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During a spell of fine April weather we were in Argyll and made a visit to the Kilmartin area. There are an astonishing 800 historic sites within a 10 kilometre radius of Kilmartin, the vast majority of them prehistoric. They include over 350 monuments, incised rocks, cairns and burial sites. The nearby Kilmartin House museum has an excellent collection of artefacts and interpretative material and is well worth a visit.
Five of the burial sites form a linear cemetery over 5 kilometres of land. Also formed in a linear pattern are the Nether Largie standing stones. The stones are in fields and are easy to reach.
The stones are arranged in small groups interspersed with solitary stones and date from Neolithic times. Many theories have been put forward as to the function of the linear arrangements, but unlike the sone circles near my home in the north east of Scotland, there seems no obvious alignment with either the sun or moon.
Perhaps it's fitting that there should be arrangements that the modern mind just can't fathom. It's certainly an atmospheric place.
Just a few hundred yards away, two stone circles stand in the appropriately named Temple Wood. Both are surrounded by a kerb of stones. Here again, the alignment is not truly understood. The oldest stones were placed here 3000 BC and there is evidence that wooden posts were in place prior to that. The trees were planted in Victorian times to give the place more "atmosphere".
The smaller circle has just a couple of standing stones remaining. There is the intruiging possibility that this circle was buried under a cairn (there are other large cairns close by). It's fascinating to speculate on the meaning of this - was it an act of decommisioning the circle? Was burying the stones intended to preserve their power and symbolism, or to smother it?
In Neolithic times Kilmartin must have been a place of immense significance. It is contained within a long open glen and must have been a visible statement of power and ceremony. Even in the bright sunlight of a spring morning there is something special here.
A few kilometres to the south (easy walking on quiet-ish roads) lies Dunadd. At just 55 metres, it's not going to get into many tick lists, but has significance out of all proportion to its height.
Today this small hill stands above marshy farmland and from a distance is unremarkable. Between AD500 and 900 however, this was the power base of the Scottish kingdom of Dalriada. The Scots were migrants from Ireland and settled here about AD500. They were in sporadic conflict with the Picts through much of the period that Dunadd was in use, eventually subduing their rivals and forming the early kingdom which became known as Scotland.
The short climb to the summit has a couple of very mild steps where hands need to come out of pockets, but is both easy and quick - less than 15 minutes from the car park.
The prefix "Dun" indicates a hillfort and that's exactly what Dunadd was. Sitting above the River Add, the hill has a commanding view over the surrounding landscape and the sea approaches to what is now the Crinan canal and to the Firth of Lorn. There are clear remains of walls and buildings on two or three levels, a natural fissure was exploited to provide a defended entrance and half way up the hill is a well. The hillfort would have been an easily defended stronghold, but its significance is much greater than that of a "normal" hillfort. Dunadd seems to have been the coronation place and power base of kings.
On the summit rocks, a slab has a footprint incised in it. Nearby, a bowl is incised into a smaller slab and a boar symbol and some Ogham text are inscribed on rocks close to the summit. It is thought that, following the Irish tradition, kings were crowned whilst placing their foot in this footprint.
It's not too difficult to imagine the ceremony and significance of this act, and it is fascinating to speculate on the true meaning of it. Was it a symbolic joining of a king to the land, or was it an act to demonstrate mastery over it? The overwhelming feeling I got from Dunad was that as much as it was a place to defend and to see out from, it was also a place to
be seen, an ostentatious mark of power.
Though many visitors place their own foot in this footprint, we didn't. The simplicity and symbolism invested here seems to echo down the centuries and it just wouldn't have felt right.
The early kings of Dalriada chose their site well, but they also chose a breezy spot! The north wind was chilly and after exploring the remains around the summit we came down, in the footsteps of kings.
