Lost carvings from ancient kingdom found by teenager
Long-lost medieval carvings from the ancient Kingdom of Strathclyde have been found in a Glasgow graveyard by a 14-year-old schoolboy.
The set of medieval gravestones was discovered in the graveyard of Govan Old Parish Church with the monuments dating to the tenth and 11th century.
They hail from the time when the area was a political and religious power centre on the Clyde and now form part of the internationally important Govan Stones collection.
The find has been hailed as the most exciting of its kind made in relation to the elusive kingdom in 20 years.
Mark Mcgettigan, a 14-yearold pupil at Lourdes Secondary School, was helping out with an archaeological survey of the area when he made the discovery.
Mark said: “I was just prodding the ground to see if there was anything there and suddenly it made a noise and I realised I had hit something. Myself and two of the archaeologists worked out the area of the object and started to dig it out and clean it.
“I wasn’t too sure at the start what it was. But then we checked with the records and we realised it was one of the lost Govan Stones. I am extremely happy, in fact I’m ecstatic at what I helped to uncover.”
The new finds feature crosses and Celtic interlace designs similar to those on the stones housed inside the church.
The Govan Stones, most of which are now housed in Govan Old Parish Church, shine light into an obscure period of history before the nation of Scotland existed, when warlords battled for control of the British Isles and Viking long ships caused mayhem along the coasts and waterways.
A total of 46 stones were found in the graveyard in the 19th century, and 31 of them were taken into the church for safe keeping.
The remaining stones were displayed against the wall of the churchyard, under the shadow of the Harland & Wolff shipyard. In 1973, the shipyard building was demolished and scholars believed that the stones were destroyed in the process.
However, it now seems likely that many of these longlost stones survived given the recent discovery.
Professor Stephen Driscoll, the University of Glasgow’s Professor of Historical Archaeology, said:“this the most exciting discovery we have had at Govan in the last 20 years.”