Dig Diary – Emma’s second decorated fragment, a fine piece of pottery and a very special visitor
Day Twenty-One
Friday, July 19, 2024
Excavation week four has drawn to a close and with it another great day on site and, best of all, a productive one. To top it off, we had (mostly) beautiful weather too!
Proceedings kicked off this morning with the entire dig team given a complete site tour by director Nick and all the supervisors.
The various excavation strategies for the remainder of the season were outlined as new faces were introduced to all areas of our massive site, while Ness die-hards had their memories refreshed and updated on the latest findings.
These tours are invaluable.
Working on a dig as large as the Ness, it’s very easy to focus solely on your own area and lose sight of the bigger picture. So it’s always good to get out of your allocated spot and see what’s happening elsewhere.
That done, Nick reminded everyone that we’re now at the half-way mark and, with only four weeks digging left, it’s time for full steam ahead.
Among the many visitors on site today were Ola and Arnie Tait – the residents of Brodgar Farm when the Ness complex was discovered back in 2003 and who own the land on which the excavation takes place.
During their tour, Ola took a brief break to try out the Structure Twelve throne – one part of a specially built drystone seating/working/office area outside the trench, to the south of the building.
A suitably grand occasion for Ness of Brodgar “royalty”. Without Ola and Arnie’s incredible generosity and support, this dig would not have taken place.
In Trench Z, Kev and the UHI Archaeology Institute students continued making great progress. Their two-week excavation field school came to an end today and Nick is delighted with their progress. They’ve done a great job!
The hearth adjacent to Structure Two’s exposed wall will now be half-sectioned to confirm whether it is a primary or secondary construction – i.e. does it belong to Structure Two’s original phase or is it a later addition?
A sondage (narrow, deep trench) inserted against the Structure Two’s wall, at the south-eastern side of the trench, not only suggests there is other stone walling in the area, but that the hearth is indeed primary.
Kev will return to Trench Z next week to continue work.
At the north end of Structure One, eagle-eyed Emma has done it again.
Last year, she spotted a beautiful, but tiny, fragment of decorated stone. Today, while removing midden to the south of the exposed wall of Structure Forty, she found another.
Although her latest find is not as extensively decorated as 2023’s, it features, among others, the tips of at least three finely incised chevron tips. Let’s hope other fragments of the stone survive and will emerge in the coming days.
Over in Structure Twenty-Seven, Chris and Willamettes Hivva and Emma have revealed what appears to be a section of the north-eastern wall/corner.
Work will continue but it looks like a few courses have survived the Neolithic robbing…
Meanwhile, within the building’s interior work to record and remove the last of the collapsed roof tiles continued. That done, we’ll be able to begin excavating through the floor level(s).
After Structure Twenty-Seven’s abandonment, it saw episodes of stone robbing, with people digging down through the overlying midden to reach, and remove, the fine construction material.
While doing this, we think they inserted rough walls to hold back the midden while they got on with the stone retrieval. One of these suspected revetments produced a multi-cupmarked stone today – a decorated stone that had clearly been reused from somewhere else on site.
Among the pottery recovered from Trench T was a particularly fine, and sizeable, sherd excavated by Lorna.
Outside Structure Ten, Jackson and Johanna completed the excavation, and meticulous recording, of an animal bone deposit that was part of the decommissioning deposit placed around the building around 2400BC.
It has been a painstaking process but the results, like the original SmartFauna project, will add to our understanding of this momentous event.
And sticking with animal remains, yesterday we mentioned a suspected antler lying at the bottom of Sigurd’s incredibly deep pit in Structure Twelve.
Today, he spent most of the day lying prone over the pit edge to define the object, while being prodded and jabbed by the unpleasantly pointy orthostats poking from the floor.
As time went on his initial interpretation changed – it’s not in good condition – but, by the close of play today, he had switched back and we’re back on the side of a fairly substantial antler. Work on, and around it, will resume on Monday.
Antler has not been a common find on site, so this is an interesting find, particularly given its location. Definitely worth the bruises acquired during its ongoing excavation.
We’ll leave it there for today. After most of the weary team have just finished working a six-day week, they will undoubtedly be looking forward to some much-needed rest and recuperation.
But we’ll be back on Monday, ready to go again.
