Lyminge Archaeology

Eagle-eyed residents of Lyminge will have spotted a few of us digging on Tayne Field last week. Gabor and I, along with Nick Pankhurst, (a colleague from the Reading archaeology department who works for the Silchester Town Life project), our logistics manager Stuart Hunnisett and local volunteers Les and Richard went down to the village to hand-dig a few small areas that we won’t be able to target in the summer. To our surprise, the sun shone for a few days and apart from some rather unpleasant high winds towards the end of the week, the weather was pretty good to us.

Myself, Nick, Les, Stuart and Richard de-turfing the marked-out trench in the sunshine.

Opening our 2x12m trench over the possible boundary features

We went in for a few days to test some of the anomalies on the geophysics that we have been wondering about for a while. You’ll notice from the image below right that at the southern end of the field there are what look like two large ditch or boundary features that run along the contour of the field.

The magnetometry survey of Tayne Field. We placed our trench over both linear features to the south near the stream. Click to embiggen.

Our trench in the summer of 2013 will be a 30x30m trench to the north of the 2012 trench and away from these linear features, so we wanted to know whether or not these possible boundary features were of a similar date to the Saxon evidence we unearthed last summer, or whether they are entirely separate from the 6th-7th century settlement.

Cleaning back the trench to show the features

We carefully de-turfed and hand-dug a 2x12m trench across both boundary features, and uncovered one narrow ditch to the north and a much wider linear feature to the south. We then set about digging in to these features to establish their extent and to try to find some dating evidence, our main priority.

Here you can see the cleaned trench with a dark irregular linear feature at the far end, and a browner and narrower band closer to the camera. The chalky area in between is natural geology.

Possible Bronze Age ditch with recut and shallow gully feature running alongside it to the south (the right of this photo)

Nick and I quickly established that we had a ditch with very little in it, with a smaller gully feature running alongside it. It is quite likely that this ditch is prehistoric, possibly dug in the Bronze Age as it seems typical of the period, but because we have no finds at all barring a few redeposited struck flints, it is difficult to confirm this.

What we can say, however, is that this ditch was not open in the Saxon period or later, as we would almost certainly have had at least a few finds were this the case.

The more southerly linear feature, closer to the stream, was a little more complicated. The geophysics were more subtle and what we found certainly tallies with the geophysical survey. The shallow linear scoop appears to be a trackway or hollow way that was probably in use in the early-mid Saxon period. It had gone out of use by the 11th century AD as it was cut across almost its entire width by a large Saxo-Norman pit in the area that we exposed.

Our second linear feature was a wide, shallow scooped linear feature, likely to be some kind of hollow way or trackway. You can see it here cut by a very large circular Saxo-Norman pit, with another ‘dip’ or gully feature just to the north.

We established the likely dates of the boundary features on the geophysics earlier than we expected, on day two, so we began to open a series of small 1x1m test pits over other areas of anomalies on the geophysics. There are several areas that look interesting and while we know where we will be digging this summer, it hasn’t always been clear which of these ‘interesting’ areas we should target in 2014, the last year of this phase of the project.

Stuart, Richard and Les open the first test pit down by the stream

We opened these test pits in order to find out whether it was worth placing a much larger trench over them in the future – we didn’t want the remains of a bonfire from the 21st century to be all we find in 2014!

Nick and I deturf a 1x1m test pit on Tayne Field

The five smaller test pits that we opened were extremely illuminating. While one showed that the geophysical anomaly equated to demolition rubble from the World War II buildings on Tayne Field, three showed firm evidence for Saxon occupation and one contained potential Saxon evidence but no firm dating evidence. Test pit 2, as you can see from the photo, is full of charcoal and associated smithing evidence like slag, and perhaps even a charred timber. Water is a key component in metal-working, so

Test pit 2. You can see lots of charcoal here, and lots metal-working slag was found in this test pit. No dating evidence as yet unfortunately!

assuming the stream hasn’t moved dramatically since the Saxon period (something yet to be investigated), this is an ideal location for this sort of activity. Unfortunately we didn’t get any dating evidence from this test pit, so we can’t be sure that this activity is related to the early Saxon settlement we excavated in 2012.

