The egg-shaped structure uncovered during the excavation at Minehowe in Tankerness. (Picture: Jane Downes)

The dig was funded by Historic Scotland, Orkney Enterprise and the OIC was was led by Jane Downes, archaeology lecturer at Orkney College and Nick Card from Orkney Archaeological Trust.

Nick Card told The Orcadian what had been found over the last four weeks: “At the end of the 2000 season we had uncovered a large paved area, but this obviously sat on top of an earlier structure. So basically this year we extended the trench to try and get the full extent of the paved area.”

This they have done, and discovered that the paving covered all the centre of the trench, with a separate large paved area running along the north side of the trench. This, he said, was probably very late Iron Age or Pictish in date.

They removed the paving and went through a whole series of midden and rubbish deposits which infilled a round structure.

Nick explained: “There are alcoves at the back and two stone boxes, a possible entranceway running out through there and bits of wall running round. It’s almost egg-shaped rather than circular. Again this is probably late Iron Age in date. Maybe the fourth century AD.

“We have found a lot of evidence of metal working from that period at this very important site. We’ve found crucibles, moulds, slag, a possible furnace just over here and some very nice finds within the structure as well. In one of the stone boxes, we found the pommel of a sword, probably made from a whale tooth.”

An extra week, he said, would have been welcome, but further exploration will have to wait until next year.

“But we think that this is possibly either a domestic structure associated with the metal working, or it could in fact be a place where they finished off metal working. If they were doing all the almost ‘heavy industry’ outside, with kilns all round here, this was possibly where they were finishing off. There are some large stones here – sandstone blocks – which were probably used as metal working anvils.”

A wide variety of people have been on the dig, Nick explained: “We’ve had a professional team up, about a dozen folk and students from Sheffield University. We’ve also had quite a few local volunteers from the Friends of the Orkney Archaeology Trust. They’ve been a huge bonus. They’ve done a lot of ‘bits and bobs’ of excavation, find sorting and find washing – generally a great help.

“We’ve also been running a field school through Orkney College. For the middle two weeks of the excavation, about half a dozen paying volunteers coming up to be taught how to dig. It’s a very valuable element and hopefully in future years we’ll be able to expand it.”

Nick said Orkney College’s involvement with the dig, especially the work of lecturer Jane Downes, co-director of the dig, who ran the field school, had been vitally important.

Indicating the likely pattern for next year’s dig, Nick said: “We’ll fully excavate this round or egg-shaped structure to get down into the floor deposits. That will probably take quite a bit of time because we’ll want to analyse a lot of the soils and various elements of the structure, because there are indications of an earlier structure underneath this.”

As well as working on the excavation in front of Minehowe itself for the last month, a team of volunteers has also been digging at Roundhowe about 100 metres away, closer to the St Andrews Community Centre.

Nick Card felt that this area had proved more challenging to explain.

He said: “That was meant to be a broch site, which was excavated in the mid-19th century by James Farrer and George Petrie. Although the road has probably taken away the actual broch itself, we did expect to find lots of evidence of activity around the broch. But what we found was something quite bizarre in itself. There seems to be a mound which was surrounded by quite a large ditch that we uncovered and outside of the ditch, there was an encircling bank.

“One of the very strange things is that when you excavate broch sites in Orkney or anywhere in the north of Scotland, you expect to find thousands of items. From that site, though, we’ve only managed to find a few dozen shards of pottery, a few stone implements – not very much at all. So it’s a bit of a mystery. But when you consider it alongside the mystery of Minehowe itself, it shouldn’t be surprising really. It’s possible that the plethora of finds we’re getting from Minehowe itself, possibly originated from Roundhowe, were brought up here and deposited in some type of religious or ritualistic function.”

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