Dig Diary – weather halts excavation (but post-ex produces a stunning bead from Structure Five)

Friday, June 28, 2024 (6:19 PM)

Site director Nick Card lifts the last turn from Trench Z, watched by Jem, Paul and Chris. (📷 Anne Mitchell)

Day Five
Friday, June 28, 2024

And here we are at the end of week one. We’d been mostly blessed by good weather this week, but it had to happen.

Conditions on site this morning were atrocious. Rain came down in sheets and a strong wind blustered down the length of the Ness from the north-west. As a result, the trenches had to be closed to diggers, although the site remained open to the public.

Empty trenches and grim weather. The site first thing this morning. (📷 Sigurd Towrie)

A damp Structure One this morning. (📷 Sigurd Towrie)

Undeterred by the weather, visitor gather outside the site shop. (📷 Sigurd Towrie)

It was a hardy bunch who turned out for the 11am tour, led by Ness stalwart Roy, back for the first time in a few years. Fortunately, the rain had eased off and, buffeted by the wind, Roy and the visitors persevered and made their way around the site.

Braving the elements. Roy and his hardy tour group this morning. (📷 Sigurd Towrie)

Fortunately, conditions had improved for the 1pm and 3pm tours. But only slightly! To their credit, most of our visitors today were distinctly philosophical about the conditions – “It’s just the weather. We’re not going to let that put us off visiting this site” being the general consensus of opinion.

So our thanks to everyone who made their way to the Ness today.

We were due to be visited by pupils from the nearby Stenness school today, but the weather put paid to that. Instead, Chris and Jan, accompanied by Mark, took the Ness to them – running activity sessions on incising and “painting” stone and pottery.

Mark was particularly impressed by the youngsters, whose interest in the excavation shone through in the brilliant questions asked.

Mark and Chris get the deturfing of Trench Z under way. (📷 Paul Durdin)

Naturally, no diggers meant no archaeological work. Well, almost. Mark, Paul and Chris took advantage of a brighter, drier spell in the afternoon to deturf the section of Trench I we are re-opening to further examine 2005’s Structure Two.

To mark the fact the trench is the last to opened on site, it was officially, and ceremonially, renamed Trench Z and is now ready for the arrival of the UHI Archaeology Institute students participating in this year’s field school.

Paul then headed to Trench T, where he captured the images required for an updated 3d model of the Iron Age revetted ditch at the top of the midden mound.

Off site, Cecily, back at the UHI Archaeology Institute, recovered a beautiful, if miniscule, stone bead. Just a few millimetres in diameter, the perforated bead turned up during the processing of floor deposits in the flotation unit.

The bead came from a sample taken from the Structure Five‘s north-eastern, oval extension, from a context relating to its use after the original section of the building had gone out of use.

The tiny bead from Structure Five. (📷 ORCA)

It is truly a wonderful thing to behold (if your eyesight is up to it) and how its creator produced such a delicate, perfectly formed circle is a wonder. Not to mention the perforation.

Meanwhile, Structure Twelve’s supervisor Jim Rylatt arrived in Orkney this afternoon, ready to join the influx of new diggers on Monday, when (weather permitting!) work will step up a gear as we get down to the nitty gritty of excavation.

Others arrivals in the coming days include specialists Cathy Batt (archaeomagnetics), Anne Macsween (ceramics), Seren Griffiths (dating), and Rosie Bishop (environmental archaeology).

So lots to look forward to.

See you Monday…