Another test pit was positioned over a cluster of possible sunken-featured buildings. Nick and I tackled this, and although it is difficult to see from the photograph, we uncovered what looks very much like the fill of an SFB pit, similar to what we found last summer and full of pieces of pottery, animal bone and daub. Although we can’t definitively say that it’s an SFB, it contains early Anglo-Saxon pottery, and the outline of the feature is indicative, so perhaps is an area to target in 2013. A further test pit gave use WWII rubble, explaining the strong signal on the geophysics, and two more test pits brought up early Saxon pottery with lots of daub, animal bone and charcoal, potentially indicating pits or Anglo-Saxon demolition material.

It doesn’t look much but I assure you this test-pit is full of daub, animal bone, Saxon pottery and even a small piece of very degraded copper alloy, all typical finds from a sunken-featured building

All in all, a very exciting and rewarding week, where the Site Director and the Post-doc (me) actually got properly stuck in digging for a change! We now have a much better idea about where to position our 2014 trenches, and how much of Tayne Field was occupied in the Saxon period, so watch this space for future discoveries.

In other Lyminge-related news (yes there’s more!), our travelling exhibition has now been installed at upstairs at Folkestone Library and History Resource centre, so another opportunity for Kent residents to catch it. Gabor and I installed it and there is lots more to see at the Library so do have a look if you live in the area.

Our exhibition panels now installed at Folkestone Library and History Resource centre.

Do remember to sign up for an induction if you would like to join us as a volunteer this summer. All applications for student bursaries have now been awarded so applications are closed, but anyone who can get to the site on a daily basis or stay locally can volunteer free of charge at Lyminge over the summer. Details are on the ‘taking part’ page on the menu bar at the top of the page.

Spring finally arrived when we were at Lyminge. This is a lovely shot taken by Gabor of the Victorian well enclosing the spring on Tayne Field

For all those university students considering applying for a bursary to attend the excavations this summer, do remember that the deadline is this Friday, 22nd March 2013.

Bursary application form

You can apply for a bursary to attend the dig for between 2 to 6 weeks and if you are successful your camping, facilities and food costs will be covered. Go to the University of Reading web page for more information here and to download an application form.

If you just want to volunteer on a daily basis or are not a  currently registered student more information about taking part can be found here or you can use the menu at the top of this web page to navigate our blog and website.

If you need information that isn’t covered in our website pages, then do get in touch via the ‘contact us’ link in the menu.

The sun came out for all of five minutes a couple of days ago and we started to realise that the summer, and the next season of digging, is just around the corner – well, after a potentially mythical spring! It’s really not so very far off, so if you’re thinking of volunteering for Lyminge this summer you can sign up for an induction now, and if you’re a student who’s thinking of applying for a bursary, make sure to get your application in before the deadline of 22nd March. You can get more information at the ‘taking part’ tab in the menu at the top of this page.

The exhibition panels are set up in the centre of the education room

We’re busy preparing here in Reading and indeed in Kent. On Friday Gabor and I went down to move our exhibition to the Reculver Visitor Centre. We had lots of great feedback about the exhibition at the Canterbury Heritage Centre, so we were really happy to be able to take it over to Reculver, another important monastic site. The five panels have been set up in the visitor centre so if you are visiting this amazing coastal site or just are in the local area you can read all about Lyminge and its Anglo-Saxon history while visiting a site of similar historic importance.

Reculver has its origins as a Roman ‘Saxon shore’ fort, supposedly protection against the marauding Germanic peoples, but there was a Saxon monastery here too, and today the ruins of the 12th century church stand on the clifftops, creating quite a dramatic historic landscape.

The 12th Century church at Reculver on the clifftop, taken from the visitors’ centre

The visitors’ centre at Reculver, where our exhibition is now housed until the 14th April 2013. You can see how close you are to the sea here.

Our excavations at Lyminge show the sort of middle Saxon archaeology you might expect at Reculver, although the development and histories of Lyminge and Reculver are rather different. One major differences is Reculver’s location on the coast and the decline in Reculver’s trading fortunes as the Wantsum channel silted up.

