Wellmann Imre szerk.: A Magyar Mezőgazdasági Múzeum Közleményei 1971-1972 (Budapest, 1973)

Fenton, Alexander: Early yoke types in Britain

good fit, and pads were used to prevent abrasion. Nevertheless not all farmers are careful people, and it may be worth examining the skulls of oxen excavated in archaeological contexts for the marks of possible abrasion due to the use of head or horn yokes. Generally speaking, head or horn yokes are fairly straight, with knobs or grooves to hold the thongs that pass round the horns. However, for earlier yoke types, it is not always easy to decide exactly which category Ihey fall into. Two of the Scottish yokes are undoubtedly head yokes (Fig. 1, 1—2). Fig. 1, 1, from Argyll in the West of Scotland, was found in 1890.

3 It has lightly Fig. 1. Yokes from 1. Argyll; 2. Shetland; 3. Meath; 4. Ireland; 5. Fermanagh; 6. Enniskillen; 7. Ireland; 8. Dungannon; 9. Ireland; 10. Ireland; 11. Meath; 12. Mayo. Nos. 1 and 8 in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland; No. 2 in the Shetland County Museum; all others in the National Museum of Ireland. curved neck-pieces, and a horizontal central opening that penetrates the base of a raised crest. The edges of the knobs and grooves for the retaining thongs are so sharp, that it is possible to imagine that the yoke has never been im use. Its length is 104 cm. Fig. 1. 2 recently found deep in a bog in the Shetland Islands,'

1 has three horizontal openings bored through a long comb. The two outer openings are set too far in from the neckpieces to have served for the attachment of thongs to the ^Catalogue of the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland. Edinburgh 1892. 348: „MP 219. yoke of wood, 4U/2 in. long, from moss near Lochnell, Argyllshire — Hubert Paton 1890." "" ^The diagram was kindly supplied by T. Henderson, Curator of the Shetland County Museum.