Bective excavations Blog

Cutting S North after excavation. The extension to the north-east was placed to find the width of the wall exposed in the main cutting and to find the eastern limit of the lay brothers’ range.

Cutting S South after excavation.

Pauline and Michael complete some last minute processing from the remains of the floated samples.

The men from the OPW who filled in our cuttings for us on the final day. Thanks guys.

Team Abbey line up for their pre-game photo.

Our host and chef for the end of excavation party was Oliver Delaney. Oliver has been a good friend to the excavation since our first season in 2009. He sports the commemorative T-shirt printed to honour the workers of the 2012 season. It features a design by Sadhbh McElveen based on the griffin tile from Bective Abbey.

Team Cottage line up for their team photo before the annual final day soccer match.

Neill, Peadar, Aine and Siobhán; four of our five original volunteers from the 2009 season.They participated in all four years on the excavation and have all graduated from their university courses in the time since the Bective Abbey Project began.

Dr Mark Clinton (right) was a surprise visitor on our last day. He discusses the finer points of medieval archaeology with Kieran Campbell and Catriona Devane.

A rainbow arcs its way over Oliver’s house. This has been a welcome home to the excavation since 2009.

As night falls the guitars come out. It is time to put down the camera and look for the tambourine. Good night Bective.

The vista of a sunny day at last, energized all the team. We gave Cutting P a final facelift before its close-up. After lunch we took our last look at the drains and flues before they were back-filled by the OPW. Attention then switched to Cutting S North, which also needed its final trowel over, photographs and some planning. Rory and Rosanne completed this in record time, while Peter discussed our findings with an interested wedding group. Matthew, Rob and Conall homed in on Cutting S South and have almost completed the detailed planning of the drain and walls. Kevin O’Brien visited and threw a huge amount of light on many of the architectural features we have exposed. Last day tomorrow (gag!…)

Cutting S North from the west after excavation.

Horses inspect Cutting P after excavation. They seem to approve of the results after four weeks of work.

Shane sits amongst the finds and samples drying out during a rare sunny day.

Bective Abbey is a popular spot for wedding photographs. In this photo Peter explains the excavation process to the wedding party.

Shane returned to the drain in Cutting S South to visit the origins of his great discovery. The drain fill was floated and examined. Shane detected a bronze chape end in the sample. Go Shane!

Finds are numbered in the sun.

Matthew surveying in Cutting S South.

Rory and Rosanne draw the section at the east face of Cutting S North.

Surveying is in full swing now that Cuttings P is completely excavated. The finishing touches were made to Cutting S South. The drain and wall are looking really good. Sadhbh has identified a blocked entrance in the south wall and has exposed a drain under the wall as well. Cutting S North will be completed tomorrow morning. In this cutting a wall which was sitting on the drain fill was planned and removed. Rosanne is sharpening her surveying implements for a session of planning in the afternoon. A bronze object with some wood attached was found in the drain in Cutting S South (find of the day). All the soil samples have been floated and their processing continues. Registration and numbering of finds is almost completed and we are ready to present the specialists with their parcels for final analysis. Through the day a large number of students from St Patrick’s College visited the site. Go Pats!!

Planning in Cutting P. Sophie supervises.

Detail of the drain in Cutting S South.

Cutting S South from the east.

A large number of visitors joined the many volunteers from St Patrick’s College Drumcondra. They gather here to celebrate the History Society’s victory. The Pats Hist Soc won the ‘Most Improved Society’ award in 2011-12. Noel (past president) holds the award flanked by society officers Maeve and James.. Go Pats!!!

Noel Carey (past president of the History Society of St Patrick’s College) pretends to present their award to Lecturer Matthew Stout.

The OPW JCB arrived on the site to begin infilling the cuttings, OMG.

The drain in Cutting S South has been emptied and fully exposed. It produced some fine artifacts; a bone and bronze comb, a complete relief tile and a tuning peg, along with a lot of medieval pottery and brilliant environmental samples. The remaining cuttings (Cutting S North and Cutting P) are nearing completion and survey is in full swing. The office team are at full tilt keeping up with the large quantity of finds uncovered during the last few days.

Mark Heffernan proudly displays the bone and bronze comb from the drain in Cutting S South.

Close up of the bone and bronze comb which came from the drain (Photo: Mark Heffernan).

Relief tile from the drain in Cutting S South (Photo: Mark Heffernan).

Pauline sporting our safety headgear.

A warm breeze blew across the site for most of the day and great discoveries continue to be made. A beautiful and complete tile was found in Cutting S South. A carved bone (perhaps ivory) cylinder was also found there. It looks like a tuning peg from a medieval stringed instrument. The top of the drain has been revealed. Its contents will be extensively sampled. Cutting P is nearing the natural in all sections. Planning will begin there tomorrow. In Cutting S North a hearth or fire pit is being emptied. It contains a lot of medieval pottery. A metal key also came from this cutting. There were many distinguished guests during the day. They included Chief Archaeologist (emeritus) David Sweetman, Barry Drinan and Dr Marie Bourke of the National Gallery of Ireland. Marie and site directors Geraldine and Matthew first excavated together in 1976.

