York 2: Son of York

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this son of York

It has indeed been a glorious summer and this amazing experience in York made possible thanks to the generosity of Fund for Teachers and their donors. We are speechlessly grateful for this opportunity and are eager to take what we have learned back to the classroom.

But now for week 2 of our Archaeology Live! course in summery York.

Roman fresco discovered beneath York Minster

Upon returning to York, we dropped our things at the hotel and headed back to the center of town. First, we wanted to find the crepe food cart that sets up in High Ousegate on weekends. Second, we wanted another trip through the Jorvik Viking Center. It was really about reprocessing tier displays and information through the lens of all we had learned the previous week on our dig.

Leaving Jorvik, we headed over to the Minster. Having been there for evensong made us eager to have a chance to wander around looking at everything. Our previous post described the principal features of the nave, but this time we were able to see the other areas. Behind the High Altar is the east window which is currently entirely obscured by scaffolding as it undergoes a renovation. There are interesting displays (interactive and hands on!) about the preservation and restoration of the glass and another large area dedicated to the work being done on the exterior. The Minster was built with limestone blocks originally, later repairs utilized a variety of different stone (whatever was most readily available at that particular moment, likely). These alternative materials have reacted quite differently to environmental conditions than the original Caen limestone. They are in the process of replacing the old repair stone with the correct limestone which involves a great deal of quite skilled masonry.

Inside the Minster's chapter house

In the north transept is an astronomical clock that honors members of the Royal Air Force killed in the line of duty. This sits by the entrance to the chapter house. We have seen some interesting chapter houses in this trip, but York Minster’s might be the best. It does not have the central column leading up to a fan vaulted ceiling like the others we have encountered. It does have the little seating nooks around its circumference and above these are little carved faces. Some are animals and some are monsters, but most are people, some of whom are making faces or being attacked by demons. The most interesting thing however is that each one is different.

York Minster as it stands today was built on the foundations of earlier structures. As the Minster was expanded, the weight on those foundations increased. About 30 years ago, it was noticed that the central tower was twisting and that large cracks were appearing in the stonework. Structural engineers were called in and warned that the Minster was in imminent danger of collapse. The original foundations were being crushed under the weight of the present building and were in desperate need of reinforcing. While this work was happening, archaeologists were given the opportunity to excavate in the Minster’s undercroft and what they uncovered is amazing. They found the remains of the Roman principia which once stood at the center of the fortress. Columns, floors, even parts of a frescoed wall with its colors intact were discovered. An interesting exhibit has been installed that shows the repairs, the archaeological finds, and how it all ties into the history of the Minster.

On our way back to the hotel we walked past Clifford’s Tower, the hilltop remains of York Castle which once stood beside the river as part of its medieval defenses. We were too late to go in sadly, but some of us raced up the side, which we later noticed signs tell you not to do.

Taking levels for one of our burials

Our first order of business on Monday morning was to do the documentation for the burial we uncovered our first week. This was the adolescent/young adult whose skull was badly damaged probably due to the shallowness of the grave. We started with laying out the grid squares and using the tape measures and plumb bob to complete our drawing. We did a composite drawing, that is, one that includes multiple contexts (each find is a different context number). In this case, the skeleton, coffin, and grave cut are each a separate context number. Later, once all the measuring and sketching were done, we traced each context on to its own drawing. We used the surveying equipment to take the levels and completed the context cards for each number. Finally, we sifted some soil and refilled the excavation.

Zada sorting and bagging finds

We then assigned a new context number to the half of our plot that we had not found a grave in and began to dig that area. We did not make much progress uncovering the grave we presume to be below that day. Our afternoon was spent washing finds which is always nice, especially this week as it afforded us a chance to get out of the sun.

