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The Modern Myth of Stirling Heritage with Dr Murray Cook - Episode 18 - Modern Myth
770 Plays3 years ago
Today's episode we talk to Dr Murray Cook about his new book The Anvil of Scottish History: Stories of Stirling. We discuss what makes Stirling a place of deep history and how often this is overlooked.
We also discuss excavations during covid and the benefits of being outdoors.
You can find his book from where you purchase books or following this link https://www.extremispublishing.com/the-anvil-of-scottish-history.html
Dr. Murray Cook also runs Rampart Field School http://www.rampartscotland.co.uk/
Stirling University Profile - https://www.stir.ac.uk/about/faculties/arts-humanities/our-research/centre-for-environment-heritageand-policy/people/honorary-and-associate-members/dr-murray-cook---hon-research-fellow/
PLease also forgive the intrusions from my puppy.
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Transcript
Introduction to Modern Myth Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
00:00:25
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Modern Myth with me, Tristan, the unarchaeologist on the Archaeology Podcast Network. In today's episode, I'm speaking with Dr.
Historical Significance of Stirling
00:00:36
Speaker
Murray Cook, who's the archaeologist for Sterling Council. He has written many books, journals, articles and other things all about the history happening in Sterling and I think it's a good idea to now talk about
00:00:49
Speaker
you know, what's kind of going on in the central, the most central city in Scotland. Now, Sterling's quite small. How best would you describe Sterling as a place to somebody who's never been there?
00:01:03
Speaker
Well, yeah, thanks for that and thanks for the invitation. Stirling is tiny. There are towns bigger than Stirling in Scotland. I mean, in terms of a British city, it's tiny. In terms of a global city, it's absolutely small. It was a place that had a great historic significance. Its city status was granted quite recently
00:01:30
Speaker
by the Queen. So it's an indication of its status, its location, its history, as opposed to its size. And I live very close to the city centre and I can walk 10 minutes into the city centre and then 10 minutes in the other direction, I can hit the countryside. So, you know, 40 minutes
00:01:55
Speaker
might see you from one end to the other of the city boundaries, so absolutely small. A lovely place though, full of history and of great significance to Scotland's identity and history.
00:02:10
Speaker
And I think that's definitely something that we are going to touch on later, because that's actually very much tying into some of the books that you're written and books that are about to come out.
Journey to Stirling and Career Transition
00:02:22
Speaker
But I want to actually just focus on, why did you end up in Sterling? What drew you to Sterling? I don't think it was the city status being small. I think there was something more. So what can you tell me about that? Well, from a personal perspective, it was simply that there was a job
00:02:40
Speaker
available 10 years ago. No, no, no. I mean, I'd worked. I'd worked in AOC.
00:02:50
Speaker
For 13 years, I got made redundant in the crash, tried a couple of years in Lancaster, and then this job came up, and I thought a good opportunity to get back to Scotland, and a change. I mean, I'd been doing commercial stuff, and this, of course, is the other side of the fence. This is setting those planning conditions rather than meeting them, so I gave it a go and have never looked back.
00:03:18
Speaker
Why did you want to do archaeology anyway? Don't you know that the conditions are terrible, the pay is awful, and nobody actually knows what you do? Oh, sorry, that's the internal information that nobody knows about until they're about two years in and then they finally discover it.
00:03:37
Speaker
Yeah. Well, again, that's probably a product of my age. I went to uni in the early 90s. I got a grant. Only a small proportion of the population went to university. At the time, the idea was simply get a degree.
00:03:57
Speaker
Once you had a degree, you could do whatever you wanted to do, and literally the ground changed under my feet as a first member of my family to go to university. So archaeology sounded fun, but I didn't really know what to do afterwards, fell into archaeology.
Rewriting History Through Archaeology
00:04:15
Speaker
Yeah, I was one of those lucky few that had a degree at the start of the 90s boom and obviously rode that from subcontractor to commercial director at AOC. And, you know, for 13 years, there was a lot of fun, there was a lot of pressure. Commercial archaeology got harder and harder and harder, I think. I don't envy anybody that's still in it. But if you have fun,
00:04:45
Speaker
If you can have fun in archaeology, I think it's the best job in the world. But it's finding where you can have fun. For me personally, my journey was very, very mixed. I came into university doing a science degree, and I left with an archaeology degree. That's not a shade on archaeology, by the way. It was chemistry I came in with. But I did change, but I actually changed because I actually found archaeological theory very interesting. That actually was the thing that changed me.
