Gotland Field School - Beginning of Week 2, updated later in the week

The first week was Tuesday to Saturday, with a planned excursion on the Sunday. The planned excursion went on a little longer then expected, covered way way more ground (literally) then expected, and quite a wide variety of history.

Week 2 started on the monday and goes until friday. So .... no real downtime between the weeks.

My inner introvert had a small panic attack during the excursion, but I hid out all evening so I'm much better now.

I should preface a description of the week's archaeology with the idea that we were digging trial trenches to see if we can find evidence of a Viking Age harbour in Slite. Dan's reasoning seems sound, but we have no proof. This is what we are trying to back up with archaeology.

So.... it was pretty hit and miss.

BUT.... it was fun anyway!

Our first trench was 2 metres by 3 metres, and we had 6 people, one in each square metre. Partway through, one of our people had to bow out as it proved that her new and improved knees couldn't take the punishment. We all pitched in to finish the 6th square.

Neil and I were a bit concerned at first that it didn't seem like there was a lot of instruction. But that did quickly improve. And we're asking a lot of questions.

Two squares proved to be really interesting of the six. My square in the north east corner of the trench and Konrad's square in the south east corner.

Konrad's square had the right side of a cow's mandible and teeth, and some big stones in the bottom of the trench that may or may not be part of a construction, although they think it unlikely for a variety of reasons.



My square seems to have a wide variety of rubbish like finds, throughout many layers in the north east corner, with some kind of limestone in the walls, and packed clay near the bottom of the trench.

All in all, I found a plastic button, what is likely a BBQ ash box, oodles of glass (window, bottles, two jars of shoe cream), iron nails and rivets, ceramic (shaped pottery, glazed pottery, and porcelian), various animal bones, a couple of very tiny clay pipes, broken clay bits (possibly both pots and bricks), and an absolute ton of flint.

Here's Snorri trying to puzzle it out while still in the ground.




And me with my prize after it finally got dug out. It was visible in Layer 2 but I had to finish evening out the layer and leave it until we could get to Layer 3. It was somewhat frustrating walking away from it! And it's clearly not Viking Age.



This is possibly the single largest piece of flint that we dug up - weighing in at 320g all by itself, and it's only one piece. Collectively, we came up with something in the order of 10kg of flint in Trench 1 alone. The other trenches also had quite a bit of flint show up.

I should put this in perspective - flint isn't native to Gotland. So it begs the questions - who brought it in, when, and why?



One piece of clay might be Viking Age. Maybe. But the square is so mixed up, it's hard to tell if that means anything.



The two jars of shoe cream are definitely Viking shoe cream. We know that because it says so on the bottom of the jar. :) Although apparently, I didn't get a picture of it.

We drew the profile of the walls on Monday, and closed up the trench on tuesday. We started two new squares in Trench 7 on tuesday afternoon and pretty finished it by the end of the day. We starting hitting pure sand, and there were very few finds in a 50cm depth.

There was a lecture on Monday night about the bronze age in Gotland. Dan Carlsson is trying to branch out the educational historical focus from the Viking Age as it has been in previous years. Bad timing for Neil and I to be here! But as a friend said to me earlier this week "it's all archaeology".

Which is why I found my rubbish heap of a square in Trench 1 to be so exciting to dig!

Wednesday, we both dug out and closed squares 2 - 4 in Trench 7. We found zilch in squares 3 and 4 but it was really easy to dig, being almost entirely sand. Squares 2 and 3 were..... annoying. Lots and lots of big (but not big enough to be interesting for more than 10 minutes) .... rocks. Rocks, rocks, and more rocks. There was some good natured muttering under the breath about the humanity of the lead archaeologist by the end of the day. :)

Wednesday night's lecture was about the excavations in Västergarn, which was really quite interesting. It's really close to, and historically related to another place called Paviken, which has some evidence for bead-making. Bead-making is one of Neil's specialities in the Viking Age.

At some point this week, we had a bit of excitement in one of the other group's trenches. Trench 6 produced what many speculated might be a possible Viking grave.



But by the end of the week, we knew it to be a well, and the lead archaeologist thinks it belongs to the 18th century at the earliest. So crushing...



Since our group had finished up our trenches on Wednesday, we all went out to Burs, in southern Gotland, for a new adventure on Thursday.

Dan called this "rescue archaeology" - given that Gotland is just loaded with archaeological remains, every time someone wants to do something different to their land, they have to call in an archaeologist. Dan was called to do a survey of a field in which the farmer wanted to add a crayfish pond. He walked the field with a metal detector and came up with 10 silver coins in a small area of the field. So he arranged a big dirt-moving machine to lift the turf and called us in for help. We were to help find more coins, and then to hunt through a rather large trench for postholes (evidence of habitation - building construction). In one day.

