Week 4

A dark and murky day though we didn't get rained on. Quite a contrast to Saturday which was like a summer's day when we had 2010 visitors to the site!

Week 4 and the clock is ticking so we have decided to open a trench within a trench. This will hopefully allow us to identify the depth of archaeology that survives here and the nature and date-range of that archaeology.

Brian and Dermot mattocking off the top layer in the box trench

The horizon we are excavating is still yielding the ubiquitous animal bone but also produced multiple broken fragments of a green-glazed pot with a grey fabric and included the handle and a rim sherd (no basal sherds). This may be the same type of pottery as the medieval Scottish greyware Cormac McSparron found when excavating at St Augustine's church last year - we will need to compare them. We also found another rim-sherd of everted rim ware although the decoration is different to that found on Friday.

green-glazed pottery sherds including a strap handle

 

 

sherd of everted rim-ware

 

On Friday we also received a postcard to the dig site!! This is a definite first for all of us, and pretty cool. Thank you Ivor.

 Postcard from Ivor addressed to the site in the car park [the picture on the front is of Cormac' s Chapel, Cashel]

 

Day 15 Friday

Another good day and less scratching of heads.. We think we have the fills/layers of a pit/ditch/slope which are all dipping down at an angle. The ribbed glass we found yesterday in the upper layer has been dated it to to the late 13th to 14th century by Gregory (a glass-man who called by and has previously volunteered with us at Prehen) and identified it as coming from a goblet. Today Grace found a rim-sherd of everted rim-ware (also known as Ulster coarse ware). This pottery type dates to between the early-13th to early 17th century but as this piece was decorated with raised ribs it may be more tightly dateable.

 

We have also uncovered an area of burning, cut through by the burials, and associated with a large stone, a possible hearth stone. This is a piece of dressed stone with a pecked surface and presumably is reused - possibly from the monastery? 

 

 

 

 

Tommy and Paddy were also back and removed most of our spoil heap.