When Onomastics Met Archaeology: A Tale of Two Hinbas

The identification of the island named Hinba, referred to in Adomnán’s Life of Columba, has exercised scholarly attention intermittently for hundreds of years. Successfully identifying Hinba would have the potential to enhance our understanding of the geography, politics and culture of western Scotland in the early medieval period. This article analyses Adomnán’s references to Hinba and assesses the toponymic, material culture and written evidence pertaining to the islands of western Scotland, to propose Canna as the most likely location. A review of the stone sculpture and archaeological remains on Canna supports the proposition. An inquiry into the probable geographical feature referred to by Adomnán as Muirbolc Már includes a summary of the known instances of the placename element muirbolc in Scotland and Northern Ireland and proposes that it may not, as generally thought, indicate an enclosed bay. The significance of Eigg, where one of Columba’s disciples was marooned en route to Hinba, is assessed. An island named Hinba is mentioned several times throughout Adomnán’s Life of Columba. It has not yet been satisfactorily identified, despite considerable attention to the question. Two of the most authoritative approaches have been those of the great placename scholar William J. Watson, who was inclined to identify it as Jura,1 and the leading ecclesiastical historian Richard Sharpe, who has more recently proposed Oronsay.2 Neither island has yielded significant material remains of the relevant period, and yet there are other locations with extensive material remains which have not been adequately examined as potential sites for the places mentioned by