00:05:14
Speaker
I'm wondering in terms of archaeology at the moment, what parts of archaeology really interest you? Like, what is the kind of thing about archaeology that's just like, like other people, they like these kind of time zones, they like this kind of like, oh, I like these kind of artifacts, what's in it for you that really, like fires you up? Well, it's discovery. It's the
00:05:42
Speaker
It's the simple process of discovery. You put a spade in the ground. You find something that no one's seen for 1,000 years, 2,000 years. That's brilliant in and of itself. If you keep doing it and you end up with one site after another after another, you end up, you can rewrite history or prehistory. Every day is different.
00:06:05
Speaker
I think it's I think being outside is fantastic. Archaeology also and certainly the type of archaeology I've started to do and I should say that within the council role
Types of Archaeological Digs
00:06:20
Speaker
I spend a lot of my time, my free time and my own time, if there are people listening, actually researching archaeology, digging sites, digging nice sites and actually being outside on a nice site with people that want to be there when there are no timetabling pressures. If we want to take a day, if we want to take a year,
00:06:43
Speaker
If we want to take five years, it doesn't matter. As long as we write it up, we do the post-ex, cover all the costs, but I do as much or as little and everybody wants to be there. So everybody is having a good time. And if you're having a good time and everybody around you is having a good time,
00:07:00
Speaker
that's just that's a recipe for a long, happy life as far as I can tell. And so you've, you've been doing these, I mean, are they kind of like, what are the kind of people that come to these digs that you do? I'm assuming it's not just to you by yourself? And, you know, who do you have that come? Well, I do I do two different
00:07:22
Speaker
broadly two different types of digs. Over the summer, July and August, I do kind of fee-paying field schools. And these get students through to kind of mature students, people on holiday, people that want to dig, people that want to come back to the profession, people that want to try a day on a dig.
00:07:44
Speaker
and see what it's like. But then the rest of the year, in Stirling specifically, I do a mixture of things. I have, I kind of add hockey relationship with a number of students. They do placements with me. We do a mixture of data entry, learning the planning system, and then every now and again, a weekend, a long weekend.
00:08:08
Speaker
we'll dig a site. So I kind of teach them the basics of how to dig, how to write up, what's expected. And it's just local volunteers. So people that live in Sterling or within a few miles of Sterling. And I have an email list of upwards of 1,000 names. Various people come along. Sometimes they come for a day. Sometimes they keep coming back. And you build your team on that.
00:08:38
Speaker
but not doing complicated things, small scale keyhole targeted at major stratigraphic blocks, trying to get dating evidence. So yeah, very good, all good fun. Yeah.
Promoting Heritage via Social Media
00:08:53
Speaker
I'm quite intrigued in some of your, you know, you're quite active on social media on the Sterling Archaeology Facebook page. And I'm just wondering what, you know, like, I'll be honest here,
00:09:07
Speaker
And a lot of people in archaeology and heritage are not very au fait with the most modern of technologies. I think some people have managed the blog. Obviously, we at the archaeology podcast network have taken over the airwaves. But I think generally, there's not really
00:09:26
Speaker
There's some really good examples of stuff like the KTH Rock project. But what made you say, right, I need to make a Facebook page about this and I need to maintain it? What were the ideas going behind that? Well, I should say I'm not at all media savvy. I don't tweet and I don't have Instagram. I mean, Facebook, it's easy.
00:09:53
Speaker
You know, you take a picture of something, you put a little bit of text, you can put a link to a document, people are interested. I mean, I suppose there is a very much an idealistic position for me. I'm a public servant, I'm employed.
00:10:13
Speaker
by the council, by local taxpayers, to promote and protect their past. So archaeology, that's a hard word. That's a hard word to spell. It's a hard word to pronounce. And there's a definite kind of feeling, or I definitely have a feeling, that for most people, they might say that archaeology is not for them. It's something that
00:10:45
Speaker
Yeah, archaeology is not for them, so it's something tricky. It's something that is hard to gain. It's physically hard. It's intellectually hard. So the Facebook seems to me a way of promoting everything that's going on, of actually demonstrating to
00:11:12
Speaker
demonstrating to the public what archaeology is, how much we can learn about the past, why archaeology is important. If we want archaeology to be important, we have to have the public on side. And if the public's on, for the public to be on side, they have to understand why it's so wonderful. Why is archaeology great? Why is sterling brilliant? How else do you do that other than show them the evidence?