Research on the artefacts and material from Lyminge is of course on going – we are constantly updating records and lots of different people are undertaking analysis on our assemblages throughout the year. Once we get everything out of the ground some of the most interesting work begins! Some of our environmental samples have been sent to Mark McKerracher to look at carefully as part of his PhD thesis at the University of Oxford. Mark is examining the agriculture of the Middle Saxon period, but also writes an incredibly informative and equally entertaining blog on the archaeology and history of agriculture: www.farmingunearthed.wordpress.com

Mark’s blog examines Anglo-Saxon agriculture

I particularly want to flag up Mark’s great entries on some of the samples from Lyminge which give an insight into how interesting and important some of the botanical remains from Lyminge really are. I know you’ll enjoy the behind-the-scenes view of what happens to those samples we bag up and float and bring back to Reading that many of you have helped to excavate. The samples Mark is examining were excavated in 2008, so what we’re looking at is agricultural practices that are related to the monastic phase, in the 8th and 9th centuries AD.

A final word from me to thank the organisers of the Current Archaeology conference for inviting me to speak on Saturday (2nd March). I was very pleased to be able to talk about Lyminge at a conference attended by such a wide range of people, from renowned archaeologists to the wider readership of the magazine. I had some great conversations after the session, and it was fab to hear about Duncan Sayer’s Early Saxon cemetery site at Oakington and Neil Faulkner’s on-going excavations at Sedgeford that go right through to the later medieval period. Please do click on the links to find out more about these exciting concurrent Anglo-Saxon excavations.

It may be chilly outside, with the summer a long way off, but planning the next season has begun in earnest, and the project is moving forward. Second year students are giving up their free time and working hard to get the small backlog of unwashed finds from the 2012 cleaned and sorted, and already we have empty crates and boxes of processed finds stacked up in my office!

Crates of finds in various stages of processing stacked up in my office – looking forward to having the space back!

If you’re thinking of volunteering this summer, keep a look out here for updates on how to take part in 2013. Information on how to register for an induction will go up here soon.

We’re really pleased to be able to say that applications for current university students to apply for a bursary to attend the dig have opened. If you are a currently enrolled university student doing a degree in archaeology or a related discipline then you are eligible to apply for a bursary to attend the dig for between 2-6 weeks. We are accepting applications from undergraduates and postgraduates, and it doesn’t matter if you aren’t at the University of Reading, our bursaries are open to all university students. You can find information about applying here.

Gabor gives the preliminary results to Lyminge residents in 2009 at the end of the dig.

During the year we continue to research and lecture about the excavations. Gabor, Rosie and I give talks to a whole range of audiences, from local historical societies, to university seminars, at conferences and right through to such important institutions as the Society of Antiquaries. Future talks that the public can attend are advertised on the events pages of the website, but in some cases the talks are filmed and made available online to all, so if you can’t attend you don’t miss out. Gabor gave a lecture to the Society of Antiquaries in November 2012, and you can log in as a guest and view his talk alongside his slides. Go to this link and scroll down to find Gabor’s lecture on the past four seasons at Lyminge. You’ll need to log in as a guest, but it’s free and very easy to do.

Gabor also recently gave a seminar in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Reading, which was filmed and is now up on YouTube, along with a range of videos from projects run out of the University of Reading Archaeology Department. Do have a look at what else is going on in the School of Human and Environmental Sciences, of which Archaeology is a part.

Here is part 1 of the lecture that was filmed in 4 parts. To find the other three parts click here.

We’re really excited to announce that our new website is live and can be found at www.lymingearchaeology.org

The new and improved website contains links to the Integrated Archaeological Database (IADB) where our records are being uploaded and archived digitally as well as our University of Reading pages which will continue to provide links to allow anyone to download the academic articles on the excavations. The new site also contains information about the history of Lyminge and past excavations, as well as photos from 2008-20012. We have pages on taking part in the excavations, as well as information on talks and events that might be of interest to you all.

The team would like to thank Simon Maslin for his very hard work in developing the website from scratch in such a short space of time.

We hope to update the website regularly and add the new seasons excavations – but do remember that the blog will be the best place to keep up to date with daily discoveries during the dig season, with all the best photos and info going up there first! You can find a link to the website on the menu on the right of this blog post.

Enjoy!

The harness mount face down asit was found.

We were lucky enough to be able to send some of our artefacts off to conservation during the excavation, which means I can show you quite early on what some of the cleaned up copper alloy artefacts look like. Some of the preservation is really quite outstanding. I’ll start with the horse harness mount, which is our star find, particularly as it comes out of the wall trench of the hall building and means we can use it to help date the structure.

