Where the eastern annexe fits into the story of Structure Twelve
Cast your mind back to 2019 and you’ll remember there was great excitement in Structure Twelve’s eastern end – in particular the “corner of loveliness”.
This title was applied to a cell-like feature outside the building’s eastern entrance, which was producing animal bone, pottery and decorated stone on a daily basis.
Initially we thought it might represent a passageway or cell, but how it related to the story of Structure Twelve was not clear. But that has now been remedied, thanks to Jim Rylatt, Twelve’s supervisor.
Jim’s current thinking is that late in Twelve’s life – after the rebuild required by the collapse of the southern wall and roof – a teardrop-shaped cell was erected on top of the paving outside the building’s eastern entrance.
This addition formed part of a new north-south passageway leading to the doorway.
Like its northern counterpart, the small eastern annexe was incredibly poorly built, relying on the heaps of midden accruing outside the building for structural stability.
The shoddiness of their construction strongly suggests that neither annexe was roofed.
The rear of an alcove on the south side of the annexe entrance was formed by a large quernstone that had been inserted on its side.
The quernstone was clearly a significant addition and, despite the terrible walling around it, would have been visually striking.
The alcove itself contained pottery deposits, including a large pot that had been placed on the floor.
The eastern annexe enclosed a substantial standing stone a metre or so east of the two orthostats flanking Structure Twelve’s eastern entrance and perpendicular to them.
This megalith bifurcates the Structure Twelve entrance and its alignment – within a few degrees of east-west – mirrors the standing stone in the “central paved area” between Structures One, Twelve and Eight.
This, the so-called “central standing stone”, was aligned to Structure One’s southern entrance. The stone to the east of Twelve, however, pre-dates the building and appears instead to relate to the suspected entrance of its predecessor, Structure Twenty-Eight.
Whatever its original role, or significance, at the time of the annexe the megalith split it into two clear halves – both of which were found to contain multiple deposits of bone, pottery and decorated stone.
It is not clear how these deposits related to Structure Twelve and its use. It may be that the east annexe remained in use after Twelve’s decommissioning. If, however, it was abandoned at the same time it could explain the nature of the material deposited.
Another ‘butterfly’ stone
On the last day of fieldwork in 2024, another beautiful decorated stone emerged from the eastern annexe – although, technically, it re-emerged because we first found it back in 2019! Back then, Claire and Sigurd revealed a large, decorated slab covered in incisions, including the Ness “butterfly” motif.
Much of the stone’s surface remained covered in midden and because it was overlain by other structural elements it was unable to be removed at the time. But in 2024, those elements were removed and the stone slab extracted.
And when that happened it was clear it had even more decoration, including two more deeply-incised “butterfly” motifs.
2024: The deeply incised butterfly motifs found on the annexe slab. (📷 Sigurd Towrie)
3d model of the annexe from August 19. 2019.
Final feast?
Perhaps the last act within the by-now ruinous Structure Twelve was a relatively large feasting event. Evidence for this is suggested by a large spread of cattle bone deposited by the southern hearth and an even larger deposit of pottery in the northern section.
While the bone and pottery in the annexe may relate to the same event, the fact each deposit seemed to have been placed in discrete episodes, radiating outwards from the rear of the chamber and “blocked off” each time, points to a longer time scale.
Whatever the situation, the eastern annexe was filled with bone, pottery, rubble and decorated stones before being finally sealed off by a wall.
Built behind the entrance-flanking standing stones, it is unlikely this wall was high enough to prevent access to the interior but perhaps marked the symbolic closing of the structure.
