Anyone for hnefatafl? Rare game board found at monk dig
Alison Campsie reports on an exciting discovery by archaeologists searching for a lost Pictish-era monastery in Aberdeenshire
Amedieval gaming board has been found by archaeologists working to find a lost Pictish-era monastery in Aberdeenshire.
Archaeologist Ali Cameron said the board discovered near Old Deer was a “very rare” find, with it used to play the Norse strategy game of Hnefatafl.
A date for the board has yet to be established but a similar piece found in Birsay, Orkney, in 1989 was dated to the Late Iron Age/pictish period from the 5th to 9th century AD.
Ms Cameron said: “It is a very rare object and only a few have been found in Scotland, mainly on monastic or at least religious sites.
“These gaming boards are not something everyone would have had access to.”
A Solomon’s Knot, a symbol used to express the union of man with the divine or eternity and immortality, can also be seen on the board.
It may have been a later addition to the piece, Dr Cameron said, with the board also possibly altered over time to become more circular in shape and used as a pot lid.
The search for the lost Pictish-era monastery in the Old Deer area has been ongoing for several years.
Earlier finds in Aberdeenshire brought archaeologists closer to pinpointing the whereabouts of the Christian site which was home to the Book of Deer, a book of gospels which contains the first written examples of Scottish Gaelic.
The monastery, built to spread Christianity into Pictland, disappeared about 1,000 years ago.
Deer Abbey – the remains of which still stand – was then founded nearby in 1219AD.
Excavations unearthed a hearth and a thick layer of charcoal, with carbon testing dating the objects to between 1147 and 1260, which chimes with the later monastic period.
But the discovery of a layer of stone and several post holes also indicate that remnants of a previously undiscovered building lie beneath the ground.
Ms Cameron has been on site for the past fortnight with volunteers to determine whether the stone and postholes relate to the earlier monastic site.
If the link to the monastery and the Book of Deer can be determined, it will be hailed as a discovery of national importance.
Ms Cameron said: “It’s really, really difficult to say what we have. I can’t call it at the moment.
“There are also remains of a wooden building and I have sent off samples of charcoal but we won’t know for another three months what the date will be.
“This has been a fantastic dig and people have been so enthusiastic. We don’t know yet what we have but looking for it is fun.
“If we don’t have the site of the monastery, then we will continue to look for it.”
The Book of Deer has been described as one of the principle antiquities of Celtic Scotland.
By 1000, the pocket-sized book was in the possession of the Monastery of Deer, a 6th century foundation associated with Columba and his disciple Drostan.
Discussions are ongoing between the Book of Deer Project and Cambridge University, which has held the manuscript since the early 18th century, to bring the publication home to the northeast for a year-long exhibition at Aberdeen University.
Dr Michelle Macleod, lecturer in Gaelic at Aberdeen University, has described the Book of Deer as a “tiny book” with a “huge legacy”.
She said notes written in the book, which largely related to local land transactions, represented the first written examples of Scottish Gaelic.
The notes show deviations in the language from the shared common Gaelic of Scotland and Ireland used in earlier manuscripts.
These deviations, of which there are several, are the first written indication that the languages were separating and indicate what people were likely to be saying at the time.