day 14, september

Day 14

I decided use my last days of the travel to know Scotland, or at least what I can in the time that I still have. After a week in London I was ready to go again. I could do most of what I have planned and some of my trips were really remarkable. There are some things that could have been better, but if I have to choose, I would not change much. The surprises are always welcome in researches like mine.

I left London via Euston to Glasgow at 9:30 and arrived in Central Glasgow exactly at 14:00. The trains in England are famed for its very good timing, and they should. Despite of being half-sleep and my bad location in most of the journey, I could appreciate the landscape. At some point we had more hilly and reforested (Pinus) landscape. Amongst the few cities I could spot, Carslile call my attention for the medieval remains and looked a bit more interesting place. It is where Hadriann Wall starts and crosses the country, wisely devised where the land gets strait. The wall was constructed to create a barrier against the raids of the Celtic hoards.

The Roman invasion in Scotland by Agricula around the year 80, and reached as far as Glasgow and Edinburgh, where a previous wall was constructed (the Antonine Wall), but it could not go much further. It was very expansive to keep the war against the Caledonians and other tribus, and after a while the Romans had to refrain. As Agricula left the northern position, the position was lost and the wall was left into ruins.

The city as we know today was founded in the 6^th century by St. Mungo, an early Christian preacher. There is no much traces of early settlement in Glasgow, but some miles around is possible to find several remains of older civilizations.

After my regular booking and going to the B&B, I tried to visit the Hunter Collection here in Glasgow. Looking for pictures from the John Hunter Collection that I have visited in London, I’ve discovered that his brother William Hunter had this famous collection at the Glasgow University, so it was a good day to visit it.

Dr. William hunter was a pioneering obstetrician and teacher, apart of collector. His collection is of wide scope and today is one of the most important in Scotland. Apart from the Hunterian Museum, the Zoology Museum, the Anatomy and the Art Gallery are shown very close, and are held by the Glasgow University. The University was founded in 1451, and have a very neat building.

To me was of particular interest to see the pottery used in bronze age time to bury ashes and bones. Mostly are marked with patterns in the outside, made with sticks and sometimes with the fingers. Some studies suggests that the distinct patterns that can mean something about the identity of the person buried, as some sort of identification.




There are abundance of flints, hand axes and spears of all shapes and sizes, as the collection incorporated some Irish pieces too. The insulation lead the Irish tools to have some distinction from the English and the Scottish ones.

The same independent development can be said about some objects that are only observed in Scotland, specifically the stone balls that the Hunterian Collection has more pieces than any other collection I’ve seem so far. These stone balls richly and originally decorated has no explanation of use so far. They are some of the most beautiful and mysterious objects of the stone age, and the fact that no theory can even be proposed for them, make it even more exciting. I’ve seen them at the British Museum and at Dublin Museum. Some of the patterns are repeated, suggesting some tradition in doing it.

There are some bronze age findings of excavations like pottery, beads, bone remains. It is quite interesting to see them together, although out of the original context.

The collection has some good skull fossils of the Homo family, and they trace a short story containing the Homo Sapiens (200.000 until now), the cast of an Homo Erectus (from 70.000 to 1.8 million years ago), a cast of an Homo Habilis (2 million year) and of an Austrophitecine (2.5 million years ago).

There is a skull from an excavation in 1900 in Clachaing falls, at the Arran island. It is called the Clachaig skull, and was founded amongst the remains of other fourteen men, women and children. Studies proved that it was from the Neolithic age, between 4.000 and 2.500 BC.

There is a lot more in the collection, as it spans a really wide range of interests. I still must see the rest of it, and probably will do tomorrow. There are also some other collections in the city worthy to visit. I know there are some archeological sites around the town, but they all seem very difficult to reach as long I know. So I will concentrate in the city and some collections. It seems that there are good material here and in two days I must go to Inverness where it seems that there are a lot to see in the field.

I did not mentioned yet, but Glasgow looks a gorgeous city, and I had a very good time walking around here today. So I want to enjoy it better than spend the day in somewhere far and get back tired and late.

Tomorrow I will know if it was a good decision.