https://www.tartandictionary.org/tags/falkirk/Recent content in Falkirk on Tartan DictionaryHugoenTue, 09 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.tartandictionary.org/posts/falkirk-tartan/Tue, 09 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.tartandictionary.org/posts/falkirk-tartan/<p>Scotland's oldest surviving tartan is not a clan sett, is not dyed, and very nearly did not survive at all. It came out of the ground as a wad of cloth stuffed into the neck of a Roman money-pot.</p> <p><img src="FalkirkSett.png" alt="Falkirk Sett" title="The Falkirk tartan, National Museum of Scotland"></p> <h2 id="the-find">The find</h2> <p>On 9 August 1933, workmen levelling ground near Falkirk — a short way from the Antonine Wall — broke into a buried Roman earthenware jar. Inside were close to two thousand silver <em>denarii</em>, a coin hoard whose latest coins date its burial to around <strong>AD 230</strong>, in the first half of the 3rd century. The cloth had been pushed into the mouth of the pot as a stopper, and that is the only reason a scrap of third-century wool survived to be found at all. Hoard and cloth are both now in the <strong>National Museum of Scotland</strong>.<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">1</a></sup></p>