East Kirk of St Nicholas dig 4 to 8 September 2006 - Week 32
East Kirk of St Nicholas dig 4th to 8th September 2006– Week 32
Judith Stones, Keeper of Archaeology, writes…
I’m sure that the people watching from the gallery above the dig are getting smaller! I was standing in the middle of the excavation area one day this week and suddenly realised just how far down we are now. Looking up, the roof of the church seems miles away, and the west wall of St Mary’s Chapel, completely buried when we started, now towers above the diggers. In places where the subsoil has been reached, we are just over 3 metres below the floor of the East Kirk – the point where we started. It would be interesting to know how many tonnes of soil have been shifted into buckets and bright yellow ‘gorilla tubs’, on to the conveyor belt and out through the east window into the skip. Actually, I suppose it would be easy to calculate, as we probably know how many skips have been emptied…
As I described last week, there are still some areas which are not so far down, small portions of the site which have only become accessible for excavation recently. We’ve just started digging beneath the main walkway into the site and you can see Iain undertaking that rather tricky task in the first picture.
I’m not sure that I’ve yet mentioned the stone structure or ‘room’ which appears to have been attached to the north wall of the late 12th/early 13th century east end of St Nicholas. We’re not sure of its function, but it may have served in part at least as a sacristy, where sacred vessels such as chalices, vestments used in the mass, service books, and other valuable items such as processional crosses were stored and prepared for use.
You can see its east and west walls, as well as a lot of other interesting features, in the next photo. The east wall of the ‘sacristy’ is running across the picture immediately in front of Mhairi (in the checked shirt), and its west wall just beyond Malachy. To your left, partly hidden by the upright steel beams, is the north wall of the late 12th/early 13th century chancel or east end, from which the sacristy was entered. The ‘floating’ door in the background leads through to the West Kirk of St Nicholas and helps to show how far down we’ve dug. In the demolition rubble of the sacristy was part of a floor tile, with traces of green glaze. That raised hopes that it might have had a tiled floor, so the search has been on to find even a single tile still in place, but no success yet!
There have been lots of other smaller finds within the sacristy, including copper alloy book decorations and just this morning a fragment of bronze chain – pictures next week, I hope!
A tiny coin has just been discovered in the foundation of one of the piers which held up the roof of the 15th century east end. Stewart Thain, our numismatist, hasn’t seen the coin yet, but has looked at this picture you’re seeing now, and has given his initial impression. He’s on his way to look at the real thing (and three others found yesterday and today) as I write this, on Friday! At first sight he thought this might be a Scottish plack, a very base silver coin, but that would have four of those loops or arcs which you may be able to see on this one – and it would also have a shield in the middle. So another possibility is a jetton, or reckoning counter. We’ve found Nuremberg jettons before in Aberdeen, but the design on this one suggests it may come from somewhere else, possibly France. But it could well date from the mid to late 15th century, which would suggest it fell out of someone’s pocket during construction of the pier base!
Emma Thomas is about to leave us to go back to Glasgow University for the 4th year of her archaeology degree. Emma comes from Stonehaven, so has been able to take advantage of this large excavation almost on her doorstep to gain more practical experience, as she’d like to work in field archaeology after she graduates. She’s enjoyed digging, and the ‘great people’ on site! In the photo Emma is taking details of a burial she’s excavated – note the green recording form in the background.
And finally, has anyone any idea what this might be? It’s glass, painted or gilded, pretty, decorative, spiral...but what? It was found some time ago in the fill of a grave. We’re not sure of its date and it’s come to our notice during the process of sorting out finds for photography, in preparation for a small exhibition we’re planning later this year.
STOP PRESS:
Friday afternoon and Stewart has seen the coin shown above. He thinks now that it's a Scottish penny or halfpenny, still 15th century in date. It looked a lot bigger in the photo - the scale is in centimetres, by the way.
For further information and comment, please contact judiths@aberdeencity.gov.uk: 01224 523658.