Darkness Visible: The Sculptor’s Cave, Covesea, from the Bronze Age to the Picts

Authors

Ian Armit (ed)
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8669-3810
Lindsey Büster (ed)
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4121-9431

Keywords:


Pictish symbols, human remains, cave archaeology, mummification, decapitation, funerary rites, ritual
Location(s):

Moray, Scotland, UK

Period(s):

Late Bronze Age; Iron Age; Roman Iron Age; early medieval

Synopsis

The Sculptor’s Cave is one of the most enigmatic prehistoric sites in Britain. Excavated in the 1920s and 1970s, new analysis of the archive has revealed a complex history of funerary and ritual activity from the Late Bronze Age to the Roman Iron Age. Using innovative methods and new techniques, this volume re-examines the results of earlier excavations and places the site in its wider British and European context.

***

Winner of the Saltire Society Scottish Research Book of the Year 2021

***

Armit and Büster’s handsomely produced volume transports us back in time to both the late Bronze Age and Roman Iron Age, revealing exciting new evidence for the treatment of the dead in both periods.

– Professor Gordon Noble (Current Archaeology, 2021 'Darkness Visible: the Sculptor’s Cave, Covesea, from the Bronze Age to the Picts')

 ***

Darkness Visible is a valuable guide to a remarkable cave.

– Professor Benjamin Hudson (Scotia: Interdisciplinary Journal of Scottish Studies XLIV: 2022)

***

Canmore ID 1627

DOI: https://doi.org/10.9750/9781908332233

Chapters

  • Front matter
    Ian Armit, Lindsey Büster
    PDF
  • 1 | The Sculptor's Cave
    a place apart
    Ian Armit, Lindsey Büster, Adrian Evans, Tom Sparrow, Rachael Kershaw, Andrew S Wilson
    PDF
  • 2 | Excavation results
    Ian Armit, Lindsey Büster
    PDF
  • 3 | The Pictish and later carvings
    Ian Armit, Lindsey Büster, Adrian Evans, Tom Sparrow, Rachael Kershaw, Andrew S Wilson
    PDF
  • 4 | Chronology
    archaeology, radiocarbon dating and Bayesian modelling
    Ian Armit, Lindsey Büster, Rick Schulting, Derek Hamilton
    PDF
  • 5 | The finds
    Ian Armit, Lindsey Büster, Gemma Cruickshanks, Alison Sheridan, Daniel Sahlén, Colin Wallace, Fraser Hunter, Mark Hall, Torben Bjarke Ballin, Katharina Becker, Trevor Cowie, Lore Troalen, Jim Tate, Sam Moorhead, Nick Holmes, Mary Davis, Dominic Ingemark
    PDF
  • 6 | Human remains
    Ian Armit, Lindsey Büster, Rick Schulting, Christopher Knüsel
    PDF
  • 7 | Environment, economy and subsistence
    Ian Armit, Lindsey Büster, Michael Stratigos, Jo McKenzie, Julie Boreham, Clare Rainsford, Daniel Shaw, John Summers
    PDF
  • 8 | Caves, cosmology and identity
    Ian Armit, Lindsey Büster
    PDF
  • Appendix 1
    Ian Armit, Lindsey Büster
    PDF
  • Appendix 2
    Ian Armit, Lindsey Büster
    PDF
  • References
    Ian Armit, Lindsey Büster
    PDF
  • Index
    Ian Armit, Lindsey Büster
    PDF

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Author Biographies

Ian Armit

Professor Ian Armit is Chair in Archaeology at the University of York. His research centres on the social archaeology of Iron Age Europe and the nature of conflict and violence in prehistory.

Lindsey Büster

Dr Lindsey Büster is a Research Associate at the University of York. Her research concerns ritual in later prehistoric Britain and Europe, with particular focus on the archaeology of death and burial.

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Published

June 15, 2022

Categories

Copyright (c) 2022 Ian Armit, Lindsey Büster and the individual contributors

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Details about this monograph

ISBN-13 (15)

9781908332233

Date of first publication (11)

2020