# Elizabeth Fowler (archaeologist)

Elizabeth Fowler was an archaeologist best known for her work in Argyll, particularly on Iona where she participated in the excavation of Tòrr an Aba at Iona Abbey.

## Education and personal life

Fowler was born in London in 1933. As a child she attended Sherrardswood School in Welwyn Garden City. As a young woman she became interested in archaeology, which was still a quite young field that contained very few women. She won a place at Edinburgh University, where she was able to study archaeology.
While in the process of doing graduate work she met Peter Fowler, who was at the time an undergrad at Oxford and "fellow proto-archaeologist." She transferred her graduate studies to Saint Anne's College in 1957. At Saint Anne's she was supervised by Christopher Hawkes in what would later become the Institute of Archaeology.
In 1962 Fowler was awarded her B.Litt. Her thesis, about the Celtic Dark Age, resulted in several published papers. The typology she developed for early medieval metalwork items, especially pennanular brooches became a common reference work. However, pursuing a professional career in archaeology was not possible for Fowler because of gender barriers. Instead, she began to teach history in Wiltshire and later taught adult education classes in archaeology and history at the University of Bristol. Fowler continued to be involved in archaeology where she could, and for many summers she would record and organise finds from her husband's excavations.
In 1979 Fowler and her family moved to St Albans, where she began work as editor of the Magazine Popular Archaeology.

## Excavations on Iona

Iona Abbey was supposedly the site of Saint Columba's writing hut; one of the main hagiographies of Saint Columba is Vita Sancti Columbae, written 697 C.E. by one of Columba's successors, Adomán. In this text Adomán provided a description of Columba's writing hut, which was the site of some of his miracles and prophetic visions. The hut is described as being located on a raised place, "looking east out over the Sound of Iona to the rocks of Mull." A rocky outcrop known as Tòrr an Aba, or the Mound of the Abbot, on the grounds of Iona Abbey.
During the 1950s Elizabeth Fowler (then known by her birth name, Elizabeth Burley), Peter Fowler, and Charles Thomas undertook excavations of Tòrr an Aba with Charles Thomas leading the excavation. The first location that they investigated was Tòrr an Aba. There are antiquarian reports of a cross having stood on Tòrr an Aba, and the excavations uncovered the socket that the cross once stood in. During this excavation, the team noticed that the cross had been erected on top of an earlier structure. In 1957 this area was excavated, revealing the remains of a simple wattle and daub hut with one or two stages of construction. The hut had burned, leaving a layer of charcoal and ash, which had been buried in pebbles. The stone cross was then constructed on top of the site of the hut. The team believed that the remains of this structure could possibly be evidence of Columba's cell, but were not able to prove it with the technology available at the time.
Thomas stored the samples from Iona in his garage and later bequeathed them to Historic Environment Scotland who teamed up with archaeologists from the University of Glasgow to radiocarbon date the material and revisit the site of the excavation. The radiocarbon dating indicated that the latest possible date for the charcoal was 650 C.E., meaning that it is possible that Columba and later Abbots did use that structure.

## Publications

A Catalogue and Survey of the Metal-work from Traprain Law, 1955
Celtic Metalwork of the Fifth and Sixth Centuries A.D., 1963.
The Origins and Development of the Penannular Brooch in Europe, 1960.
Earlier medieval sites (410-1066) in and around Bristol and Bath, the South Cotswolds, and Mendip, 1980
A Fragment of an Enamelled Bronze Bowl from Bradley Hill, Somerton, Somerset, 1983.
A Note on a Penannular Brooch from Godrevy Headland, Gwithian, 1986
Excavations on Tòrr an Aba, Iona, Argyll, 1988