00:11:41
Speaker
I'm just wondering, I've noticed on some of the videos you talk about a secret location that you're digging up.
00:11:48
Speaker
So I'm assuming it's not just because you're living the kind of like James Bond lifestyle. I'm assuming there's some difficulty with that because of the limitations and the laws that you have to abide by. Why are things, sorry, all the limitations and laws that you have to abide by, what is that secret thing about?
Challenges of Maintaining Dig Site Secrecy
00:12:13
Speaker
Why is it secretive?
00:12:16
Speaker
Well, I mean, obviously in Scotland, the right to roam or the responsible access means that you can go anywhere. The difficulty comes when you find that access to a particular location is actually hard simply because of its nature. Where do you park?
00:12:38
Speaker
Where do you park? How do you get there? And how do you ensure that your research doesn't interrupt the kind of day-to-day activities of a farm? So a lot of what we do, a lot of what archaeologists do, a lot of what I do is digging with people's permission. It's not a development issue where
00:13:02
Speaker
They have to clear the land in order for to build houses. These sites that I tend to dig, they're still there. They're on a farm. They're on an active farm. The farmer has to be there. So in this particular case, the farmer is access is tricky. So it's it's in a remote location. It's a 10. It's a five minute drive up a very bumpy farm track. It's then a half hour walk from the farm track.
00:13:31
Speaker
So the farmer is just in this particular case, which I should say is a quern quarry with rock art and probably neolithic polished stone axe sharpening or grinding points. The farmer just doesn't want lots of people on his farm attracted by the interest. So he's just concerned that if hordes of people tried to gain access to his land,
00:13:57
Speaker
farming operations, his business, his livelihood would be interrupted. And that's perfectly reasonable. I mean, the site is anybody can get to the site, but you would have to park something like an hour's walk away in order to simply get there in one of the towns close by and then walk in. There's just no free parking.
00:14:24
Speaker
Um, so very tricky. So that's all that is. It's really just, it's a courtesy to the farmer who didn't want the location revealed. And because he didn't want to be overwhelmed by, um, by visitors, um, you know, I don't think it's an unreasonable request. I mean, we are parking in their farm.
00:14:46
Speaker
in between their buildings and getting in the way of their farming equipment. And there's no way we could do the project unless we could drive and park on the farm. Yeah, totally. I mean, that is quite interesting. And obviously, you've been able to keep this up over this year, I'm assuming, from the Facebook posts. What's it like running a dig during a pandemic?
00:15:15
Speaker
It's interesting. Obviously, the first thing to note is that it's all legal. It's all above board. There's obviously an ethical question. So we have to be very careful. So, you know, what the tears are working within the council area, not traveling beyond face masks, lots of hand washing, physical distancing. It's actually
00:15:44
Speaker
It wasn't bad. One dig we had to completely cancel because we all stayed away. So these digs, everybody is traveling from their own home to a place of work, in effect, to a location. And we're maintaining two meters distance all the time.
00:16:03
Speaker
lots of hand washing. I mean we never actually touch each other. We're outside. Obviously of course I can hear people suggesting
00:16:15
Speaker
Is this the sort of thing that should carry on? Why would we put anybody at risk? And what I'm doing with the digs, I'm taking the view that these are physical activity in much the same way as an organized walk. So rambling can carry on up to groups of 30 through the pandemic. So we're just doing the same thing. People are going for a walk. We're having a dig. We're socially distancing on the dig.
00:16:42
Speaker
One of the, one of the interesting things is actually easier for me is I didn't have to make any coffee. Uh, normally I bring a big flask of, uh, of hot water and, and, and I provide teas and coffees. We didn't do any of that because obviously we didn't want to, um, uh, share things that people might've been handling. So it was, it presented challenges, but just as commercial archeology carried on. So, um,
00:17:12
Speaker
research archaeology could carry on. Well we're going to learn a little bit more about Stearns history and directly what led to you writing about Stirling and after this short break.
