Archæology: its past and its future work, the annual address to the Society of antiquaries of Scotland |
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Common terms and phrases
aboriginal accidental ancestors ancient Aneurin annals anti antiquarian antiquarian relics ANTIQUARIES OF SCOTLAND appellations archaic Aryan Barvas Bede British bronze cairns Caledonian Caterthun Celtic Celts centuries ago chief Church civilisation collection Crannoge cromlech Dalriadic Darnley's demolition deputation Devil's Dyke digging discovered discovery distant districts documents Druidical earliest earth Edinburgh Europe example forefathers formerly Greek Herodotus Hill houses human habits inhabitants inscription instance interesting Ireland Irish Islands kind of antiquity King kingdom late Lia Fail manuscript metal modern monuments mounds Museum objects olden ology origin Orkney ornaments pagan past perhaps Pictish Picts present preserved primæval quarian race Railway records researches Roman wall royal Ruthwell RUTHWELL CROSS Saxon Scot Scottish antiquities Scottish Archæology Sculptured Stones sepulchral barrows silver similar SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES specimens spirits St Columba St Kentigern St Patrick stone circle superstitions Tara tion Turanian Vitrified Forts weems Welsh written
Popular passages
Page 29 - ... fellowcountrymen — down to the present hour, in despite of all the blessings of human advancement, and the progress of human knowledge. By one kind of antiquity we trace the slow march and revolutions of centuries ; by the other we trace the still slower march and revolutions of civilisation, in countries and kingdoms where the glittering theories of the politician might have led us to expect a different and a happier state of matters. Besides the antiquarian relics of a visible and tangible...
Page 26 - We call for such a central ingathering and repository of Scottish Antiquities for another reason. Single specimens and examples of archaeological relics are in the hands of a private individual generally nought but mere matters of idle curiosity and wild conjecture ; while all of them become of use, and sometimes of great moment, when placed in a public collection beside their fellows. Like stray single words or letters that have dropped...
Page 29 - — an offering to the Spirit of Evil, in order that he might abstain from ever blighting or damaging the rest of the farm. The clergyman of the parish, in lately telling me the circumstance, added, that my kinsman had been, he feared, far from acting honestly with Lucifer, after all, as the corner which he had cut off for the " Goodman's " share was perhaps the most worthless and sterile spot on the whole property.
Page 21 - ... and their forefathers ? For if so, then, in consonance with the usual reasoning on this and other popular tales, the story must have been known in the Ark itself, as the sons of Noah separated soon after leaving it, and yet all their descendants were acquainted with this legend. But have these and other such simple tales not originated in many different places, and among many different people, at different times ; and have they not an appearance of similarity, merely because, in the course of...
Page 46 - ... of useless and churlish Vandalism in the needless destruction and removal of our Scotch antiquarian remains. The hearts of all leal Scotchmen, overflowing as they do with a love of their native land, must ever deplore the unnecessary demolition of all such early relics and monuments, as in any degree contribute to the recovery and restoration of the past history of our country and of our ancestors. These ancient relics and monuments are in one sense national property, for historically they belong...
Page 9 - That before that time they had been living in more northern regions, within the same precincts with the ancestors of the Greeks, the Italians, Slavonians, Germans, and Celts, is a fact as firmly established as that the Normans of William the Conqueror were the Northmen of Scandinavia.
Page 25 - ... zealous workers. This Society will be ever thankful to any members who will contribute even one or two stones to the required heap. But all past experience has shown that it is useless, and generally even hurtful, to attempt to frame hypotheses upon one, or even upon a few specimens only. In Archaeology, as in other sciences, we must have full and accurate premises before we can hope to make full and accurate deductions. It is needless and hopeless for us to expect clear, correct, and philosophic...
Page 27 - ... could better be achieved through ethnological analogy. For instance, JY Simpson in his "Address on Archaeology" to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1860 stated: In our archaeological inquiries into the probable uses and import of all doubtful articles in our museums or elsewhere. . .|l|et us, like the geologists, try always, when working with such problems, to understand the past by reasoning from the present. Let us study backwards from the known to the unknown. In this way we can easily...
Page 3 - ... as disquisitions upon very profitless conjectures, and very solemn trivialities. Perhaps the objects and method in which antiquarian studies were formerly pursued afforded only too much ground for such accusations. But all this is now, in a great measure, entirely changed. Archaeology, as tempered and directed by the philosophic spirit, and quickened with the life and energy of the nineteenth century, is a very different pursuit from the Archaeology of our forefathers, and has as little relation...
Page 27 - ... and a most important subject for due and calm investigation, and the facts handed down to us in regard to it by Caesar, Diodorus, Mela, Strabo, Pliny, and other classic and hagiological authors, are full of the gravest archaeological bearings ; but no doubt also many antiquarian relics, both large and small, have been provokingly called Druidical, merely because their origin and object were unknown. We have not, for instance, a particle of direct evidence for the too common belief that our stone...