County Archaeologist for Fife, Mr Douglas Speirs

The FirstFoot “If you’re going to get it wrong, get it wrong big time” Award for 2004 goes to the County Archaeologist for Fife, Mr Douglas Speirs.

He and his team of historical experts were raised to a state of high excitement at the discovery by a woman in her back garden in the Fife village of Buckhaven of an unusual arrangement of stones a couple of feet below the surface.

Upon investigation, the experts concluded that here indeed was a discovery of major national historical significance – a Norse settlement dating back over 1000 years.

And so, the painstaking excavation work began on uncovering what would be the first evidence ever seen of Viking homes built on mainland Scotland.

Archaeologists and historians the length and breadth of the country held their breath in agitated anticipation.

Only when the site had been fully cleared and all the stones exposed, however, did the truth become apparent.

The “Viking Village” was in actual fact a sunken patio, built in the 1940’s and later covered over with soil and rubbish to create a vegetable garden.

Oops.

How did Mr Speirs and his team of experts feel on discovering their mistake? Well, we’ll let him tell you in his own words.

“”It was such a disappointment to find it was only a patio. You can imagine how silly we felt.”

Yes, we think we probably can.

A prime case of not knowing your norse from your elbow, you might say.

The story does have a happy ending however. The woman who made the discovery and called the team to her garden intends to keep the patio as a feature, saying “I think it will look very pretty with flowers and plants growing around it in the summer.”

In light of the “Buckhaven balls-up”, FirstFoot decided to look into the dusty archives of the Fife Museum of Antiquities and we can now exclusively reveal the star exhibits which will soon be on show in their forthcoming exhibition entitled, “Fife, It’s really quite old and very historical”.

Spherical object believed to be the mummified testicle of a woolly mammoth, circa 30 million B.C.
Leather drinking vessel and crude digging tool from the Bronze age
Iron age cart, discovered in the River Tay
Painted hand carved stone figure, probably of Pictish origin
The Ceremonial bicycle ridden by Robert the Bruce to his Coronation at Scone Palace
Roman toaster, circa 43 B.C.
Medieval condoms
Primitive hunting weapon, used for beating wild boar, circa 350 A.D.
Battery operated nasal hair clippers, probably Roman, circa 45 B.C.
Headgear with mysterious hieroglyphic inscription, believed to have been worn at pagan religious ceremonies, circa 9th century
A 4th century compass
Elizabethan radio, identical to the one used by Mary Queen of Scots during her imprisonment in Leven Castle
Stone Age Bar stool