00:17:31
Speaker
And we're back. You're listening to Modern Myths. I am currently speaking to Dr. Murray Cook about archaeology and heritage in Stirling.
Stirling's Past and Cook's Book
00:17:40
Speaker
So you have a book that's already out, which is called Digging Into Stirling's Past. Have I got that title correct? Yes, yes. So can you tell me a little bit about that book? Well, yes. I mean, this was just
00:18:00
Speaker
It was going back to those principles. Sterling is a fabulous place. Prehistory is excellent. There were lots of books. There are lots of books written about Sterling, but it seemed to me they always missed the archaeology. They were very good on the kind of the last 500 years. They were very good going back to the wars of independence. So I push the last thousand years was great.
00:18:28
Speaker
But they didn't really cover anything below that. And I just thought, the thing about Stirling is that you can walk within 15 minutes from a medieval castle, you know, one of the finest Renaissance policies in Europe, to a place where Bonnie Prince Charlie stood in 1746, to a place where Cromwell stood or Cromwell strip stood in a siege to a
00:18:53
Speaker
a fort, a vitrified fort, to a medieval battlefield, to Scotland's best preserved city walls. And that list, those lines of superlatives just keep going on and on and on. So the book was an attempt to say, gee whiz, all this is just here in Stirling. All of it is literally under your feet, just round the corner.
00:19:21
Speaker
here's how you find it and here's what it means. And I'm just interested, you actually now have a book coming out again about Sterling.
Stirling's Strategic Role in History
00:19:33
Speaker
So why do you keep writing the same book over and over again? Well, it's not the same book. So what had happened was, I actually have probably
00:19:48
Speaker
six different books, all at different stages of completion on different subjects about sterling. So the starting point is that I believe that sterling is the most important strategic location in Scottish history. Anybody who wishes to invade or resist invasion does it at sterling. So every army from Agricola
00:20:12
Speaker
all the way through to Bonnie Prince Charlie and Cumberland has to come through Stirling. So, you know, you have got Romans, Picts, different types of Celts, you've got Vikings, you've got Angles, you've got Scots, you've got Britons, you've got the Wars of Independence, you've got the various medieval campaigns, the rough wooing,
00:20:37
Speaker
You go through the Jacobites, you end up with a role, an almost incredible role in the Empire where Stirling is this tiny, tiny microcosm of the British Empire because it reinvents itself as a commuter town from Glasgow in the Empire. And simultaneously, while that is, that's happening, all that money from
00:21:04
Speaker
Glasgow merchants, it's a military barracks. So the cemeteries, the houses are all full of people who are entwined in that much bigger world. And then you move forward because of the kind of central connections, because of the transport links. The only way north, south was through Stirling. So prior to the building of the fourth rail bridge, everything went through Stirling. So we have these massive communication network
00:21:34
Speaker
which then, and the massive military base, means that you end up with things like the Atlantic Wall Replica, which was used to help prepare the ground for D-Day, which is the largest amphibious invasion in the history of the world.
00:21:51
Speaker
possibly one of the most important events in world history, you know, the end of the Nazis. So all of that is there, all of this incredible history, this incredible network of connections. So there are endless stories to be told about sterling, endless accounts. I think as well,
00:22:15
Speaker
If I could blow my own trumpet, there are certainly people who know far more about lots of things. I do think I'm quite good at communicating these things. I think I can say that in a way that isn't intimidating, that's quite fun. So it's a way of actually going back to taxpayers, going back to members of the public, communicating to them why Sterling is so significant and why Sterling deserves to be visited.
00:22:46
Speaker
again and again and again, and why it is so central to our identity and our history. So I'm trying to think about the place that this has in terms of public heritage and understanding.
Broadening Public Knowledge of Scottish Heritage
00:23:03
Speaker
I mean, my view is that unfortunately, the public have been shown the menu of history, and everybody orders
00:23:13
Speaker
what they're used to, right? So the person comes and orders a chicken korma every single time because they know what it tastes like. And they like the taste. Now,
00:23:24
Speaker
I feel like a lot of archaeology and a lot of heritage and history is kind of off the menu, you know, it's an off menu item. But it could be just as tasty to a lot of these people. So I'm wondering, what is your opinion about people's knowledge of Scottish heritage? And what do you see as the kind of the, what are the holds in understanding? What are the things that might be missing?
