Letting the dust settle – pottery triage project comes to an end

This afternoon, Nick, Anne, Roy and Jan (and Tam the collie) said farewell and a big thank-you to the last group of volunteers on the 2025 pot triage project, before many head off south again. The Orkney based group are going to do a bit more throughout August, but after a well-deserved week’s break, in which we’ll literally let the dust settle.

Fifty-six boxes packed full with Ness pottery, from across the site, have been measured, weighed and cleaned – quite literally a dusty business! We’ll need a major hoovering before we start again, and maybe more overalls and masks to protect us all from the penetrating miasma.

The six-week project ended with a fine, slightly gritty, red coating on all of us, and to our belongings, which Storm Floris will no doubt help disperse.

A huge quantity of beautiful pottery sherds have been oohed and aahed over, identifying clever Neolithic decorative design and technique, incredibly tempered (up to 90 per cent) ceramics, more coloured pottery, thick food crusts, tiny bits of tiny pots, not to mention hundreds of photographs and generally building knowledge and expertise.

But we’ve also had a lot of fun – Ray’s jokes and puns have been a particular highlight – and eaten an awful lot of chocolate biscuits!

It’s been a great six weeks and made the pain of not digging much easier to bear!