The horse harness mount as it came out of the ground. You can see the shape and some of the decorative elements, but it needed cleaning and conserving if any detail was to be found on it.

We were then able to get the mount x-rayed while the dig was still going on, as we were able to enlist the services of Dana Goodburn-Brown, who runs the CSI: Sittingbourne centre, conserving the Saxon finds from Sittingbourne Cemetery and enlisting the help of volunteers to learn conservation techniques.

The x-ray of the harness mount. This was the first time we got a glimpse of the possibility of decoration.

The x-ray gave us a good idea of some of the decoration, with the scrolls on the edges just visible, but it was impossible to see if any of the central portion was decorated. We had to sit back and wait to see what Dana could reveal in conservation. Then we got this lovely  photograph of the mount half-cleaned:

The mount half-way through cleaning and conserving. You can see it is gilded and contains a decorative motif in the central diamond. (Photograph by Dana Goodburn-Brown)

More than we could have hoped! Finally, conservation was completed and we are able to show you the whole mount below. The piece is gilded and the central decoration is an abstract animal, typical of what is known as Style I animal art. It dates to around 525-575 AD, and would have had a fourth terminal, broken in antiquity.

The fully cleaned and conserved harness mount. (Photograph by Dana Goodburn-Brown)

Probable harness mount recorded in the Portable Antiquities Scheme. Image courtesy of the Portable Antiquities Scheme.

We’re really very excited about such a beautiful and evocative find, which shows that high status artefacts were being used on site. This supports the view of pre-Christian culture in this period being based on a warrior society, with horses at forefront of this ideal. This mount (right) found in Derbyshire, recorded with the Portable Antiquites Scheme, is of a similar form and date, although its decorative scheme is slightly different. Another similar gilded mount is the one below found in Cambridgeshire, almost complete, but with a geometric design. You can click on the smaller images here to enlarge the photos, as you can with any of the images on this blog.

A similarly shaped harness mount from south Cambridgeshire, without the animal decoration. Image courtesy of the Portable Antiquities Scheme.

Of course, we had other copper alloy finds too. I blogged about the discovery of the toilet set, and I told you about the button brooch that David Holman, the metal-detectorist, found in the east-west ditch. It was extremely small and difficult to photograph, so it’s only now that I can show you what the button brooch looks like. Their abstract designs often represent a stylised face:

The button brooch discovered by metal-detecting in the east-west ditch that ran across the whole site. (Photograph by Dana Goodburn Brown)

The Toilet set was remarkably well preserved to begin with, but this post-conservation photograph really shows how almost new it was – the tools still rotate on the wire ring!

The toilet set is extremely well preserved. The tools were probably used as nail scrapers. (Photograph by Dana Goodburn-Brown)

We’re also waiting for the non-metallic finds like the bone combs to come out of conservation, so I’ll write about that when we get them back. Objects that are made of bone, shale or other organic material require very different treatment. I’ll keep the blog updated as we get more things back from conservation. It’s great to see some of the artefacts that we were sure would once have been splendidly decorated reveal what we hoped for.

I’ve just been sent a couple of pictures of the backfilling by local volunteer Bill Laing, who took our aerial photographs with the helicopter drone.

Metal detecting the spoil as it goes back in is a useful exercise – the spoil heap gets so large during excavation that anything from the topsoil that ended up in the very middle of the heap wont be found until backfilling. David Holman helps us out with finding any metal work that was out of context.

It’s rather strange to see the trench where we worked so hard for six weeks filled in!

The important thing is to get the deepest holes compacted properly – the weight of the machine helps a lot here. David keeps up the metal-detecting in the middle of the trench!

Re-seeding will take place and the fence will stay up to protect the new grass for a few more weeks, but soon you’ll hardly be able to tell an excavation took place here at all.

A lovely day for backfilling the trench!

What a dig it’s been!

The last feature has been dug, the archaeologists have sorted out the mountain of paperwork and the equipment is beginning to be taken away so that backfilling can start next week. The last week is always a bit manic, which is why you haven’t seen a blog post from me in a while!

Rosie gives the site a final soaking for the photographs. The north-eastern corner of the hall is in the foreground.