00:23:53
Speaker
I mean, I tend to agree with you. I think there is a difficulty in that if you ask people about their past, certainly in central Scotland, the things that come to the fore are World War II and mining. And these are very visceral, important things that connect people to the local community.
00:24:20
Speaker
There is a poverty of knowledge about that deeper past, about just the fact that there have been people living in these locations for 10,000 years. So I think that we end up in a self-fulfilling prophecy that we tell people the stories that they know because they know those stories. So we tell them the stories that they know. And it goes round and round in circles.
00:24:49
Speaker
In somewhere like Stirling, there is always a difficulty. There is no one story here. And actually, there is, and hence why there is no one book, there are stories about Romans, there are stories about Vikings, there are stories about the Picts, there are stories about Robert the Bruce, about William Wallace, about the world's oldest football, about the world's oldest curling stone, about the rough wooing, about empire, about slavery,
00:25:18
Speaker
about the global dominance of the British state through the 19th century, and actually how to unpick those, how to navigate
00:25:35
Speaker
a general member of the public? What are they interested in? What are they not interested in? What should they be interested in? How to be entertaining and educating without being patronizing, without deciding that this is correct history and this is not? How do we deal with
00:25:53
Speaker
Um, there's a there's a chap I've been reading about his his father is a covenanting minister. He's he's black adder Um, I I don't know if that's the inspiration for the program his dad dies in in jail in uh, the bass in the bass rock So as an enemy of the state fighting for personal freedom Um, that sounds very good. But of course that personal freedom is is white and protestant
00:26:22
Speaker
Um, his son is a slave owner. His son is a virulent anti Jacobite stops, um, Jacobite troops, uh, during the 1715 and actually becomes the embodiment of, uh, the establishment. But he's, as I say, he's a slave owner. So I knew his, his views on freedom were celebrated.
00:26:50
Speaker
And as the state shifts around the 17th to 18th century from the glorious revolution, and Catholicism, Protestantism battle with each other, the right for personal freedom, the right for religious expression clashes with empire, clashes with personal freedom for slaves,
00:27:17
Speaker
I mean, these are very complicated issues. We're struggling with them today. And actually, the only way to deal with any of these things for me, I think, is to actually learn about them, digest them, and see what we think after a period of reflection. Some horrific things were undertaken.
00:27:43
Speaker
And just as we are transitioning from slavery, we embrace child labor through the 18th century. And there are accounts of seven-year-old minors working around Stirling. And that wealth is built. That builds Stirling, builds Glasgow, Edinburgh, all these places, you know.
00:28:06
Speaker
What do we see when we look at the Victorian suburbs of every Scottish city? Where does that money come from? And what do we think about it? And that past confronts us, if we choose to look a bit deeper. I think you're getting incredibly woke here, Murray. I think this is just a politically correct history.
00:28:31
Speaker
ruining the real history, you know, but this is this is the interesting part, I think is, I think we, I think out of the three things that you talked about, you know, learning about something, understanding it, and then reflecting on it, I think we're possibly in the public, I were kind of missing on the two last two of those things.
00:28:51
Speaker
And I think you've highlighted really, really effectively because the end of slavery wasn't suddenly a utopia. Because even the year that slavery has ended, that took a while to spread out. And I think it's really interesting
00:29:13
Speaker
because I have this feeling as a non-Scott that Scottish history is sometimes there's a little bit of whitewashing going on especially when it comes to empire and I find it really interesting how
00:29:29
Speaker
people relate to that history and that heritage. Do you think that people in general in Scotland, from who've talked to, do you think that there's, do you think that people are getting better understanding the history? Or do you feel that there's more that heritage professionals can do, you know, even if heritage professionals will want to do it? Well, I think we can all we can always learn more.
00:29:57
Speaker
about our past. And certainly, I wouldn't wish to castigate the empire too much. Ultimately, what happens with the empire is that we were just better at doing nasty things than all the other nasty people. The first written record of sterling, which dates back to the 12th century, includes a reference to serfs.
00:30:27
Speaker
and serfs being transferred as property from the king, or by the king, to endow a church. Now, are serfs slaves? And there is a question of precisely the legal status of a serf, but our very earliest written record contains the unfree.
