Chapel Hill, Balladoole is a significant historical and archaeological site in

Arbory Arbory ( gv, Cairbre) is one of the seventeen historic parishes of the Isle of Man. It is located in the south of the island (part of the traditional ''South Side'' division) in the sheading of Rushen. Settlements in the parish include Ballabeg, ...

on the

Isle of Man ) , anthem = "O Land of Our Birth" , image = Isle of Man by Sentinel-2.jpg , image_map = Europe-Isle_of_Man.svg , mapsize = , map_alt = Location of the Isle of Man in Europe , map_caption = Location of the Isle of Man (green) in Europe ...

. The site is a short distance from Castletown in the south of the Island. It is located on a small hilltop overlooking the coast. Balladoole has undergone extensive archaeological excavations in the 20th century, most notably in 1944-1945 by German archaeologist

Gerhard Bersu Gerhard Bersu (26 September 1889 – 19 November 1964) was a German archaeologist who excavated widely across Europe. He was forced into exile from Germany in 1937 due to anti-Semitic laws in pre-war Nazi Germany. He was interned on the Isle ...

who was interned on the Isle of Man during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The site has been in ritual use for millennia: archaeological excavations of the hilltop have uncovered

Mesolithic The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymous ...

remains; a Bronze Age

cist A cist ( or ; also kist ; from grc-gre, κίστη, Middle Welsh ''Kist'' or Germanic ''Kiste'') is a small stone-built coffin-like box or ossuary used to hold the bodies of the dead. Examples can be found across Europe and in the Middle East ...

; an Iron Age

hill fort A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...

; a Christian

keeill Keeill (also ''keill, keeil''; plural ''kialteenyn'') is a Manx Gaelic word for a chapel. Etymology The word is a Gaelic loanword from Latin ''cella'', which originally meant a storeroom, or a small room. In both English, and the Goidelic languag ...

(a small chapel); a Christian burial ground, and a Viking Age boat burial.

Excavations

The first major excavation of the site took place towards the end of World War II. German archaeologist

and his wife were interned on the Isle of Man in 1940 as "enemy aliens". Bersu was permitted to use a team of internees to conduct excavations of significant archaeological sites on the Island during their internment. As Bersu used fellow internees for the excavations, they were not permitted to use pickaxes despite the presence of armed guards. Instead, the digging was done with trowels. The discovery of the Viking Age boat burial was an accident; Bersu and his team were originally expecting to excavate an Iron Age hill fort. The site was also excavated in 1951 by

Basil Megaw Basil Richardson Stanley Megaw (1913-2002) was a British archaeologist. He was the first Director of the School of Scottish Studies at Edinburgh. Life He was born on 22 June 1913 in Belfast the son of Arthur S. Megaw and his wife, Helen Bertha S ...

the director of the

Manx Museum The Manx Museum (Thie Tashtee Vannin) in Douglas, Isle of Man is the national museum of the Isle of Man. It is run by Manx National Heritage. In general, the museum covers 10,000 years the history of the Isle of Man from the Stone Age to the modern ...

, and later again in 1974 by J.R. Bruce.

Archaeological sites

Mesolithic remains

The excavated remains of

midden A midden (also kitchen midden or shell heap) is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and ecofact ...

s belonging to the native

hunter-gather A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...

communities on the site have provided evidence for human activity at Balladoole from the Mesolithic period.

Bronze Age cist

The remnants of a small Bronze Age burial cist dating to c. 1000 BC are located on the north side of the site. It is missing a capstone, and there are no records of any finds from inside the cist itself, although it is possible anything from the period may have been destroyed by later activity. Tiny fragments of a Bronze Age cremation urn have been discovered below the floor of the Christian keeill. This indicates that the original pre-historic burial site may have been reused by Christians centuries later.

