A 1100-YEAR-OLD coin and the remains of a Pictish building were among the surprises awaiting archaeologists in Moray when they started digging at a fort that was thought to have been largely destroyed by a development in the 19th century.

And the team from the University of Aberdeen overseeing the dig at Burghead Fort near Lossiemouth say the site may yet reveal more significant findings.

The Picts lived in eastern and northern Scotland during the late Iron Age and early medieval periods, and experts believe the fort was a significant seat of power within the Pictish Kingdom, between 500AD and 1000AD.

Notable Pictish artefacts, including the Burghead Bull carvings and a mysterious underground well were discovered in the 1800s, but it has long been suspected that the building of a new town on top of the fort destroyed most of the remains in it.

However, the Aberdeen started a dig at Burghead in 2015 which is now starting to uncover further important clues about the Picts.

The National:

They uncovered a Pictish longhouse in the fort and, while very little is known about Pictish architecture this could provide vital clues about the character of Pictish domestic architecture and the nature of activity at major forts. Within the layers of floor, an Anglo Saxon coin from Alfred the Great’s time was discovered, providing key dating evidence for the use of the house and fort. The coin dates to the late ninth century when Viking raiders and settlers were leading to major changes within Pictish society.

Dr Gordon Noble, a senior lecturer at the university, said: “The assumption has always been that there was nothing left at Burghead; that it was all trashed in the 19th century, but nobody’s really looked at the interior to see if there’s anything that survived inside the fort. But beneath the 19th-century debris, we have started to find significant Pictish remains. We appear to have found a Pictish longhouse. This is important because Burghead is likely to have been one of the key royal centres of Northern Pictland and understanding the nature of settlement within the fort is key to understanding how power was materialised within these important fortified sites.

“The Anglo-Saxon coin shows the building dates towards the end of the use of the fort based on previous dating. The coin is also interesting as it shows that the fort occupants were able to tap into long-distance trade networks. The coin is also pierced, perhaps for wearing; it shows that the occupants of the fort in this non-monetary economy literally wore their wealth. Overall these findings suggest that there is still valuable information that can be recovered from Burghead which would tell us more about this society at a significant time for northern Scotland – just as Norse settlers were consolidating their power in Shetland and Orkney and launching attacks on mainland Scotland.”