Dig Diary – foundation deposits, decorated stones and a truly spectacular replica axe

Day Twenty-Seven
Monday, July 29, 2024

We begin today with the story of an axe. A rather beautiful polished stone axe, fashioned from a rock we know came from Birsay.

But this axe didn’t come from any of the Ness buildings. It arrived on site in a package from London addressed to Professor Mark Edmonds. And it really is spectacular. It wasn’t long before the area around Structure Twelve echoed with a chorus of “oohs” and “aaahs”.

Before the 2024 season began, a few of us were on site getting things ready. This included Mark, who struck up a conversation with a gentleman outside dig HQ.

This turned out to be Johnny Mudlark, a renowned artist and craftsman. After their chat, Mark sent Johnny a copy of his book, Making a Handaxe, and today received a reciprocal gift.

Carefully unwrapping the replica axe, Mark was moved to tears.

Johnny had sourced the rock during a previous visit to Birsay and then created something incredible – a replica based on an actual Neolithic axe from Dounby, in Orkney’s West Mainland.

Our photographs really don’t do the beautiful work of art justice but, once again, it highlights just how incredible the Neolithic polished stone axes we’ve recovered from the Ness would have looked when fresh and new.

Mark would like to pass on his heartfelt thanks to Johnny.

And now we turn to what’s been happening across the site on another gloriously sunny, and warm, day.

Structure Ten has been relatively quiet this season. Although sampling floors is vital to our understanding of the buildings and their use, it’s generally not known for producing artefacts with the wow factor.

But now Ten is back with a vengeance.

We mentioned Travis’ cylindrical clay object on Friday, and we now know it came from a deposit that had been capped with a Skaill knife – a simple, handheld stone “blades” created by striking a flake from a large, rounded, cobble.

Not far away we now have a second deliberate deposit – one we suspect marks the construction of Structure Ten.

Surrounding a decorated, triangular stone were a series of objects, including a worked quartz stone, pieces of sandstone and quartz and fragments of bone.

The foundation deposit was carefully placed after Structure Twenty – Ten’s predecessor – was infilled but before Ten’s floor was laid.

Next door, Ceiridwen found two decorated stones in Structure Seventeen, Eight’s predecessor.

The best example is a flat slab with the usual geometric designs, including a filled triangle reminiscent of those on the huge stone block found under one of Structure Ten’s secondary buttresses in 2013.

A welcome return to site today was Dr Jo McKenzie, who was soon set to work taking samples from the hearth in Structure Thirty-Four – that strange little construction between Structures Eight and Twelve.

That done, Alice and her team will now be able to dismantle the hearth and get into the midden material overlying the adjacent “mega drain”.

In 2019, excavation in the area revealed a hole – a large, very deep hole – that led to what appeared to be the largest drain at the Ness.

It’s over 50cm wide and seems to have been drystone built with some of the lintels still in place. The depth remains unknown and it also remains possible that we might be looking at the remains of the outside walls of two earlier buildings close together – a Skara Brae style passage.

By removing the midden material overlying the 2019 hole, we hope to get a bigger window into the drain and, with any luck, its form and function.

Talking of form, work in all four corners of Structure Twelve today continued clarifying the layout of Structure Twenty-Eight.

Not only do we now have the corner buttresses appearing but also evidence for a pair of stone piers. And, on top of that, Michaela has a beautiful section of the earlier building’s floor.

Meanwhile, over in Trench T, the team continued making great progress in and around Structure Twenty-Seven.

At the entrance, Chris, Kate and Owen were looking for the construction cut – the slot dug – for the erection of the very large, decorated orthostat that forms part of the passageway.

So far this is proving elusive, but it might be that the area was disturbed during the robbing episodes that occurred after the building went out of use.

A little way to the north, on the building’s outer wall, another slot, this time square, has emerged in the lower courses. Because it’s so low down it seems unlikely this related to the use of timber scaffolding, so presumably had another role. What that was remains to be seen.

Outside the north-western corner, the removal of the bone deposits around the north-western end continued and is now revealing more paving and possible settings.

Twenty-Seven has already revealed an extensive drainage system and outside the now-gone south-eastern wall, Peter and Nick have been cleaning back to reveal the drain cut underneath the robbed-out stepped-foundation slabs.

Inside the building, Cristina has been removing a spread of charcoal-rich material that has spilled out from the hearth. Its removal will, we hope, reveal the full extent of the hearth slabs.

We’ll draw today’s diary to a close with the news that supervisor Paul has revealed more evidence of earlier activity underneath Structure Five.

We’ve already had areas of burning and a suspected post-hole, nd among the new findings is an cut slot, presumably relating to an orthostat or furniture feature.

It is looking increasing likely that Structure Five wasn’t the first building on site…