2,500-year-old material helps stitch together threads of past

Woven piece of cloth found at bottom of loch on show at the Crannog Centre

- ALASTAIR MCNEILL

A rare piece of fabric that lay buried under silt at the bottom of a Perthshire loch for nearly 2500 years has gone on display.

It was found in 1979 when an Iron Age loch dwelling house, the Oakbank Crannog, was excavated on Loch Tay.

The woven piece of cloth is believed to be one of the oldest of its kind in Britain and dates back to the early to middle part of the Iron Age.

It is now on show for the first time - within a climate controlled cabinet - at The Scottish Crannog Centre's Iron Age village, visitor centre and museum, near Kenmore.

The textile had previously been thought too fragile to display, but it will be a permanent exhibit at the centre following a painstaking stabilisation and conservation process, funded by Museums Galleries Scotland.