00:30:51
Speaker
All of this is extremely complicated. There are no black and white issues. You know, Robert the Bruce, great champion of Scottish freedom, clearly adjudicated on law cases involving serfs. William Wallace is a brilliant man, an absolutely incredible man. How more successful might he have been if he was a member of the aristocracy?
00:31:20
Speaker
was support withheld from him by the aristocracy because he wasn't of the right sort. Certainly, without going into too much detail, the Peace Treaty of 1304 specifically excludes Wallace and a handful of others. We know by this point Robert the Bruce is back.
00:31:42
Speaker
is back in Edward I's good terms. He's surrendered. We know that the leader of the Scottish resistance, the Red Common, who Bruce will eventually kill under a flag of truce on Holy Ground, we know that he signed a treaty. These two guys are quite happy to serve up Wallace on a plate. Wallace's capture is made a specific term of the peace treaty. The powerful are the powerful.
00:32:11
Speaker
And they will always exploit, they always have exploited the weaker. It just, it gets extremely unpleasant in the 17th and 18th century when we do that on the basis of skin color. So the past is horrible. The past is absolutely horrible, yes. There are interesting things to learn about, there are interesting buildings, you know, recovering the remains
00:32:42
Speaker
of these lost societies, these lost generations, archaeological evidence is a kind of very poor, mute substitute to the living, breathing history, or the kind of dialogue, or the accounts, these individuals. But it's what we have, and I think it's all the more precious for it.
00:33:06
Speaker
So, yeah, I think we all have to do more. I think Heritage is professional. Personally, I think if anybody is lucky enough to be employed as a Heritage professional, they have an obligation to sell themselves to kind of proselytize for the profession to make everybody realize how important it is to recover this past. So that what we do with it, of course, do we learn from it? Do we acknowledge it?
00:33:36
Speaker
There's a question of we have to learn from history in order not to repeat previous mistakes. Clearly, archaeology is fun, but it's not the NHS. It's not the police. It is one of the bells and whistles of a civilized society. So we have to fight to ensure that we remain civilized, to fight to ensure that people recognize the importance of the past, the importance of learning from the past,
00:34:06
Speaker
the importance of archaeology.
Citizen Involvement in Archaeology
00:34:09
Speaker
What do you think one takeaway is from people who have that kind of direct connection with archaeology? I'm kind of getting at the idea that, you know, you were saying about the kind of people come on your digs are usually, you know, students or those interested in heritage. What do you think the like, I personally
00:34:31
Speaker
I very much I personally very much enjoyed my time when I very briefly worked as a commercial archaeologist for a very brief amount of time. And I thoroughly enjoyed the the wet windy weather, digging stuff up the getting absolutely muddy. It was it was really it was really enjoyable. And I'm kind of wondering, like, what do you see as the the physical the benefit that people have from directly interacting with the past?
00:35:02
Speaker
Well, I mean, I think the benefits are manifold. You're getting outside. So at the moment, Whitman D is in short, abundance in Scotland. So getting outside, getting that sun on your skin, meeting people, meeting new people, meeting people who want to be there, who are sharing a common aim, that sense of camaraderie, of esprit de corps. These are brilliant things. Learning a new skill.
00:35:32
Speaker
being physically active, getting dirty. Is there some kind of benefit from being regularly exposed to soil as a boost to your immune system? I'm sure I'm healthier for having been knee-deep in mud and dirt for years. I think the idea that citizens are contributing to the understanding of their past.
00:36:02
Speaker
Um, if we collaborate, if we collaborate in one area, do we encourage collaboration in another area is the principle of people actively taking, um, taking control of research of actually getting so involved of learning new skills. So, I mean, for me, I mean, that commercial side to that, if we want to actually learn about the past, we have to dig it.
