UHI Archaeology Institute announced the discovery on July 24, and researchers say the red sandstone head likely came from St. Mary's Kirk.
The student team at Skaill Farm on the island of Rousay, in the Scottish Orkneys, uncovered a sandstone block bearing the bas-relief text …TO M…, which many believed formed part of the Latin phrase MEMENTO MORI. Researchers said the block could have come from a tomb in the cemetery of St. Mary’s Church, the same church that may have contained a carved head found at the farm.
The University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) Archaeology Institute announced the carved head discovery on July 24; undergraduate archaeology student Katie Joss found it while excavating along a trench wall at Skaill Farm, according to the New York Post. “It stared back,” said Joss, according to Bored Panda.
“Such an exciting find,” said Sarah Jane Gibbon, a UHI archaeology lecturer. “The presence of the head suggests there was once a building of some splendor in the area,” said Gibbon.
The head was made of red sandstone with yellow inclusions, likely quarried from the island of Eday, and matched molded fragments from the nearby St. Mary’s old parish church. Dan Lee, an archaeologist and researcher at UHI Orkney, believed the head was medieval and likely came from St. Mary’s Kirk. “Very unusual,” said Lee. “You wouldn’t expect this kind of high-quality carving on a farm, and we haven’t found any red sandstone built into the main walls of the farm buildings,” said Lee. “It’s something you would expect to find at an ecclesiastical site, not a farm,” said Gibbon.
“It doesn’t appear to have been damaged, apart from the broken nose tip, but this may have occurred before it was deposited in a later rubble layer,” said Lee. “Stone preserves well in the ground, so it’s not surprising it has survived well. You can see the individual chisel marks where it was carved,” said Lee.
“We don’t know of any other examples in Orkney,” said Lee. “But we haven’t had anything resembling the human form, so this is unique,” said Lee, who added that the head was one of several carved red sandstone artifacts at Skaill, including a column capital. “Very finely built and of high status,” said Lee, referring to St. Mary’s Kirk if the attribution proved correct.
The institute had not determined the exact age or use of the head, though researchers offered theories. The excavation at Skaill Farm was part of a long-term research project by the UHI Archaeology Institute.
Scotland had many archaeological discoveries due to its layered past and preservation by geography and climate, with more than 100,000 sites of interest, including Skara Brae on Orkney. A prehistoric village was recently discovered near Inverness at the site of a future golf course, and on Sanday, another Orkney island, a warship connected to the American Revolution was uncovered on a beach by a schoolboy.
Written with the help of a news-analysis system.