Iron Age hill fort

An earthwork promontory hill fort encircles the site. Very little of the original stone that faced the earthwork survived although the amount of collapsed stone that was excavated suggests that the wall may have been as high as 3 metres in parts. A number of

posthole In archaeology a posthole or post-hole is a cut feature used to hold a surface timber or stone. They are usually much deeper than they are wide; however, truncation may not make this apparent. Although the remains of the timber may survive, most p ...

s that may have held up very large wooden gates have been excavated which has helped to date the hill fort. The hill fort may have been used for defensive purposes although the large gaps in the earthwork have raised doubts about the defensive capability of the site. Keeill at Balladoole - geograph

''Keeill Vael''

The remains of an ancient keeill on the site has been dated to between 900 AD and 1000 AD. A keeill is a small simple chapel built between the 6th and 12th centuries on the

. It is this keeill that gave rise to the current name of the site: Chapel Hill. Very little of the original keeill remains. In the 19th century many of the stones were removed for building materials in local structures so that the only architectural feature that remains is the doorway towards the west end of the south wall. The keeill was built on top of an older, low paved platform. The discovery of tiny fragments of a Bronze Age cremation urn below the keeill indicate that the Christians who built it reused an earlier Bronze Age structure. Due to the very small size of the keeill, it would not have been used for congregational worship, but rather solely for liturgical purposes.

Christian burial ground

Balladoole is also the site on an ancient Christian burial ground. Seventeen early Medieval stone lined lintel graves were excavated by Bersu in the 1940s. Several of the graves were disturbed by the later Viking burial.

Viking boat burial

The remains of an 11 metre long Viking boat that dates back to between 850AD and 950AD was excavated by

in 1945. The boat was a

clinker-built Clinker built (also known as lapstrake) is a method of boat building where the edges of hull (watercraft), hull planks overlap each other. Where necessary in larger craft, shorter planks can be joined end to end, creating a longer strake or hull ...

oak vessel and was typical of the trading vessels that travelled the trading routes in the Irish Sea during this period. Although the boat timbers have long rotted away, the iron nails that held it together mark its exact location and a stone

cairn A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehis ...

that is still visible today outlines the boat. A large mound would have covered the site, but much of this was removed during Bersu's excavations as it was thought to make up part of the earlier Iron Age fortifications. The site is 350 metres uphill from the shore and is at the highest point of the hill, so it would have required significant manpower to bring the vessel to the site. This indicates that the man interred in the boat was of high social standing in the community and may have been an important landowner, a chieftain, or a merchant. The burial cairn was covered with the cremated remains of animals and the presence of at least one additional corpse hints at the possibility of human sacrifice. Significant

grave goods Grave goods, in archaeology and anthropology, are the items buried along with the body. They are usually personal possessions, supplies to smooth the deceased's journey into the afterlife or offerings to the gods. Grave goods may be classed as a ...

were excavated from the Viking boat burial at Balladoole and many are on display in the

Douglas Douglas may refer to: People * Douglas (given name) * Douglas (surname) Animals *Douglas (parrot), macaw that starred as the parrot ''Rosalinda'' in Pippi Longstocking *Douglas the camel, a camel in the Confederate Army in the American Civil W ...

These included a bronze ring-headed pin and a gilded belt buckle. There were also iron knives, a flint strike-a-light, and an iron cauldron. The most spectacular items, however, were a collection of riding gear, including a bridle, stirrups and spurs with ornamental buckles. There was also a shield, but no sword.

The boat was buried directly on top of and into older Christian graves.{{Cite journal, last=Moore, first=R.H., date=2012, title=The Manx Keeill and pagan iconography: Christian and pagan responses to ideological turmoil in the Isle of Man during the tenth-century, journal=Trowel, volume=13, pages=134–135, via=Academia.edu This may have been a deliberate slighting of the earlier graves, possibly as a sign of pagan Norse domination over the local Christian population.

External links

Gerhard Bersu's sketches of Balladoole

References

Buildings and structures in the Isle of Man Historic sites in the Isle of Man Hill forts History of the Isle of Man Tourist attractions in the Isle of Man