East Kirk of St Nicholas dig - January 2007
East Kirk of St Nicholas dig – January 2007
Just a few days before Christmas, the dig came to a temporary end. Most of the work is now done, although there are two small areas below staircases at the west end of the site which remain to be excavated once the engineers have worked out a safe strategy for doing that. Meanwhile, the early 12th century apse has been left in place, with its patch of mortar floor surface, in the expectation that it can be consolidated and made visible within the new development. I’m showing a just pre-Christmas photo to remind you of it!
You’re looking north and can see the curving wall of the east-facing apse at the top and bottom of the picture. The floor surface, which occupies most of the photo, has a rounded oblong cut out of it, made by a later feature. The wall along the left of the picture is 19th century: the apse walls go underneath it, tantalisingly into an area which isn’t available for excavation!
The dig can boast some grand and impressive statistics: 3000 archaeological layers, 1170 features, 924 complete burials, 3010 ‘small’ finds or objects, 540 plans and drawings, 842 colour films, 228 black and white films, and around 1600 cubic metres of soil moved up the conveyor belt, down the tube and into the skip. I think that plastic ‘snout’ emerging from the east window of the church must be one of the memorable images of the excavation, accompanied by the unmistakable roar of the dirt and stones pouring down it for disposal.
The post-excavation project had already started before the digging finished, but since New Year it has intensified, with sometimes as many as 20 people involved in the initial stages of it. As Alison Cameron, Dig Director, has been heard to say – this is where the fun begins! Over the next few months I hope to update this Diary every four weeks, which I hope will give an insight into the various processes involved as we begin to turn the vast accumulation of data into a coherent historical, architectural and archaeological story – with lots of help from colleagues near and far.
Here’s a general view of just one of the work rooms. You may notice the large army of stones on the floor between the tables and in the far corner of the space. They are a proportion of the many fragments of decorated and worked stone found during the dig. They’re all ready for architectural expert Professor Richard Fawcett to look at and report on. Their ‘regimentation’ is of significance because we have to comply with very specific rules about floor loading in the building, each stone having to have at least as much space around it as it occupies itself. This is one of the complications which result from such a large excavation, especially when many of your ‘small’ finds are actually quite large!
The tables in the same room are covered with skeletal material from the site. The bones have been taken out of the polythene bags that were used on site and laid out to dry any dampness from them. After that, in another room, complete skeletons are checked over to confirm which bones are present, in comparison with the record sheets filled in on the site. The next two pictures show, first, Maria and Iraia doing that, and second, Larraine carefully brushing dirt from the bones.
Behind Larraine, the large cardboard boxes contain skeletal material which has been checked and cleaned and is ready to be taken to Glasgow University for examination by osteoarchaeologist Paul Duffy, who has been commissioned to undertake the report on the human remains.
The initial post-excavation process is time-consuming and can sometimes seem tedious compared with the excitement of the dig. There’s a lot of paperwork involved - the next photo shows Gemma and Dave cross-checking plans and notebooks – but it needs to be done while the site personnel are still around and capable of recalling detail and correcting any discrepancies!
And new discoveries are being made, too. For example, here’s Jack with two fragments of an ivory knife handle which he found while sorting through animal bone remains from the site.
And in the following picture a close-up of that object, which we know came from the 19th century blocking of one of the medieval entrances to St Mary’s Chapel. The handle was decorated with a human face and hands – I hope you can see them!?
Also found by Jack, while cleaning a skull, was a delicate gold ear-ring, probably of 17th or 18th century date, and very similar to another found at the site.
Meanwhile, a fragment of copper alloy sent to Margot Wright, at the Conservation Lab, Marischal Museum, and pictured below, has been revealed by cleaning to be part of a small bell.
For further information and comment, please contact judiths@aberdeencity.gov.uk: 01224 523658.
East Kirk of St Nicholas Week 46
