six to eight 

 stories, with rooms so low that one is barely able 

 to stand upright in them. Similar conditions of 

 life no doubt produced the brochs in Scotland, 

 and the nurhags in Sardinia. 



SEPULCHRAL REMAINS. 



In dealing with the sepulchral remains of the 

 early races, we have more. definite data for their 

 chronological arrangement than in the case of 

 the relics from early habitations. In caves and 

 crannogs which have been frequented from the 

 earliest to the most recent times, the distinction 

 between the relics of different periods is often 

 obscured. But the deposit in the tomb was much 

 more rarely disturbed by the intrusion of a later 

 occupant 



It has been said that man is a burying animal ; 

 but we have yet to discover, or at least to identify, 



T 