Cordelia digs a small pit

Rosie investigates a tricky area to reveal several post holes.

The digging really picked up in the last week. Even Rosie was to be seen digging, as supervising of the volunteers and students had to be be squeezed in between excavating the last features on site.

Finally, excavation on the southern entrance doorposts of the hall building got underway. If you compare the picture of the northern doorway I put up in a previous post, you can see they are much further apart – a wider doorway facing towards the stream down slope.

It may be significant that the larger doorway faces directly towards the settlement area that we excavated in 2010, where we excavated contemporary sunken-featured buildings.

The southern doorway post pits from above. The red and white ranging pole indicates the gap between the door post pit on the right with flints, and the square looking door post pit on the left, without flint packing.

Keith and Bev exavate the south-western door post pit. You can see the large rectangular plank hole in the middle, under excavation.

The important thing in the last week was to get the hall building and the sunken-featured building fully excavated before the end of the dig. The corner of the site that had the SFB and north walls of the hall needed all hands on deck.

The north-western corner of the trench got very busy in the last week!

We knew we’d manage it, it just required a bit of an extra push, and it got rather crowded down at this end of the trench! The plank holes were excavated carefully and you can see the double rows of planks that would have had wattle and daub in-between them.

The digging of the SFB went right up to the last day and into the unofficial ‘week 7′ of the dig. Usually these extra days involve last minute drawings of the site and sorting out of the recording documents, but I was discovering and recording post holes in the SFB right up until 4pm on Tuesday!

The wall trench planks are excavated carefully and it is easy to see the double plank construction of the hall.

A huge thank you goes to everyone that helped dig these final features in the last few days, and particular thanks to those final few who came back on Monday and Tuesday to help us wrap up a few last things – it is because of you we are able to say every single feature was excavated and recorded.

The harness mount as it came out of the ground.

Although most of the conservation and analysis takes place at the post-excavation stage, we were able to send off some of our artefacts for conservation straight away, which meant that we got feed back on some of our metal finds while we were still in the field.

Here you can see we have had the harness mount that we found in one of the wall-trenches x-rayed, and it appears to have rather nice scrolled decoration on the edges. Any other decoration will be revealed in cleaning and conservation, but it is wonderful to already have this much information.

The horse harness mount was x-rayed while we were still digging on site, and revealed a wonderful amount of detail.

This year it’s been generally quite dry for the six weeks we were in Lyminge, but on Wednesday and Thursday we were treated to some rather epic weather!

The weather turned on us and this epic bank of cloud rolled in. Celia looks a tad worried!

The director and the assistant director get a bit wet in the rain that followed the dramatic clouds. (photo courtesy of Lorna Hilborn)

Luckily, considering everything that needed to be done, we only lost an afternoon to heavy rain. If it gets too wet, too many boots churn up the clay and the archaeology is wrecked. There were a couple of extremely wet archaeologists rescuing paperwork when the heavens opened!

The rain was dramatic, but there were  exciting finds, too. The SFB continued to be productive up until the very last day. Ane, Jess and myself are holding the finds that we all got literally within seconds of each other.

Digging in the SFB almost guaranteed a find – here Ane, Jess and I found some bone comb, decorated pottery and a small red glass bead within moments of each other.

This beautiful decorated pottery sherd was also found in the SFB

Ane (left) is holding some fragments of decorated bone comb that she found, I have a very large pottery rim sherd, and Jess (right) has a tiny red glass bead.

On Tuesday we took stock of the excavated SFB, and Gabor and I realised that it had two sets of central posts, so that the pit had been re-cut and enlarged at some stage, but not backfilled in between re-cuts. In a way, we have two SFBs rather than one!

The sunken-featured building is fully excavated and it is now clear that the pit was enlarged and the central support posts moved during the SFB’s lifetime.

What a spread!

Last Friday we had a wonderful treat, now an annual event on the dig. If you’ve spent any time digging with us you’ll have noticed there is a lot of cake on site! Many of the finds washers and some of the diggers have been bringing cakes to share at tea time, which are always well received.

A wonderful archaeology themed cake to celebrate the end of a fantastic dig

As a final treat, on the last Friday of the dig a tea party spread appears in the mess tent, an absolute feast as you can see. There was even an archaeology themed cake! Gabor set to, cutting it with the biggest comedy trowel he could find, and it was absolutely delicious.

