Early tartan

[Graham]

According to the Scotweb site:

The earliest example of tartan dates from the third century AD. A two coloured check, named the 'Falkirk' tartan, was found near the Roman Antonine wall.

My question is whether this early tartan is reproduced today?
Anyone know?

[Jimmy Carbomb]

During levelling operations in Bell’s Meadow, which is north of Callendar Park in Falkirk, a workman, Robert Wallace, struck a vessel of red earthenware approximately the same type and shape as those found by excavators at Hadrian’s Wall. The jar had cracked with the blow it had received and it broke when lifted. A metallic cluster, covered in green mould, as well as the remains of a cloth which had apparently been used to seal the mouth of the jar, was found. Fragments of metal which had broken off the cluster, turned out to be silver coins. There were more than 1,925 coins and the date of the earliest coin was 83 B.C. , whilst the latest was A.D. 230. All the coins appeared used. The hoard of coins was probably the savings of at least four generations. It was thought that they had been concealed about A.D. 240 or 250. The treasure, due no doubt to the troublesome times prevalent then, was never recovered by its owners. It is safe therefore to assume that the cloth found with earthenware jar and coins was also of the 3rd century A.D.

The original is not reproduced anywhere, but IS in the catalogue. There was a modern Falkirk tartan produced in 1989, but it too is not available. The modern version looked like this:



For a better look, you can also click on this:

http://www.clan.com/index.html?tarta...tartan_finder2

Brown - represents the dominant colour of the original cloth

Blue - links Falkirk district with sea via the River Forth and the canals. It is also the colour of the Falkirk "Bairns"

Red - is the colour of the blast furnace flames from the Falkirk foundries

Yellow - signifies wealth and prosperity

Black - the black lines intersect on blue to show Falkirk at the crossroads of all roads through the region.

[Graham]

I really was hoping for a more detailed answer

Jimmy that is incredibly interesting, you are a great researcher!
Thanks so much!

and it's a lovely tartan, very sad it's not available.

[GMan]

What a neat looking tartan! Steeped in history and symbolism. Jimmy thank you for the insight, and I too wish that were available.

[bikercelt1]

What great info Jimmy! You're really becoming quite the source of information for us. I do have to wonder, however, on the concept of a coin dated 83 b.c.. How would the coin maker know it was 83 years before Christ?

Jamie

[macwilkin]

One of the oldest tartans is the Ulster Tartan:

Ulster has its own 350-year old tartan, which has an intriguing history. On 28 April 1956, the Coleraine Chronicle reported the discovery by a farm labourer of ragged clothing dug out of an earth bank on the farm of Mr William Dixon, in the townland of Flanders, near Dungiven, County Londonderry.
The find consisted of a woollen jacket or jerkin, a small portion of a mantle or cloak, trews or tartan trousers, and leather brogues. This was the style of clothing worn by men in those parts in the 16th or early 17th century.
Archaeologists from the Ulster Museum were invited to analyse the discovery. A block of peat containing fragments of the clothing was examined by Mr A G Smith of the Department of Botany at Queen’s University, revealing a high concentration of pine pollen. Scots pine had been introduced into Ireland in the 1600s. The likelihood was that the tartan cloth was at least that old.

Peaty loam destroys flesh and bone while preserving fabrics like wool and leather. No body was found, though it is possible that the site marked a grave.
Audrey Henshall from Edinburgh’s National Museum of Antiquities examined the woollen cloth, which had been well preserved. Its reddish brown staining was due to its being buried for hundreds of years in peat. The trews had been made up from tartan woven in the Donegal style, in strips varying in width and distance from each other. The remaining items were also subjected to rigorous analysis.
Audrey Henshall concluded that while the mantle was Irish, the trews almost certainly originated in the Highlands. The logical explanation was that tartan cloth woven in Donegal had been exported to Scotland. There the material had been made up into tartan trews, which was the fashion in the Highlands. These trews started off as clothing for some wealthy person. When they were unearthed in the soil at Flanders townland, the trews were covered in patches. The large variety of materials used indicated that the trews had been passed from one person to another, adding to the mystery.

The textile expert supported the soil analysis, dating the find to between 1600 and 1650. The original colours proved very difficult to distinguish, which was to be expected, given that the tartan had been buried for centuries. However, Audrey Henshall’s specialist techniques enabled her to extrapolate what the original colourings in the cloth would have been. Having identified the colours red, dull green, dark brown and orange or yellow, the antiquarian stated that the ground consisted of wide blocks of red and green, divided into squares of about one inch by groups of narrow lines of dark orange, dark brown and green.
A hand-loom in the Belfast College of Technology was used to re-create the Ulster tartan, based on the colours of the rags in the earth bank. In 1958 a tailor’s model, dressed in the mantle, jacket, trews and brogues, graced the entrance hall of the Ulster Museum.
The tartan was registered with the Scottish Tartan Society in the early 1970s as “weathered Ulster Tartan”. Later a second pattern, based on Audrey Henshall’s reconstructed colours, was also registered with the Society. This restored version is known as “red Ulster tartan”. The Society accepted that both tartans were genuine.

From: http://www.ulsterscotsagency.com/tartanandkilts.asp

You can view the two tartans here:

http://www.tartansauthority.com/web/...tTartan=Ulster

I've always liked the "Red Ulster" tartan myself.

Cheers,

T.[/quote]

[Andrew Breecher]

What great info Jimmy! You're really becoming quite the source of information for us. I do have to wonder, however, on the concept of a coin dated 83 b.c.. How would the coin maker know it was 83 years before Christ?

. . . date of the earliest coin was 83 B.C. . . . [stress mine]

The date of the coin, not the date on the coin. There certainly wasn't a standard year system at that time. In fact, there wasn't a standard calendar system either. The Julian calendar didn't come into existance until 46 BC (708 years after the founding of Rome). The custom of counting years from the birth of Christ didn't come about until around 700 CE (AD) (and afterwards, Johannes Kepler calculated the birth of Christ to be 4 BC by the new year counting system, but by then it was too late to change it). The Gregorian calendar, which we use today, wasn't created until 1582; it was created to put the vernal equinox as close to 20 March as possible, in order to make Easter as close to Passover as possible (Passover is celebrated at the full moon of the first month of spring, according to the Jewish calendar). However, although most countries adopted the new Gregorian calendar within a few decades, England and their colonies didn't adopt it until the middle of the 18th century. As well as staying on the Julian calendar so late, England also began the new year on the 25th of March, not the 1st of January, so, for instance, the date of 11 February, 1672, in England would be the same day as 21 February, 1673, on the continent (and as we reckon the date today). For us Americans, that means that while George Washington was born on 11 February, we celebrate his birthday on 22 February (because the Colonies continued to use the Julian calendar as well) because after 1700 the Julian calendar had a leap year and the Gregorian calendar did not, making the difference 11 days. If anyone's read Umberto Eco's book Foucault's Pendulum, this calendar discrepancy plays a role in one portion of the novel.

Make sense now?

Andrew.

Andrew.

[zeytoun]

Great post Andrew. And Foucault's Pendulum is a terrific book. I think Jamie was just teasing.

[Andrew Breecher]

Oh, I know he was. I was just showing off.

Andrew.

[zeytoun]

Gee, I knew I should have kept my trap shut, now I look dumb.
From what I've read, it seems that althought the calender has changed often, the days of the week appear to have remained consistent since we started counting. Opinions?
Or, back to the Falkirk tartan, does anyone have an image of the original tartan from the 3rd century? I can only seem to find images of the 1989 Falkirk tartan.