And oi vey, was it ever hot out.

Fortunately, the day ended up consisting mostly of following Dan around with the metal detector and picking coins out of the dirt where he pointed, carefully digging up the central "hoard" area (more on that in a bit) and quickly coming to the conclusion visually that there were no postholes. We were all wilting from very little physical activity by the end of the day because the heat was so incredible and there was no shade in the field.



But! we found a silver hoard!

We (the group of 12 of us) found some 40 odd silver coins in the field throughout the day and we called in a numismatologist (coin expert) to dig up the final central "hoard" area. He brought along his wife and small child, and right there, in the wilting heat, proceeded to go through all 40 coins and tell us the approximate date and geography of each. And then, finally, turned his attention to the hoard. He pulled up 3 of the coins that were sitting on the top of the soil, carefully brushed away for him, and then decided that it could possibly go quite a bit deeper and this should be done carefully in the lab.



So....we (the students) made a small column of sand, wrapped it in plaster, and cut it from the field with a string, loaded it on a board and put it in Dan's car.

Snorri thinks it's his birthday!



Dan's assistant finished the processing of the "hoard" on friday and we learned there were another 20 odd coins buried in the top 2-3cm. The latest coin in the hoard was dated to 1009-1017 so the poor fellow who lost his purse walking home one night (probably drunk) did so sometime after the turn of the century.

This is the work at the beginning of friday - we learned about the results at lunch.



Okay..... that wraps up the first two weeks! I will try to not take so long in between posts next time!

Living Gastronomically, and the "Viking" day tour

Three folks have commented on the food so far. Trust me, it won't be so exciting once we're established at the field school in another day. I expect it will be pretty standardized student food but I will endeavor to make it *look* exciting once in awhile.

I took pictures of last night's dinner but first let me tell you about the day itself. 8 hours in a mini-bus with the overly talkative driver on a "Viking" day tour. Right off the top, we had this inkling of trouble when he decided to use the "new" definition of the Viking Age as 400 - 1300 AD instead of the more traditional 793 - 1066 definition that we're used to using. He was straightforward about it, right up front. Apparently this means one can include a lot of gothic churches in the tour.

To be fair, there was an awful lot of interesting things to see and he had some interesting theories on the Viking Age to share, but the fellow just wouldn't shut up long enough for interaction or reflection or the chance to absorb through other means. Neil and I are both readers and like the chance to read the signs at places too.

Stops included (thefted from Neil's notes):
- Jarlabankes Bro (old viking bridge) - two runestones, some other stones
- Arkils Tingplats - local thing site, and another runestone
- Church at Vallentuna
- Granby
- Lunda (from bus - no place to park)
- Sigtuna (lunch)
- Gamla (old) Uppsala - mounds from the 500-600 with the Uppsala museum.  Lots of fun things to get photos of, and beads in the gift shop - not enough time here, but on our way out we did notice that the kind folks at the museum hadn't bothered to enforce the "no pictures" they have posted - we are grateful
- Uppsala - the Uppsala Catheral - construction began in 1287 with a focal point about King Gustav I

This is the runestone at Jarlabanke Bro.



And in Sigtuna, where we stopped for lunch, we saw this interesting use of a faering. We thought some of the parents in our friends might enjoy the idea. It's a sandbox.




Now.... dinner at Pontus by the Sea in old Stockholm.  Although the site in general is all in Swedish, here's a link to the english menu. It is a lovely restaurant, quite literally on the sea-side in Stockholm. We watched boats come in, people of all sorts walking by on the boardwalk, observed the weather and skyline of the city.... and ate delicious food.

Here's Neil getting drifty with the scenery.




My food - char with lemon foam and dill pesto.



Neil's choice - cod with shrimp and butter (again with the butter!).




And my dessert - fresh strawberries are a big thing at Midsummers in Sweden. Neil had a creme  brulee.


 
Today we leave for Gotland - we'll have one night in Visby before we report to the school on Monday. Work starts on the Tuesday.

By the by, I have neglected to mention the window dressings at the Hotel Rival. They have what amounts to blackout cloth! As I've mentioned the northern climes are no fun for the light sensitive sleeper, but this is not a problem at the Rival :)

Look Ma, I'm weaving!

I had this apparently optimistic plan to sew the heddles in two days and weave for the next 7 days.

It took 5 days to knit the heddles and do a little more clean-up/prep work, and I was finally weaving on the 6th day. I've got a day and a half left.

But I'm weaving! I'm finally weaving!