Gabor cuts the cake with the largest trowel he can lay his hands on.

We took this as an opportunity to thank everyone who had taken part and hand out a few tokens of our appreciation to those who had provided particular help on the project this year.

Local volunteer Stuart Hunnisett is thanked for his participation and endless help with a token of our appreciation – a photograph of the site under excavation.

I want to say again how well the excavation went as a direct result of the level of support within Lyminge, both from volunteers and those who attended the site tours and expressed continued interest in the excavation. The final site tour was very well attended, we were so pleased people kept coming right until the end!

The last site tour of the season was extremely well attended.

Something that most people won’t know about is our night-time escapade. It is a tradition amongst the dig staff that at the end of every season after the volunteers and students have gone home we put tea lights in the post holes of our significant buildings at night and sit on the spoil heap so that we can see the floor plans of the buildings lit up. It was particularly wonderful this year because of the sheer size of the hall.

We put tea lights into the wall trenches of the hall and the pit of the sunken featured building, to create a beautiful impression of the floor plans. You can see the partition walls in the hall really clearly.

It is very difficult to capture in a photograph at night time without good night-time photography equipment, but the effect was stunning, and all of us talkative archaeologists were silent for at least ten minutes, thinking about the people 1400 years ago who had been in the hall itself at night and the wonderful new people we’d met this year who had a hand in excavating it during the day. What an amazing way to end a fantastic season of archaeology.

Finally, Bill came back with his helicopter drone on Sunday to take photos of the site fully excavated. This is the amazing result, and I’m sure you’ll agree that the site both looks fantastic and is of huge significance for Anglo-Saxon archaeology in Kent.

Bill’s helicopter drone takes a photo of the site fully excavated – you can see the whole of our dig site in Tayne Field here – and plenty of people having a lunch break! The hall has come up beautifully and the floor plan is as clear as we could have wished for.

We’re excited about what we will find it future seasons, and I will continue blogging (although less frequently) throughout the year with any new discoveries at the post-excavation stage. It is a real boost to the staff to know everyone is just as interested as they are, so thank you all for following the blog, responding with such enthusiasm, for coming to the site tours and a huge thank you to all the students and volunteers for helping us get this site excavated!

The past few days have been very hectic as we enter the final week of the excavation! The site is a hive of activity and the core team have stopped taking their day off so that the paperwork can be finished and all those little extra things that get left behind when supervising on site can be done. We have an awful lot to do this week, but we’re confident that we’ll get it done in the time we have left.

The trench is full of people getting all the last features excavated and recorded by the end of this week which is in fact the end of this seasons excavations!

John excavates a partition wall in the hall building

The hall building is continuing to provoke questions and provide insight into construction methods. We are finding more internal divisions in the eastern end of the hall, although they are incredibly ephemeral.

The massive doorway post pits are finally fully excavated. It has been rather sunny so it is a little difficult to see, but at the bottom of one of the post pits we discovered two large pieces of quern stone. Perhaps they had been placed to add support to the structure, or perhaps they were added as carefully placed foundation stones?

Broken quern stone (for grinding wheat into flour) at the bottom of one of the hall building main door post pits.

A beautiful piece of rim from a glass vessel, found in one of the wall trenches of the hall building

Surprisingly, the wall trenches of the hall continue to be productive finds-wise. Other excavated examples of Saxon halls tend to be very unproductive, making it difficult to date these structures accurately.

Blue glass with decoration – still needs to be cleaned!

We have pieces of glass from the wall trench, which will absolutely help in dating. The quantity of glass we are finding is remarkable, and the fact that they are in context in archaeological features is really wonderful. This piece of blue glass is also rather lovely, with its latice work trailing.

Gabor is interviewed by a BBC reporter

Last week we welcomed the BBC to the trench to interview Gabor and a few of us about the site.

We don’t know yet when it will go out as this year archaeological digs are secondary to the Olympics and Paralympics (!), but I’ll be sure to let you all know when they give us a date.

Gabor was interviewed extensively, and they took lots of shots of the site, but they also interviewed several of our local volunteers as well as Helen and myself – our television debuts! Lyminge is certainly highly significant to the history of Kent and the introduction of Christianity, and we are pleased that the media are recognising this.