00:36:33
Speaker
And we can wait for research grants. We can apply for the funds. We can do all those things. Or we can find four or five like-minded individuals and go out and dig it. I mean, obviously, everything has to be done correctly. You have to have the permissions. You have to have the money to publish the remains. You have to research them properly. But if we actually empower
00:36:55
Speaker
our fellow citizens to engage in researching the past. How much richer do we become as a society? How much richer does the record of the past become? All of these things are just there. They're just there for the taking. Scotland Britain has a very open
00:37:21
Speaker
system, a very liberal system with regards permission to dig on archaeological sites. Anybody can do it. And yeah, we want to pay attention to the ethics. We want to make sure it's done. But the fact is that you could come to Stirling next week and you could help us at the secret site. You could do that. There's no law to stop us. We're just going to have fun. You could do an hour. You could do a day. You could do a week. But you would be doing something vital and tangible and you
00:37:49
Speaker
would be making a contribution to that kind of shared passion, that understanding of the past. And that's, that's what I think archaeology can do. And indeed, the type of archaeology I do is directly aimed at doing that, getting the citizen getting the taxpayer to actively engage with their past.
00:38:15
Speaker
I can't think of anything that's more fun. Well, I can, but we've got to be polite. Yeah, that's a great place to stop for a break.
00:38:27
Speaker
And we're back using to modern myth on the archaeology podcast network. And in our final segment, I think this is going to be a little bit more laid back and not as not as not as strong as what are the political ramifications of doing archaeology in society. But rather, let's let's let's let's kind of like open things up a little bit more. And I mean,
00:38:52
Speaker
It seems as if archaeology is a big part of your life, which is probably an understatement. But do you engage in archaeological media? Do you watch TV series? Do you listen to podcasts? That's the real question there. What kind of stuff do you kind of
00:39:14
Speaker
absorb in terms of like heritage media? Or is that a no, no, I'm off my work now I'm off archaeology, I've done my reading today, I'm gonna go and watch some cricket or football or whatever. What's it like for you? I would say that I have some kind of mental illness. And
00:39:38
Speaker
Yes, please don't take that the wrong way. I live, breathe and drink archaeology.
00:39:47
Speaker
I get up at six o'clock most days, I start work, that includes the weekend. I just constantly work at it because it's my hobby. And again, I get into trouble occasionally with fellow professionals because I can't believe I'm lucky enough to be paid to do my hobby. Now, I'm also, I don't really watch much archaeology
00:40:11
Speaker
on TV because I either think they've done it wrong, or I'm not particularly interested in the period that they're covering, or there's so much padding in all of these things. So I like doing it. I like reading about it. I like writing it up. But I do it to extremes. So honestly, I can think of nothing more fun than going outside and putting a hole in the ground
00:40:40
Speaker
in the sun. I don't like doing it in the rain. Um, I don't like doing it in the rain, uh, and the cold too much, but, um, honestly, I just, I can't, I sometimes have to pinch myself. I can't believe how lucky I am to be doing the sort of thing that I'm doing. Um, I, and every day I wake up and it's another day and what am I going to do? And, um, yeah, although saying that, I mean, I do,
00:41:09
Speaker
I like walking, music, all the kind of normal things that normal people like to do. Yeah, of course, of course. I actually, I would like to know, obviously, Sterling's known for a lot of its big history, big monumental history, like, you know, the Wallace Monument, Sterling Castle, stuff like that. Is there any kind of aspect of history, I'll say physical history in Sterling, that's kind of maybe smaller and less well known, but still really important?
00:41:38
Speaker
Well, yes, I mean, there are lots of things like that. But certainly it has this kind of ancient fabric. So there are places where and again, the language here is I have to be careful about it. There are places where
00:41:57
Speaker
Confessed acts of witchcraft took place and are still standing so obviously you I'll believe in witchcraft and I believe that any confession from a 17th century, which Was either the product of torture or some kind of mental illness these things stand And another thing if you wander around sterling you you see there's lots of the borough symbol Which is very important?
00:42:27
Speaker
And the bar of symbol is a bridge, and it has a series of figures fighting over the bridge. And this is an ancient bar of symbol. It's recorded in 1296 on the Ragman Roll, when people from Dunbar had been fighting against Edward I, surrendered, and recorded their allegiance with the impression of the Barisio. Now, there is a Latin phrase around that. I won't repeat it, but the translation
00:42:57
Speaker
And bear in mind, so we are talking about the late 13th century, but presumably we're talking about a symbol that is 100, 200 years older, which might put it into the 11th century, perhaps. The Latin model refers to brute Scots. Now, this is interesting. This means that in sterling at some point,
00:43:23
Speaker
in whatever we're going to talk about, the 11th to 12th century, they didn't think of themselves as Scottish. That Scotland was to the north. That this was a different place. This had a different identity.
