Broch and Roman Fort and Museum

Much archaeological fun was had the last few days!

I'll need to find a better forum for the bulk of the pictures but I'll give you a few highlights here...

Here we have an outside and inside view of a fairly well preserved midlands broch. These were round windowless fortresses built around 100BC - 100AD according to my handy book on ancient Scotland (it's a bit before my area of expertise!)

This particular broch is not owned by Historic Scotland and thus has no sign posts, no marked trail, no explanatory plaques. But Janet and I tracked it down and were very impressed. The walls of brochs are very thick--they're actually hollow for most of the broch with a stairway running inside and cells "hollowed" out of the parts where the spiral stair isn't. One story of the stair was left and on the opposite side one of the oval cells. And the entry lintal and the lintal leading to the stair were both still in place. Very cool!

Well, it turns out it's kicking out time in the cafe, so accounts of other adventures will have to wait! Stay tuned for more nifty archaeology!