Tuesday arrived with a forecast for more sunny weather and the promise of even hotter temperatures. Those of you following along in Houston will laugh at what passes for hot in York which is anything past 80. But trust me, 85 sitting in full sun hunched over a hole in the ground that you are scraping deeper with a trowel and emptying with a small shovel is enough to make you appreciate a little shade. The first morning session was spent digging and sieving our supposed grave backfill. Zada was moved to a slot of medieval material between the path and the former cemetery because there was no longer room for 3 people in our area. The second session, we got a break from digging in order to measure and draw the plan for the lane running between the dig site and the church. This area was once a street and so should have medieval archaeology underneath, rather than an abundance of 19^th century burials. The plan is to begin excavating it later this summer, but of course, before the sledgehammers come out, we have to record what was there before any digging. At that time of the morning the path was well shaded so we did not need to reslather ourselves with sunblock. Also, it was good practice with drawing plans using the grid squares.

After lunch we did some more digging. We found the usual interesting bits of pottery ranging from Roman to Victorian, and of course, many bits of brick and mortar. Still, nothing was revealed. We also did our usual turn washing finds.

After work, we went to the Minster for evensong one last time. The choir was all girls’ voices and of course it was lovely. The anthem in particular was beautiful. The setting of the Magnificat (Westminster Service) was a little different and not one we are hoping to hear again. The postlude was excellent. It was overall a wonderful service in a magnificent space. We had dinner at the Pizza Express which I don’t think we have mentioned but it is a favorite with Zada and it was her turn to pick. They have a menu item called “dough balls” which are just that. They are served with three tasty substances in which to dip them, garlic butter, pesto, and something red, which is delicious.

Wednesday was projected to be the hottest day of the week, but also included a chance of rain and more clouds. When we started digging, it was not long before we came upon the telltale signs of a coffin; little bits of metal plating and tiny nails, and the impression of the decorated wood in the soil. This burial was a bit lower than the previous one, but still fairly shallow, and occupied the right hand side of the remaining half of our original trench. A bit of careful scraping with the clay working tools revealed the sides of a fairly narrow coffin meaning the burial of an infant or young child. We continued digging with the fine tools and came upon what we took to be the skull. Several minutes of delicate work followed. As more of the “skull” emerged, it took on a decidedly misshapen appearance, not broken, just oddly shaped. Then we figured out that it was a rock. This rock had fallen in on the coffin and smashed in one side. We did not have to dig much more before the actual skull appeared. Like the last one, it was badly damaged by time and the weight of later constructions on the site. We also uncovered the tiny radius and ulna bones of a left arm. Their size left no doubt that we had uncovered an infant burial.

Due to the fragile nature of the remains, we did not continue excavating because the chances of damaging or losing some of the bones is too high. We assigned context numbers for the remains, coffin, and grave cut. Then we photographed the finds. The rest of the documentation work was set aside until the next day in order for us to fine sieve the material we had dug out of the burial. This involved using water and a fine mesh sieve to make sure that we had not accidentally removed any tiny bones while we were digging. Fortunately, we did not find any.

Completing a drawing of the church lane

That afternoon, the church warden Robert arrived to give us a tour of the church. We mentioned the self-guided tour we gave ourselves last week, but it is far more interesting with someone who knows the place so well. He showed us one of the columns in the aisles that is a recycled Roman piece. The roof timbers on one side have been dated using dendrochronology to the year 1080. (Apparently there is a huge database in Britain of tree ring timelines to which archaeological wood finds can be compared.) The trees from which those timbers were cut grew in Sherwood Forest (as in Robin Hood’s turf) and are identical to some of the timbers used in Lincoln and Ely Cathedrals. Robert told us all about the windows and their histories. One of the most interesting things was the story of Emma Roughton who was an anchoress that lived in a little cell behind the building. The squint in the wall through which she watched Mass & took part in the Eucharist is still there. Emma was well known for having visions and making predictions about the future that often turned out to be accurate. She claimed to have been visited 7 times by the Virgin Mary who, among other things, told her that King Henry V would die and that his infant son Henry VI would be crowned. Robert’s knowledge of the church is truly encyclopedic and we can’t do any justice to his presentation in such a brief summary!

