Dig Diary – discovery in Trench Z suggests the ‘Great Wall’ extended to the south-east

Day Twenty-Six
Friday, July 26, 2024

Longtime readers might be thinking the number of finds this season is down on previous years. To a certain extent it has but that’s due to the nature of much of the excavation – the focus in many buildings so far has been the meticulous excavation and sampling of floor deposits.

But all that changed (big style) today. The finds were coming thick and fast with supervisor Anne exclaiming by late afternoon: “We’ve been run off our feet!”

Among these were some truly spectacular discoveries…

The first of these emerged this morning, where Travis is working in a sondage to further explore Structure Twenty, one of Ten’s predecessors.

He emerged from the trench with a strange, circular, clay object that, as supervisor Jim put it: “Looks like the end of a shotgun cartridge.”

This find (which, to be honest, did have a marked resemblance to the end of a shotgun cartridge) was remarkable enough, but, a short time later, Travis revealed another section of this intriguing artefact. The second portion was a tubular, apparently solid, clay object with beautiful, delicate decoration – chevrons on one side and pinhole marks on the other.

What is it? That we don’t know. It’s another first for the Ness, although it did bring back memories of the “Brodgar Boy” – the Structure Fourteen clay figurine found in 2011.

It emerged in two parts (that fitted beautifully) – one not far from the other – so Travis has been briefed to keep an eye out for more (not that we think he’ll miss it).

You’ll recall that last week Ray uncovered a cache of cattle astragali. Working in the same section of Structure Seventeen’s south-western recess today he made a spectacular discovery – the fragment of a very fine, large, worked-stone object.

We’re saying “object” because it’s a bit peculiar – while it looks a bit like a polished stone axe, it’s also has similarities to a macehead. But it’s neither! And one side is distinctly flatter than the other, which is unusual.

Whatever it was originally, it was large and must have had a long, varied life, as evident from the wear and damage to sections of the surface. At some point in that life it was clearly used as a hammer to strike other hard surfaces.

Although it had been broken in half, we think this is the result of its re-use rather than the seemingly deliberate breaks we’ve encountered with macehead fragments.

Staying in Structure Seventeen, just as we were packing up for the day there was the tell-tale whoops of excitement and cluster of diggers that marks another special find.

In the recess adjacent to Ray’s, Alice had found a stunning stone ball. Although these objects tend to (unjustifiably) generate less excitement that the carved variety, they really are objects of beauty.

And Alice’s was a wonderful example.

Another ball emerged in Structure Twelve – again in a recess – when Sara found one of the clay variety while working in the building’s “slow cooker”.

A recurring theme at the Ness is buildings that just don’t play ball. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on what’s going on, they fight back and throw a spanner in the works.

Today it was Structure Seventeen’s turn to be difficult. Earlier in the week, we proudly proclaimed we had finished with its floor but have now been pondering whether we’ve been working on a secondary floor and that there’s another, earlier layer to go!

And to add to the fun, we now have a substantial orthostat placed flush up against its north-western alcove.

In the glorious Structure Twenty-Seven excavation has revealed a few small post-holes inside the building. We don’t think these are structural – like those in Structure Five – but more likely to represent internal furniture or settings.

The big find is back at the north end where the “prone” orthostats that define the building’s interior emerged earlier in the week.

We thought we had two large stone slabs running along the inner north wall but it’s now clear we just have one – like at the south end. The northern orthostat, however, has two notches in its uppermost side. Why? We’ll have to wait and see.

The rubble removal from the north end continued today to reveal more animal remains, including what appears to be a boar’s tusk!

Alongside the north-western wall of Twenty-Seven is a huge robbing cut representing the deliberate removal of the south-western prone orthostat after the building went out of use. Within it Anthea has excavated a huge pottery deposit. The sherds feature applied and incised decoration, some of which is distinctly curvilinear.

Before we launch into the major news of the day, we’ll nip back to Structure Twelve, in particular it’s northern annexe.

Added to the building after its collapse and rebuild, Chris has been working along the outer wall face of Twelve’s predecessor, Structure Twenty-Eight – which was incorporated into its north wall.

And among his find this afternoon was another dog bone this afternoon – once again belonging to a puppy between six and nine months old. And like the “dog in the drain” its size suggests it was from terrier-sized parents.

And now the big announcement…

In the early years of the Ness excavation, we thought the northern and southern boundary walls had connecting walls that enclosed the complex.

Geophysics suggested that the northern and southern walls both ran the width of the Ness and curved at the edges of the isthmus. This was confirmed in Trench J, where the exposed section of the “Great Wall of Brodgar” curved beautifully at its northern end.

This led to the suggestion that the two walls were connected by another pair, running north-west to south-east and which completely enclosed the site. But although geophysics showed apparent linear features between both ends of the boundary walls, excavation drew a blank.

Although “Great Wall” definitely curves at its northern end and runs south-east for a short distance, excavation in 2018 confirmed it stopped abruptly and didn’t appear to continue along the length of the Ness.

Investigating the boulder clay beneath huge stones forming the wall revealed, as expected, large depressions caused by the weight of the construction. But there were no depressions south-east of the wall end.

At this cut-off point the boulder clay was unmarked – which it would not have been had a former section of the wall been dismantled or robbed.

At the opposite, western, side of the Ness, what appeared to be cropmarks, suggesting a long, linear feature following the path of a hypothetical connecting wall, were noted from aerial photographs in 2017.

A new trench – Trench Y – was opened in 2018 but, again, there was no evidence of a wall. From both sides of the Ness, the evidence there were no connecting walls – at least not on a par with the northern and southern boundaries – was stacking up.

Fast forward to 2024 and Trench Z. It was slotted over a portion of Trench I, which was opened away back in the dim and distant past.

The aim of Trench Z was to further investigate Structure Two, in particular how it related to Structure Five, at c3300BC, the earliest excavated building on site.

Work in the small trench, however, revealed a line of huge boulders that were incredibly reminiscent of the construction encountered in the northern boundary wall.

Suspicions we had a continuation of that wall were confirmed when Kevin extended the trench north-eastwards and came across a wall-face that, once again, paralleled that of the “Great Wall”.

Could it be the missing link? Or at least a section of it?

Sure enough, after removing a section of the overlying Structure Two, Kevin revealed another wall face. We had a 4.5-metre-wide section of walling made up of two faces with huge boulders between.

So it seems site director Nick was right all along – although he has been gracious enough not to mention it.

Do we have an extension of the northern boundary wall, running from the north-west of the south-east of the complex? And if so was the site enclosed, as we originally thought, and the wall end we see in Trench J just marked a break?

Questions, questions.

We hope to carry out more detailed geophysical surveys along the path of this “new” wall and see if that can shed some more light on the subject.

Among the many visitors to site today were artist Phillip Hughes, who is documenting more of the buildings, and Orkney MSP Liam McArthur, who has been a long-term supporter of the project and who came for a chat with Nick and learn more about the latest discoveries.

Because we’re at the end of another week, that means we had to bid farewell to a number of people – diggers and meet-and-greeters- whose time at the Ness has drawn to a close. Our sincere thanks to them all for all their hard work and assistance.

We’ll be back on Monday. See you then.