East Kirk of St Nicholas dig 20th - 24th November 2006 - Week 43
East Kirk of St Nicholas dig 20 to 24 November – Week 43
Strangely enough, Jan Dunbar, who wrote the diary last week, omitted to include a picture of herself. I think that’s de rigueur if you’re writing here, so I’m putting one in instead!
She mentioned that she’d been doing a lot of planning (in the archaeological sense of drawing plans showing all the features found on site), so here she is recording a newly discovered part of the early 12th century apse wall – the east end of what was probably a very small church at that early date. The wall lies beneath her drawing board and is curving towards us. She’s in the same location which she showed last week (if you want to click back and have a look) when Stewart Buchanan was standing on the wall she’s now planning. He had a wash basin right behind him in that photo, because that same spot was one of the church’s toilets. It’s interesting that that facility should end up so near to where the main altar must have been in the early 12th century church! Jan has had to do her planning in a very concentrated manner, because that very toilet has to be re-instated for our Open Day on Saturday 25th November. The ancient walls will be protected by a membrane before being temporarily concreted over. As you can see, the plastic pipes are ready and waiting! The Open Day is an absolute must for anyone who’s at all interested: we’ve organised it because there have been so many folk trying to visit us since we closed to the public on 23rd October. The city centre will be very busy that day, because of the international market, so we hope that lots of people will take time off from shopping to call in, particularly as this will almost certainly be the very last chance before the dig finishes. St Nicholas will be open from 10am to 3pm and there will be site tours every half hour, starting at 10.30 and finishing at 2.30. There will be tea and coffee available and plenty of chairs to rest those tired pre-Christmas legs! In fact St Nicholas will be quite a haven from the frenzy, or, as someone has remarked, a place to park your men while you flit from shop to shop! And some once-in-a-lifetime history to see too.
The area where Jan and Stewart were photographed is right up at the west end of the dig area, where it’s been possible to extend the original site by just a small amount. You may have thought that Jan was working in a cramped area, but the next picture, taken on the south side of the apse, is even more evocative!
Another bit of finishing off has meant digging below the walkway into the site, where you can see Maria at work in the next photo.
She’s been excavating a rather fascinating 17th century burial, which was first found 3 months ago – but it’s only been possible to dig it now, by dint of moving the ‘feet’ of the walkway, one at a time. The coffin contained the skeletons of an adult and a baby. Inside it was a scatter of seeds, which might be all that remains of a bunch of flowers. I hope you can see the light brown seeds in the next photo. In the middle of writing this, I have heard that there were also the remains of some beetles - which may have been on the flowers?
At the end of last week we had a visit from Steve Lancaster, Geoarchaeologist at Headland Archaeology Ltd. We called him in to see what he could tell us about some of the soils just above the natural subsoil. From what he told us we think we may have got a clue as to why the east wall of the earlier of the two rectangular 12th century chancels collapsed – because it was built over a much earlier boundary ditch which had then been further loosened by gravedigging in the nice soft ground there. In the next photo Steve’s pondering the meaning of the deposits in another ditch – the one he’s sitting in – conferring with Iraia and Carmen who have been cutting sections across it. It seems to have been an open ditch for a long period of time. Some stake holes within it suggest it either held a fence or had a revetted bank. One of the layers which filled the ditch, a distinctive ashy material, also appeared east of the apse, where it was cut through by some early burials - so this ditch may have originated in the 11th century. We look forward to getting a radio-carbon date from charcoal in the ash layer.
Sometimes while excavating human bones you feel you have an immediate insight into an aspect of the person’s life. That was very much true in the case of one skeleton found last week, which proved to be that of a very old woman who’d suffered from severe osteoarthritis, particularly in her knees, seen in the next photo. Her patellae (knee caps) were flattened and out of shape and had extra bone growth around them.
Perhaps her long life was a very active one, or she spent a lot of time kneeling – like an archaeologist, maybe?
For further information and comment, please contact judiths@aberdeencity.gov.uk: 01224 523658.