Scottish Crannog Center to display fragment of Iron Age cloth

The Herald Scotland

23-04-2025

Researchers say it sheds light on the weaving technology available to the inhabitants of prehistoric Scotland – and could possibly have come from a piece of clothing.
The scrap's dense weave means it would have appeared similar to denim when it first came off the loom and follows an unusual pattern which was uncommon in Europe at the time.
The fragile artefact was found buried at the bottom of Loch Tay in Perthshire for, where it had lain for nearly 2500 years, naturally preserved by the silty bed.
It was uncovered when an Iron Age loch dwelling house known as the Oakbank Crannog was excavated in 1979, but was considered too fragile to go on display.
The fabric will be on show at the Scottish Crannog Centre (Image: Martin Shields) However, the public will now be able to see the fragment close-up when it goes on show for the first time at The Scottish Crannog Centre's Iron Age village from today.
The textile will become a permanent exhibit at the Centre on the banks of Loch Tay, and has gone through a painstaking stabilisation and conservation process, funded by Museums Galleries Scotland.
It will be housed safely in a climate-controlled cabinet, preserving its unique fibers and pattern.
Maureen Kerr, an experimental archaeologist and volunteer at the Centre, said: 'The exciting thing is that there's nowhere else in Scotland, and very few places in the rest of the UK, that has a textile of this size and age.
'The weave on this fine textile is called a 2/1 twill which is really unusual for the time in southern Britain and northern Europe as most twill weaves were 2/2. This sheds considerable light on the technologies society had in the Iron Age.
'Twill weaves, which this textile is part of, is a dense, flexible fabric, very similar in appearance to our modern denim weave. It has been made, we think, on a two-beam loom, or a warp-weighted loom.'
She added: "This, combined with the fact that there are the remnants of a possible hem indicating that it could have been part of a piece of clothing, makes it a rare and special discovery.'
The scrap of cloth lay at the bottom of a loch for 2,500 years (Image: Martin Shields) The 'Oakbank Textile,' has been analysed by archaeologists at the University of Glasgow who have radiocarbon dated the material to between 480 - 390BC.
Dr Susanna Harris, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Glasgow, carefully examined the textile on behalf of the Centre.
She said: 'There are very few early textiles of this date and we think this is the first one of this type, of 2/1 twill, in Scotland. Wool was such an important material in Scotland it's been exciting to analyse this piece.
'It's great that the Scottish Crannog Centre has taken this step. It's really important finds like this go on display. It may be a small piece of textile but it tells us a lot about the heritage of Scottish textiles.'
READ MORE:
Mike Benson, Director of The Scottish Crannog Centre said: 'We are absolutely thrilled to be able to invite the public to come and see this amazing find.
"This piece would have been made by a whole community, from the shearing of the sheep, to the processing and dyeing of the wool to the weaving of the textile.
"Our Centre today is very much about community and the one thing that unites all of us is our common humanity through the ages.'
He added: "Through our work with communities and like-minded organisations, we invite all kinds of people to our Centre, for instance, refugees and people struggling with their mental health.
'As well as making our prehistoric history accessible to all, we're also making history together through the different interpretations people bring to our artefacts. It's been amazing to hear the fresh insights people from other cultures and backgrounds can offer.
'We're really looking forward to finding out what people make of this rare textile, which is part of our past but also a hugely important part of our present and future. We hope people will be drawn to see this exhibit, and the rest of our extensive collection, for years to come.'
Experimental archaeologists Maureen Kerr (left) and Isobelle Hanby outside the roundhouse where a warp-weighted loom is being used to recreate the 2/1 twill weave found in the Oakbank Crannog in 197 (Image: Martin Shields) Crannogs were dwelling houses built on stilts or stone over water and usually had a bridge connecting them to the shore.
Very few exist outside of Scotland and Ireland. The first crannogs in Scotland were built on lochs from Neolithic times.
In 2021 the Scottish Crannog Centre was dealt a devastating blow in 2021 when a fire burned down the site's reconstructed crannog, built by archaeologists in 1997.
The Centre opened to visitors on its new and enlarged site near Kenmore last year and the build team is well on the way to completing a new crannog using sustainable and historical construction methods.