Kingoodie artifact

The Kingoodie Quarry, where the Kingoodie artifact was found.

The Kingoodie artifact (also known as Kingoodie hammer) is an object with the characteristics of a corroded iron nail found in a block of Devonian sandstone in 1844 in the Kingoodie Quarry in Kingoodie, Scotland.

David Brewster reported to the British Association that the nail was found when a rough block of stone was being prepared for dressing. The nail was discovered when the overlying clay was cleared from the stone, with half an inch (12.7 mm) of the nail projecting into the clay and the remainder of the nail lying along the surface of the stone to within an inch of the head which went down into the stone. It is not known from what part of the quarry the stone came from, and it was handled at least four or five times between being found in the quarry and moved to where it was dressed.^[1]

There are, however, few references to this object, and the mysteries surrounding its discovery were typical for the nineteenth century. Most such mysteries were resolved by the twentieth century.^[2]

Notes

1. Brewster, Sir David (1845). "Queries and Statements concerning a Nail found imbedded in a Block of Sandstone obtained from Kingoodie (Mylnfield) Quarry, North Britain". Report of the Fourteenth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. London: John Murray: 51. Retrieved 2008-02-03.
2. Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews and James Doeser (2007-08-19). "A nail in Devonian sandstone from Kingoodie, Scotland". Bad Archaeology.