The top of the spoil heap is an excellent place from which to survey the trench

On Thursday last week we arranged a trip for the students to Wychurst, just north of Canterbury, the site of the reconstructed Late Saxon hall owned and built by re-enactment group Regia Anglorum, who were our invading Saxons on the Open Day. Their hall is based on the Late Saxon long hall at Cheddar, Somerset, and so in style post-dates ours by at about four hundred years. Even so, it was great to get an idea of the kind of space our hall might have been. It is very difficult to imagine the scale and size of the building at Lyminge, and Wychurst really brought it to life for everyone.

The reconstruction Saxon long hall at Wychurst, Kent, built by members of Regia Anglorum, the Saxon re-enactment society.

One of the beautiful hand painted panels of wall painting inside the Saxon hall at Wychurst

They are researching the possibilities for decoration – something that of course does not survive archaeologically, but is almost certain to have existed.

The decorated porch at Wychurst, inspired by metalwork of the period

At Wychurst, Regia are painting onto the lime-plastered walls scenes in the style of the Bayeux tapestry, very well researched but with added women – there is only one woman and one child depicted on the Bayeux tapestry!

Everyone has a good look round the inside of the long hall at Wychurst

Different tasks from different seasons are represented, and they are using only natural pigments available to the Saxons. The array of colours available always takes me by surprise. They are also doing their own version of the Bayeux tapestry, telling the story of their society through textile.

Part of the tapestry that is being made by members of Regia Anglorum to tell the story of the founding of the re-enactment society and the building of Wychurst. The hall is currently being painted, hence the modern lighting and other bits and pieces here and there!

The helicopter drone can reach heights of fifty feet or more, providing us with excellent vertical shots of our trench

Visitors to the dig might have heard a strange humming noise recently. Bill Laing, one of our local residents and another fantastic supporter of the excavations over the years, has a brilliant piece of kit that is going to enable us to take aerial shots of the dig. Some of you might have seen the photos from Silchester Roman Town (the University of Reading training excavation) that were taken with a helicopter drone. Funnily enough, before Silchester put their photos on their blog, Bill had already tested out his helicopter with us! We had no idea they’d used similar technology at Silchester.

Bill and his helicopter drone that can fly vertically. He has used it to take pictures of the trench.

Bill has built his own drone and attached a camera, which, after several test flights and a very dodgy gust of wind, provided us with this amazing aerial shot of the whole dig.

A fantastic aerial shot of the dig site taken from Bill’s helicopter drone

You can see the floor plan of the hall really clearly, even though we haven’t finished excavating it yet and the sun has really dried the site out. Not only are these aerial shots  really useful to us, and indeed everyone who has been straining to see the hall building on site tours, it’s also really great that we have yet another way that a local resident has got involved in the project – this is the kind of knowledge and expertise we’re always looking for locally rather than having to bring people in.

The sunken-featured building is at last bottomed in two quadrants

Our sunken-featured building is at last bottomed in two quadrants, and we’re finally starting to take down the other two! We have several post holes coming up which will help us to understand how the building was constructed. We’re starting to take micromorphological samples now that we know the true depth of the SFB pit. These samples will tell us exactly how the build up of waste within the SFB pit occurred.

Brontë and James record a post hole in the SFB

Carolina is cutting around a carefully measured block of soil that will be impregnated with resin, carefully sliced through into thin sections when solid, and examined under a microscope. We take block samples across the different layers to see how the horizons change and this enables us to get much finer detail for features such as sunken-featured buildings which may have been backfilled in very particular ways.

Carolina takes a micromorph sample from the SFB

We’ll be taking micromorphology samples from some of the cess pits too, any where that has good strategraphic preservation and interesting deposits.

We’re excitedly waiting to see what the last week will bring, particularly when the whole of the hall building and sunken-featured building are done and the floor plans of both are clearly visible. I’ll bring you pictures of the trench in its final incarnation very soon!

Busily excavating the northern wall trench

Here can see the exact shape of the plank that would have made up part of the wall of the hall building. The surrounding pit was dug for a large door post, and the wall trench was dug for the walls after the positioning of the door.

What progress we’re making! The depth of the wall trenches on the building is being revealed, and more finds are being made. Some of the planks that would have made up the walls of the hall are coming up really nicely as we dig down.