Oh and by the by..........I got screeched in tonight. :)

I'm here, I'm really here

Now that I've been here.....



.....for a few days, and have settled in a bit....



I have to say two things -

1) I'm really really enjoying myself. If it weren't for the lack of flush toilets in the longhouse.... I could live here. I could be a Viking woman.

I'd lose the addiction to the internet eventually. It would be good.

2) And, I'm really looking forward to my day off tomorrow.

Yes, I know, a study in contradictions.

ancient tech, ancient enemy

This little fellow is eating all of my asiastic lilies. It's called an Asiastic Lily beetle - what an original name. I hope the lilies come back next year when I'll be prepared to kill the beetle, now that I know how.



Let's hear it for ancient technology! This little bit of wood is based on an artefact in Viking Artefacts (James Graham-Campbell, ed.). The original is just 10cm in length, but this recreation is just a little longer to fit my hand better. It's called a pin beater.



I've been weaving for a few years now, and I admit it, I'm slow. I just didn't see the purpose or usefulness of pin beaters. But since I've been using this one, I'm in awe. It's a great tool, both for weaving on the warp weighted loom and as I'm using it here to beat the tablet weaving header of my new project. Both the new pin beater, and new weaving project are part of the preparations for our trip to L'Anse aux Meadows.

DARC does L'Anse aux Meadows

Text below has been cheerfully thefted from the DARC blog, where I'm also an administrator. Darrell actually wrote the text 'though and made the webpage that is linked here.

At the request of a reader, I'll try to make a few posts about our preparations for this adventure, and I'll certainly be blogging from the road as it happens. Darrell tends to be more of a big picture guy and his posts will show up on the DARC blog, so it might be interesting to follow us both.

the Viking Age comes to LIFE
August 15 - 25, L'Anse aux Meadows NHSC

http://www.warehamforge.ca/DARC-LAM/DARC-LAM-2010.html

The Dark Ages Re-creation Company has been asked by Parks Canada to mount a major presentation at L'Anse aux Meadows NHSC. The 10 days of living history is to help mark the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the archaeological site in Vinland.

Viking Althing

So.... it's been a busy few weeks again. I'm way behind.

Back in September, one of the groups in the SCA held an event loosely based on a Viking Althing. The Althing is basically a gathering in Iceland's history where all the people came together to hear the laws read out, and some legal cases decided. Because they only happened once a year, the Althing was also sort of a party / merchant / craftsman mecca.

The Dark Ages Recreation Company - www.darkcompany.ca - and Regia - www.regia.ca - and Torvik - www.torvik.org - were all asked to participate as well and show off our unique Viking Era skills.

I'm a part of the DARC group. This is what the 'viking' street looked like, with DARC folk front and center and Regia and Torvik at the far end.

It's hard to parse from this picture, but DARC had 'booths' with a money changer and pewter caster, a fellow working on a pole lathe turning wood, a tavern for the group cooking appropriate foodstuffs (and boy, was that ever a discussion in the planning stages!), a textiles co-operative, a wood carver, a blacksmith, and a bead merchant.



I was mostly spinning all day in the textiles co-operative and sometimes helping out in the kitchen.



Kadja is also part of DARC and was experimenting with pit firing clay vessels. She and Foote the Potter (from Regia) are seen here covering the pit fire.



It's a process that takes a full day. Digging a pit, carefully placing fragile pottery and building a smoking fire on top of it, and then burying the whole thing to burn out underground, gradually 'curing' the clay.

The next morning, we all (those who had pots in the fire) helped dig out the pots... it was really neat. Some of my pots actually survived!



Snorri showed up to peruse the pots....

Remember Snorri from our trip to Iceland in July? Well, when we got home, we sent him off to Peterborough to travel back to Iceland and then on to Denmark and England with another couple, who returned and gave him back to Steve, his maker. Who knows where Snorri will show up next?

Getting caught up

This is going to be a very very long post. It's been a few days since I travelogued and I need to catch up. Bear with me folks.

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Now, as previously noted in the comments - for those who use them *cough* *hint* - Orkney fudge wins with two thumbs up.

And it can be bought here: http://www.buyorkney.com/shop/food/confectionery/

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I found a drop spindle yesterday! I had found some North Ronaldsay rovings in Orkney several days ago and I've been regretting leaving my drop spindle at home.

Apparently they take their sheep quite seriously in North Ronaldsay - they are fenced _away_ from the grass on the land and eat seaweed on the beaches instead. Those with experience and discerning palates convey the idea that this significantly changes the taste of the meat. I've tried it, and I didn't notice the difference. Mind you, I don't have a great deal of experience with eating sheep.

