Kilmartin Museum of Ancient Culture

Best museum EVER! 

After a £7million renovation when Historic Scotland took over a little community museum, the results are amazing. Not all “look at me, I am state of the art modern museum” like Newgrange in Ireland, which was also amazing.

And who knew, they have whale sharks in Scottish waters.

Plus otters, deer, birds of prey, seals, dolphins, puffins (of course), deer, pigs and wild boar, squirrels, weasels and a coral reef.

Previously bigger deer, mammoths, Irish deer.

Currently uninvited - cats, dogs, rabbits, midges.

More of a subdued but very classy “I have henges, curcuss, cairns, cist burial chambers, standing stones, Christian sites all within about 15 kilometres of where you are standing, and there about 800 prehistoric sites in all; and some of our exhibits, like a 2000BC beaker pot was found just outside the door really - oh and I have easy to read summary posters with great graphics and am very inviting, very hands on”.

So I spun wool into yarn, ground grain, worked on a stone carving and watching my mate make a bronze axe head. It was small but succinct. Visuals, Gaelic and local audio pieces (the locals still hard to understand) and really neat displays. 

Outside we saw one of 5 burial cairns, like the celebrated ones at Clava Cairns, that are arranged in a close linear fashion over 2 miles. We walked to a church next door which had lovely grave slabs, lovely headstones and even one to “Robert Campbell of Duntroon” - is he our Robert Campbell? No, he is buried in Parramatta, but no doubt he named his Queanbeyan property after the one here.  A little drive further on we stopped at the next burial cairn, and next door were 6 standing stones. These were aligned to the mid winter full moon and some mid summer event. At present they are surrounded by a small herd of cattle. 

And then there was a henge, although it was much eroded.

All these things are 4,000-3,000 BC - predating Stonehenge and the Pyramids of Egypt. All before lunch (which was late that day due the glorious weather in which to see these ancient places).

Why is it all here in Argyll-shire I hear you ask. Just like Iona was at the crossroads of Ireland and the bigger island (Great Britain) because everyone was on the water to travel; Argyll was the spot on the mainland where the celts and the gaels set foot from the continent several thousand years before, and where traders or migrants or marauders came from Northern Europe. 

Two recent grave slabs, given that most date from 700-1300AD found in Kilmartin Churchyard:

To be continued…..