Day Nineteen Today has been a good deal quieter than yesterday, which is just as well because extreme excitement (carved stone ball), extreme heat (all day) and extreme exertion (normal digging) are not good for the human frame when taken all together. There is, though, more news of interesting stone. …
Day Eighteen The repertoire complete . . . We have found a carved stone ball! There you have it. We have ransacked our store of superlatives, but the extraordinary nature of this find has left us with just those plain, simple, but momentous words. Here they are again. We have …
Day Seventeen We are delighted to announce that we have a new building. Site director Nick and Structure Twelve supervisor, Jim, were there at the birth this morning, indeed acting as midwives. Both Nick and Jim are doing well and the new building is to be called Structure Twenty-Three. Actually, …
Day Sixteen A law of archaeology . . . . . . when the sun is beating down and everyone is feeling a little, well, exhausted, things start happening. Sunny Monday has, indeed, been very busy. It began with the arrival of more students from the University of the Highlands and …
Day Fifteen A plan for Trench T Just in case the good folk of Trench T feel a little neglected, while the world’s media and, more importantly this blog, concentrates on the wonders of incised stone in Trench P, we will start this morning with T. Through the early morning mists, …
Day Fourteen There is a strange meteorological process in Orkney which is seen nowhere else in the world. It occurs when, by a sort of wind-borne osmosis, the very air absorbs moisture to saturation point. That’s what hit us today. It’s not really raining, more just generally and comprehensively sopping …
Day Thirteen The finest so far Mike is indeed a very lucky man – not just one piece of art but now perhaps the finest piece of art we have recovered from the site, and one of the finest from the UK EVER – amazing and awe inspiring! Like the …
Day Twelve We detect some of the visiting students and diggers on site looking at us Orkney residents today with a sort of new, and wondering, respect — as in “how do they manage to live here?” We left the Ness yesterday afternoon, shoulders bowed, toes dragging in the dust, …
Day Eleven A strange sort of sticky goo is leaking from the screen of the laptop on which this blog is being written. That’s how hot it is. Truth to say, there have been no casualties of the weather today thus far, and everyone is being sensible and drinking lots …
Day Ten As delicate operations go, the lifting of large and crumbling bits of pottery is just about as delicate as it gets. Our visitor, Peter Brigham, and his wife, Kareen, discovered a very large pot earlier this week just outside Structure Twelve. It appears to be a single vessel, …
Day Nine We told you in the last post about Jo’s fantastic inscribed stone from the northern end of Structure Twelve. Just a quick look at, it late yesterday afternoon, failed to register how stunning it really is. In essence, it features two sets of deep, and clearly incised, triangles, joined …
Day Eight Trench T, the new one on the far side of the house from the main site, is living up to the family tradition. In other words, it is proving to be just as complex, infuriating and downright puzzling as the rest of the Ness site. The revetments around …
Day Seven Today is nice and sunny at the Ness. We appear to be in a little bubble of brightness, with dark and angry clouds lurking on the horizon, but keeping their distance. In Structure Ten, however, there is a little less cheeriness and a good deal of head-scratching. The …
Day Six Bronze Age pottery We will begin today, as we did on Friday, with pottery. You may recall we showed a photograph of an incised pot rim from under the bone deposit at the end of Structure Ten. It was puzzling because the bone has already been dated to …