The North Ronaldsay people also seem to be the only ones who understand that hand spinners still exist. I've found very little in the way of wool available for spinning. While there's a huge knitwear industry here in Shetland, it seems that it goes straight to commercial mills for industrial spinning, with a little made available for felting crafts. What's made available to crafters for felting isn't usually suitable for spinning - it's already semi-felted.

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Anyway, I'm digressing, and you want pictures of all these days since I left off in Orkney.

We visited the Italian Chapel. It's not really our thing, but it's story is interesting, and it was pretty enough.



On our way to the next stop, we came across this Blacksmith's museum in St.Margaret's Hope. I have blacksmiths in the family, and one of our closest friends is still a blacksmith. He doesn't use this kind of bellows anymore. :)



Tomb of the Eagles was notable in that it's entrance is only 1 metre high. They provide a trolly and a rope for you to lie down on and pull yourself through the doorway. This is another site with a warning to people who suffer from claustrophobia!

Unfortunately, it was also our biggest disappointment. It's a privately held site, and is not run by Historic Scotland or any other professional historical society, and it shows. The short version is that we had some difficulty with the interpretation of finds and handling of artefacts.



We finished up that day with a visit to the Orkney Marine Life Aquarium. We expected to find very little, but it was actually a very interesting place! Tons of information, and staffed by the owner who is obviously knowledgeable and cares about her aquatic friends. Some of the marine life is actually rotated through the exhibits on a catch, display, and release cycle.

It was a pleasant end to a day that was otherwise somewhat disappointing.

Started off the next day at the Broch of Gurness, which I quite enjoyed. Neil had a "shrug" moment. I think I heard him muttering something about "more rocks". It was, not surprisingly, windy. I quite enjoyed hiding in the remains of the wheelhouses where the wind was completely absent and it was really easy to imagine how the people of the day lived.

More stone = more remains. In this picture, we can see the firepit, an oven (hot rocks from the fireplace boiled the water and meat = most meals), and part of a quernstone, used to grind the grain to make bread. Quernstones of some sort follow us into the Viking Age and I've quite enjoyed playing with them whenever a historical site has one set up for demonstration.



The Broch of Gurness is also the site of one Viking Era burial, near the edge of the entrance to the broch from the sea. It's unclear whether the Norse used the site for a bit, or just pulled up and buried this woman and then took off again.



Minehowe has no pictures. I couldn't get the picture that someone else did on the Undiscovered Scotland site. It's just 29 steps down into the earth - yet another site that is not for the claustrophobic. They give you hard hats when you go out to climb down the steps. At the bottom of the steps, there is enough room for two people and that's it.

Neil enjoyed talking to the staff here - it's apparent that archaeology on the site is still in it's early stages.

St.Magnus Cathedral was interesting in that it's architecture is _very_ similar to the Dunfermline Abbey but the entire cathedral is still in use. The modern lighting that has been added made it very difficult to take a good picture of the interior. It is NOT Viking era as you may continually read in many promotional literature, but it may have been influenced by later period Norse earls in Orkney.

The Orkney Museum had a few interesting things from the many different archaeological sites on the islands although I'm not sure that I liked their presentation of the use of drop spindles. It is more then amply possible to spin consistent fine yarn on these things - I've done it. This is just ....in incredibly poor taste.



And in this picture.... both of the stones with holes in the middle are listed as loom weights. Somehow, I doubt it. The one on the right is simply far too large and heavy. I'd be more prone to believing that it's a small quernstone.



So..... on to Shetland. As previously noted in another post, there was some travel and some delays. We went to the Shetland Museum and Archives while waiting to achieve keys to our next place of stay.

This is a great new museum with some really interesting stuff. Like these beads, from a find at Northmavine, Shetland. And unlike both the National Museum of Scotland and the Orkney Museum, this place had artefact numbers easily available!



This gold ring is what Neil used as his guide when he went to a jeweller to say "make something like this with diamonds in it so I can propose to my chick". It's from a find at Marrister on Whalsay in Shetland.



Lerwick also has this lovely garden in the middle of town. I read the dedication sign so I know why it's there, but I can't remember it at the moment. I just like pretty flowers.



This is the outfit used in January 2008 by Up Helly Aa's Guizer Jarl (parade chief), Roy Leask. He was representing a later era saga figure Kol Kolison. We actually met Roy when we toured the Up Helly Aa exhibition shed - he's an interesting guy. Reminds me a lot of the chief librarian at my library.

The short version of describing Up Helly Aa is that it is.... a world apart from actual Viking Era history. It grew out of the Victorian Era, which has done many strange things to Viking history. If you think of the festival as Living History, you need to think of it as living _Victorian_ history.



