Dig Diary – Sunshine brings out the crowds for annual Ness open day
Sunday, July 30, 2023 (7:52 PM)
Open Day 2023 gets under way on site this morning. (📷 Jo Bourne)
Day Twenty Sunday, July 30, 2023
We truly couldn’t have wished for better conditions for an open day. And with the sunshine came the crowds, with considerably more than 1,000 people on site and down at the displays/activities in the Stenness school.
Our thanks to all who contributed their time and amazing efforts to make the day such a success.
As always on open days it’s been been full-on since we arrived on site at 9am, so there’s no dig diary tonight. Instead, we present a selection of photographs from today.
Rest assured that normal diary service will resume tomorrow.
Today’s events got under way with a tour for Orkney Archaeology Society members by site director Nick. (📷 Jo Bourne)Working wool with Orkney Boreray. (📷 Jo Bourne)Working wool with Orkney Boreray. (📷 Jo Bourne)Working wool with Orkney Boreray. (📷 Jo Bourne)A brisk trade at the fundraising Sponsor a Square stand. (📷 Jo Bourne)Chris Gee gets to work incising decoration on a stone slab. (📷 Jo Bourne)Calum from Essex grinding grain on a saddle quern. (📷 Jo Bourne)Calum from Essex grinding grain on a saddle quern. (📷 Jo Bourne)Heading down to Trench T. (📷 Jo Bourne)Sigurd outlines Structure Twenty-Seven to a tour group outside Trench T. (📷 Jo Bourne)Trench J supervisor Paul demonstrates flintknapping. (📷 Jo Bourne)Mark Cook working with nettles. (📷 Jo Bourne)Rosalind from the Finds Team explains the finds recording process. (📷 Jo Bourne)Making simmons – straw rope – with Neil Leask of Orkney Museums. (📷 Jo Bourne)Finan and Logan, from Durham, painting stones. (📷 Jo Bourne)A delighted Finan with his completed masterpiece. (📷 Jo Bourne)Alyssa and Lexi, from Alness, try their hand at painting stones using Neolithic materials. (📷 Jo Bourne)Alyssa’s work in progress… (📷 Jo Bourne)…and Lexi’s. (📷 Jo Bourne)Creating thumbpots with artist in residence Diane Eagles. (📷 Jo Bourne)Down in the Stenness school. (📷 Jo Bourne)UHI Archaeology Institute MRes student discusses paleobotany with visitors. (📷 Jo Bourne)Marine bone. (📷 Jo Bourne)Jen and Julia, from the UHI Archaeology Institute, with the animal bone display. (📷 Jo Bourne)UHI Archaeology Institute PhD candidate Holly Young was talking shells! (📷 Jo Bourne)Ness pottery specialist Jan Blatchford was on had to answer visitors questions about ceramics. (📷 Jo Bourne)Sara and Michael Sinclair with their display of woodturned pieces. (📷 Jo Bourne)Gary Lloyd, UHI Archaeology Institute MRes student, was on hand to talk worked stone, alongside geologist Dr Martha Johnson, who was explaining ‘foreign stone’. (📷 Jo Bourne)UHI Archaeology Institute student Michelle with a worked stone. (📷 Jo Bourne)The chance of a lifetime. Willamette student Phoenix handles a polished stone axe. (📷 Jo Bourne)