Here you can see, below the jumble of flints and other stones, the clear outline of the shape of the original plank, darker brown in colour compared to the surrounding chalky deposit.

Here you can see perfect the outline of one of the planks in the northern wall trench of the hall building. It appears to cut into the large post pit for one of the door posts of the northern entrance to the hall.

Hazel discovered the toilet set as soon as she started work on the SFB!

The SFB has been particularly productive again in the last few days, even though the layer we are digging through now seems to have much less in it than before – we’re not having to dig carefully  around huge jaw bones any more! Just before the open day, a very delicate ‘toilet set’ was discovered by Hazel.

A toilet set is a small set of bronze tools attached to a wire ring. They often have scrapers for nails, ‘ear scoops’ for the age-old ear wax problem, and tweezers.

Our set appears to be comprised of three pointed tools, all possible nail scrapers. Their condition is excellent, and two of the tools still rotate on their wire ring as if they were new.

The copper alloy toilet set in the ground. It consists of three pointed tools, two of which still rotate on their central ring

The SFB was again an exciting place to be only a few days later when I found the second bone comb of the season, just ten minutes before packing up. It’s not often a supervisor gets to find anything remotely exciting, but I was cleaning up a small area today to speed things along and I suddenly saw the sheen of polished bone, and a small ring and dot decoration.

The second bone comb from the sunken-featured building, a similar shape and style to the first one, but slightly smaller.

As everyone worked hard around me to put the plastic back on site, I had to excavate the comb as quickly as I could, as we couldn’t leave it exposed over night. As you can see it is another beautiful triangular composite comb, slightly smaller and more delicate than the first one, but with none of the comb teeth remaining.

Heather has to employ a ladder to get in and out of her pit!

Not only have we had some very ‘pretty’ finds, but some of our latrine pits are rather dramatic too. The Saxo-Norman evidence from the site is beginning to look quite unusual. The number of cess pits in our trench is more akin to a dense urban population than a rural settlement of the period, which leads us  to ask questions about the kind of settlement Lyminge was in the Saxo-Norman period.

Sophie’s cess pit has some very nice stratigraphy in it, as well as Sophie herself

Cian and Grace don’t have a lot of room to maneuver!

A rural population would have spread waste on the fields to manure the crops, whereas cess pits would be dug to deal with the problem in urban areas. In excavating these pits we hope to be able to begin to get some answers, but certainly the character of the settlement at Lyminge has changed dramatically over the centuries.

Tom, David and Honza excavate a portion of the Mesolithic area that covers nearly all of our site, looking for the distribution of worked flint.

We’ve also begun to get to grips with the Mesolithic archaeology in the south-eastern part of the site.

David, Honza and Tom are taking down the Mesolithic area using a grid system, sieving to look for microliths. Mircoliths are the smallest of stone tools around 1cm in length. They trying to understand the way in which this layer, which is present across the whole of the site, was built up. It is very likely to be the remains of a flint-working area that has been heavily affected by natural processes such as worm-action, rooting from plants, and animal burrows.

A grid system is applied to excavate a large surface area

Ken Fisher’s reconstruction of the hall building. So far we haven’t found any evidence of the raking posts suggested in the drawing, although it is difficult to suggest how the roof would have been supported without them. We’re on the hunt!

An extra dimension to our community involvement is the welcoming of local artists to the dig to draw and photograph the excavation in progress as part of a community art project, run by Jack Coulson. Artist Ken Fisher has drawn an interpretative reconstruction of our hall building using ink and watercolours, but has also drawn a wonderful picture of the hall building using materials that it was actually built with – burnt daub for the red ochre-type colour and charcoal for the black lines. He has wonderfully reconstructed the hall using original materials!

Ken has drawn the hall using materials from the site – the reddish-orange burnt daub from the walls of the structures and, blackened charcoal.

Digging is progressing well now that we’re in the penultimate week, and I know I’ll be able to bring you more exciting news of the goings on on Tayne Field very soon. Every day there is something new to discuss, interpret, or just admire, and I’m always blogging from the side of the trench as I attempt to supervise the progress of the SFB while keeping everyone updated with our news!

My spot on the side of the trench – I can blog and supervise at the same time, that is, until my battery runs out!