00:43:40
Speaker
When we actually look at the periods under concern, so those kind of early kings, the sons of Malcolm the Third and Margaret, so Edgar, Alexander, David, we find that their charters are in three different languages and they are referring to a clearly multi-ethnic kingdom. There is
00:44:05
Speaker
And without going too technical, there is Alapa, the Gallic Kingdom of Scotland, north of the fourth. There is England, which is the Lothians, or the part of England that they are controlling. And then there's Strathclyde, which is British. So Scotland, as we understand it, is a thousand years old, less than a thousand years old. And at that very dawn of history,
00:44:30
Speaker
for Stirling, they were at that critical juncture, that crossroads that linked the three disparate parts of mainland Scotland. And of course, that's not talking about the Western Isles. That's not talking about the Northern Isles, all of which are probably under Norse control, still under Norse control at this point. So this concept of Stirling as a kind of
00:44:59
Speaker
monument as a symbolic place that links what becomes Scotland. And slightly further down the line, we find Scotland's first national Assisi system is founded in Stirling in 1180. There had never been a national court system. So the birth of Scotland, the birth of the identity of this
00:45:24
Speaker
what we consider to be our modern identity is very much tied to Sterling. And it comes back to that geographical record. It's the only way north or south. And there is no other place in Scotland where so much blood
00:45:49
Speaker
so much treasure has been shared to control such a small place. Excellent. So if people are interested in the work you've done, where's the best place that you can find out about it? Well, I suppose the Facebook page Stirling Archaeology is as good a start. If people want to join in, then if they put a note on that page, I have a
00:46:15
Speaker
a weekly email that goes out that talks about lectures, books, free things, digs, walks, and that gets sent out once a week and everybody is welcome to join that. And you just pick and choose what you want to come along.
00:46:32
Speaker
That's nice, nice. And obviously, sort of the anvil of Scottish history, that's due to come out soon. That's out today, actually. That's out today. Yeah, it's an Andrew's Day. My publisher thought it was a good marketing wheeze.
00:46:48
Speaker
And that is a history of Scotland through a sterling lens. So everything from the Ice Age through to World War II, actually. All right, OK. I mean, this episode will be going on after Sandra's date. But I'm quite interested, right? So obviously, I grew up in Northern Ireland. So St Patrick's Day is very, very important. And everybody celebrates it.
00:47:13
Speaker
What's wrong with St. Andrew's Day? Why is everything like, oh, yeah, is it really that day again? What's the problem with St. Andrew's Day? Why is nobody celebrating? Well, I think it's part of the problem.
00:47:29
Speaker
for me is that clearly St. Andrew's relics are not in St. Andrew's. We're just looking at a piece of medieval spin. St. Patrick's real. I mean, St. Andrew is clearly real too, but St. Patrick is a real person with a real visceral connection to Ireland.
00:47:52
Speaker
St. Andrew is a piece of medieval spin, of propaganda designed to elevate Scotland at the European courts. One of the things about medieval politics is that if you're not in the Bible or Roman sources,
00:48:11
Speaker
you're not really a real place. And there's always a struggle to justify small European nations on the northwest. And actually having saints is quite good. So St. Patrick's quite good saint, St. Columba's a good saint. But St. Andrew is one of the key players and closer to Christ, so therefore more important. So if his relics are here, then Scotland must be a real and important place.
00:48:40
Speaker
I mean, you find this in the Declaration of our Growth, which makes references to Roman literature, Roman history, but also contains this idea that we're founded by the daughter of a pharaoh. So we're an ancient war-like people with a place at the table.
00:49:01
Speaker
And to be fair, this is merely in response to Edward I trying to justify that Scotland wasn't a real place and had no right to an autonomous existence. So it's medieval propaganda, personally. So I'm not quoting Stirling Council here, obviously. In your own capacity. Well, thank you very much for sitting down and letting us know a little bit more about the heritage of Stirling. Thank you very much.
00:49:54
Speaker
Thank you. It's a pleasure.
00:50:08
Speaker
Now it's clear, misconception too healthy They told you what you wanna hear
00:50:20
Speaker
Why can't you see that the truth will set you free? Expose this modern man for me!
00:50:41
Speaker
This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.