In Shetland, the biggest site of Viking Era findings is at Jarlshof . Jarlshof is a multi-use site, meaning that it was continuously occupied over thousands of years and several different cultures from the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Pictish, Norse and Medieval eras, right the way through to the 1600s. Again, I find myself more drawn to the wheelhouses and brochs of two thousand years ago then the Viking Era Norse houses that remain here.



Neil, of course, remains attracted to the Viking Era side of things. He's standing in the middle of the longest of the longhouses found here. Perhaps it was the community hall, or just the home of the wealthiest farmer in the area.



I keep finding sheep that want to have their picture taken. This youngster was quietly semi-sleeping, having finally filled his belly. I think that's all the sheep do - eat grass and sleep. I know it's a bit of a filler really, in a post already heavy with pictures, but I thought it was a pretty picture. Don't you just want to take her home and .... shave her repeatedly over several years for the wool?



This lamb has a different story. She's just a couple weeks old and was found wandering by the fellow who was staffing the Shetland Crofthouse Museum. He's been hand-raising her, and needs to feed her four times a day. She follows him around everywhere so he takes her to work too, where we found her warming herself by the peat fire inside the Crofthouse.

Neil says the crofthouse reminded him a lot of the sod houses in the early Canadian west.



Imagine sailing around the Shetland Islands in the later centuries BC, and coming across this imposing feature. It says "powerful people live here". And it's still standing today, sufficiently intact that you can take the interior steps all the way to the top, where you can see the landscape for miles all around.



It's BIG. It's the only remains of it's kind in this good a condition, largely because of it's remote location. The island of Mousa is currently unoccupied, except by the inevitable sheep and many other wildlife.



This is Mousa Broch. It stands an imposing 13 metres high on the landscape. It has two walls - both quite thick in themselves, with an interior staircase running between them for stability and access to the top. At it's base, the outside width is 15m across, but it's interior width is only 6m.

It's thought that there were wooden floors at different heights, somewhat like balconies, to increase the living space, but nothing of wood remains. If there was a community of smaller houses around the site, they have not yet been uncovered. Strangely enough, no one has undertaken an archaeological dig here.



The island of Mousa is also a nature preserve. We did the entire circular walk (about a mile and a half), and spent some time trying to capture the various wildlife we could see. These are the two shots I'm happiest with - I need a larger lens for the camera!



We saw seals, and tons of different kinds of birds. I'm not a birder, by any means, but I did spend some time trying to catch the birds in flight. *sigh* This is my best shot of them. I'm going to add "tripod" and experience to the list if the next vacation includes wildlife.



And finally, we conclude with Old Scatness Broch. Neil calls this our most surprisingly find. Yet another Broch, yes? Well....yes. But it's still being dug, and pieced together for the tourists to visit, and staffed with a very strong interpretive program. Very enthusiastic people who really know their stuff, some of whom double as students in the archaeological program at the University of Bradford, which conducts the digs.

Unfortunately for me, the weaver had the day off, but I looked through her stuff. I'm quite impressed by the work she's done on the loom. The dress to the right of the loom was made on her loom.



*Whew* and now that I've finally caught up... we get on a ferry tonight at 7pm to leave Shetland. See you at the next stop!

Oh and btw, this post took a long time to write and I wouldn't be surprised if I missed something here or there, so feel free to ask me questions! Hit the word "comment" underneath the post, it's a link - follow the steps. :)

Karen

Edinburgh, and Out

Yesterday, we entered this place around 12:30pm and left..... 4 and a half hours and some 650 photos later, at closing time. We didn't even get out of the Early Peoples exhibit hall.



There were lots and lots and lots.....and lots... of Viking things to photograph.





Reporting was briefly interrupted by exhaustion and dietary distress.

This morning, we rented a car, got all turned around in Edinburgh on the way out by one way roads, roundabouts, bus and taxi only lanes, narrow roads, and people parking on the street to make the roads even more narrow. Driving on the left was only mildly terrifying as a result.

Once out of the city, it was still annoying, but Neil is slowly getting used to it.

I was a bit disappointed by Deep Sea World - great style of presentation, but not enough of it. Not for the price.



On the other hand, the Dunfermline Abbey was stunning. I would gladly have paid the price that Deep Sea World asked, to see the Abbey. Our Historic Friends cards got us in for free - I almost felt like I was ripping them off!

The place was beautiful, and felt very..... old and still.



This is just one of the many beautiful stained windows.



These stairs were rather tight, and steep!



History that I can walk in, and touch. I love it.

Karen