Free Republic

The remains of a 2000-year-old city have been discovered under Inverness and it is being hailed as one of the most important recent discoveries in Scotland. The find near Inverness Royal Academy was uncovered by a team who spent almost a year excavating the remains of seven large roundhouses and almost a dozen iron kilns... the ancient city's "industrial estate" where iron was smelted, bronze was cast and glass was produced... Among the items found below a site near Inverness Royal Academy, now being developed by Tulloch Homes, were part of a bronze horse harness, an enamelled bronze brooch, dozens...

The Roman writer Tacitus says that 30,000 Caledonians massed to stop the Roman invasion under Agricola in AD 84. The bloody battle of Mons Graupius may have been fought near Inverness. Now a major site of the period has been uncovered in the area -- complete with two huge residences, a cluster of smaller houses, and the biggest industrial complex ever found in Iron Age Scotland... In June 2005 we began excavating a palisaded enclosure at Culduthel Farm on the southern outskirts of Inverness in advance of a housing development... we uncovered part of an astonishingly wellpreserved Iron Age settlement...