First thing Thursday, we got to work documenting the infant burial we uncovered. We measured and drew a composite drawing. Then we recorded levels for the 3 different contexts we were documenting. Next we traced the contexts from the composite drawing each onto its own sheet and wrote in the measured levels. Finally we completed the context cards for the each context, the remains, the coffin, the grave cut, and the backfill. This is all a fairly lengthy process, but having done the matrix session with Toby the previous week, we were starting to better understand how all of this data can be used to generate a timeline of what went on in this space almost 200 years ago. The matrix shows how the contexts fit together and helps make sense of the finds.

The record keeping work took almost the whole morning. Around noon we finished those tasks and had just enough time to assign a context number to the remaining bit of our trench, presuming it to contain yet another burial, and draw it. After lunch we were sent to the Tree of Finds. This time, we were not washing, but sorting the finds into groups and then labeling and bagging them to be sent to the specialists who will decide if they are worth keeping. As with the other record keeping involved in archaeological fieldwork, the labeling has to be done just so. It has to be exceptionally neat, with every piece of information in exactly the right place. Some types of finds have a two letter code like “AB” for animal bone and “PO” for pottery. Those are of course easy to fit on a small label and are short so chances to make a mistake are limited. Then there are objects whose names must be written out like “fired clay tobacco pipe” and “animal horn core” which offer numerous opportunities to slip up or have someone bump the table while you are writing.

Last session we photographed and then began digging the last bit of our trench, the one in which we had not yet found a grave. Several curiosities turned up as we went. First, there were some bits of pottery that were much larger than anything we had been finding the previous few days. One was a piece of medieval green glaze about 4 inches in diameter and a piece of a Norman gritty ware vessel with about a third of the rim intact. Stranger still, we did not find any evidence of a coffin, but we found some human bones. One was a very small piece of a pelvis and a humerus, small, but so large that did not seem likely to belong to the owner of the pelvis. We also uncovered a few pieces of skull, quite thin so likely belonging to a small child. Then there were some odd animal bones and a few large pieces of tile. We worked to the end of the day, and no coffin appeared. The human bones we found may be evidence of intercutting graves. That is, one burial’s cut disturbing a previous burial cause some of the remains to get jumbled.

Thursday evening is always a jaunt with Toby around York listening to the tales of the city’s incredible history. Last week was mostly focused on the Minster side of the River Ouse. This week we walked the right side of the river. This side’s development was far less influenced by the Roman fortress. This side of the river was where the colonia was located. That is the civilian settlement attached to the fortress. Being outside the fort, it did not have the same rigid lay out and so has a different character. We walked along the city walls for a ways stopping to look at the former railroad headquarters which is now a 5 star hotel. We went around to Mickelgate which leads out on to the road we stayed on last week. It turns out that that road follows the Roman road out of town. There is a church a bit further on that has pre-conquest origins. The tower has a great number of stones taken from Roman buildings incorporated into it. Crossing the river we saw the former castles that guarded the approach to York from down river, one of which is Clifford’s which some of us stormed earlier in the week. Again, the wealth of knowledge is too much to be recalled. It is too bad that we can’t stay all summer and go on the Thursday night walk every week.

Thank you Fund for Teachers!

Our last day was, sadly, a half day owing to the need to leave in time to get all the way to Inverness. We dug in (pun so much intended) right away. Before long, we uncovered the well preserved edge of a coffin with the traditional Dracula shape. Certain now that we would be coming upon bones, we swapped trowels for the fine work tools and continued excavating. For a while nothing appeared which seemed odd. This burial was certainly deeper than the other two and the digging became quite awkward. Then, strangely, we found the bottom of the coffin, without finding its inhabitant. We widened our search a bit and finally found an adult’s left clavicle (collar bone). Further down, we uncovered a couple of ribs and just to the left of those we found a humerus. This was an adult burial above which our two young people had been buried. Unfortunately, the documentation work of these finds had to be left to someone in week 3 because uncovering all of that took us right up to lunch. We said our goodbyes and, after a hasty lunch at the Circles for one last scone with clotted cream and jam, went to the station for the long ride to Inverness.