Mark, Pauline and Emma proudly display a complete relief tile found in the burnt layer just above the drain in Cutting S South. The relief tile shows a lion (or dragon or unicorn) rampant.

Sadhbh digs in the narrow space outside the building in Cutting S South. She is finding a large number of small animal skeletons

After the samples are floated, the remains of the sample is examined for material that did not rise in the flotation process. This produces very fine fish bones. A cherry stone was identified by the environmental lab today as well.

Distinguished visitors and guest volunteers; Barry Drinan, David Sweetman and Marie Burke.

Work continued in Cuttings S and P. The drains/flues were exposed in Cutting P, a cutting that looks more like spaghetti junction every day. After planning the stone collapse in Cutting S (north and south) we are into the burnt layers. A sherd of 16th century German stoneware was uncovered on the baked clay surface in Cutting S North (Rory discovered this find of the day). The relatively late find caused some consternation and might require us to rethink the dating of some of the activity around this burning incident. In the afternoon we had a real treat. Garden historian Lorraine Foley spoke to the team about the botanical legacy of the Cistercians to be seen in and around Bective Abbey. The talk was followed by a field trip around the walls of the Abbey where old plants sprout from the wall crevices. You can find out more about Lorraine’s work by going to her website ‘Wildlandsacpe.com’

http://wildlandscape.com/

Workers on the site this week included Conall O’Callaghan, Lucas Griswald, Siobhán Rheinisch, Noel Carey, Catriona Devane, Sadhbh McElveen, Rosanne Meenan, Susan Lyons, James Doyle, Michael Connolly, Oisin McNamara, Peader McKeown, Robert Anderson, Emma Bates, Niall Ó Cearbhaill, Gemma Cooney, Rory Blount, Tom Ivory, Siobhan McCormack, Richard Dennis, Joshua Maloney, Catherine Bonner, Sarah Malone, Eimear Ivory, Shane O’Reilly, Alanna O’Reilly, Peter Dodd and Mark Kelly. Thanks for all your help.

Left without a leg to stand on. On Thursday night the bockety legs of our dining table were stolen from outside the cottage. Not to be outdone, Conall designed a table of banqueting hall proportions. They can take our legs but they cannot steal our pride.

Garden historian Lorraine Foley introduces the team to the botanical legacy of Bective Abbey.

Plants associated with Medieval monastic farming still flourish in the vicinity of Bective Abbey.

It was a day for planning in Cuttings R and Q. Meanwhile in Cutting P a large team exposed a series of drain-like features. Peter found a very nice portion of a floor tile (find of the day). The curving passage in Cutting S South was finally bottomed . A sherd of undecorated medieval pottery and a piece of glass was found right at the bottom. The charcoal spread exposed in Cutting S South continues under the wall, confirming that it was built after the fire event. Stone collapse is in the process of being removed from Cutting S North and there is a backed clay layer indicating the intensity of the fire that destroyed the building. The environmental team have been working flat out to keep up with the extensive sampling. We had a visit from the School of Irish Archaeology under the directorship of Mark Kelly. The 22 children had a lot of difficult questions to ask us. I hope we got some of the answers right! You can find out more about the SIA by looking at http://irisharchaeology.ie/2011/05/the-school-of-irish-archaeology/

The curved wall as revealed by Sadhbh. This wall was added to a wall which is itself later than the collapsed wall/burnt areas.

Peter (left), Tom and Gemma (standing) expose parallel drains/flues.

Conall completing the plan of Cutting Q.

Gianmarco (right) with children from the School of Irish Archaeology (SIA). THe SIA is the brainchild of archaeologist Mark Kelly. Mark worked on the Bective Abbey Project in 2009.

A blue sky peaked through the clouds and fine weather in the morning spurred us on to  great things. Cutting R in the monastic garden is finished and Rosanne and James started to plan the series of medieval compost-filled furrows. Stone-lintelled drain-like features are being exposed in Cutting P. Maybe they  are related to some kind of industrial activity? Sadhbh keeps going down in the curved structure that was built onto the lay-brothers range. She found the stem of a bronze pin in it (find of the day) and some ‘Trim ware’. We are going to start moving some of the collapse stones in the lay-brothers range tomorrow and see if can we find the original floor. In the afternoon we went on a field trip to Rathmore medieval tower house and church led by our own Bective digger Siobhan who has undertaken a study of the settlement there. It was a brilliant tour. Many Thanks Siobhan and the landowners involved.!

Garden Cutting R from the south. Although this cutting did not reveal a central water feature (as hoped) the medieval furrows yielded wonderful evidence for composting and their contents will tell the story of the Cistercian diet.

Cutting S North from the south. The stones represent a collapsed building. They were expertly troweled by Katherine. This photo was taken just before the heavens opened.

Cutting S South from the east. The end wall of the lay-brothers range is on the left. The end of the collapsed building and burnt layers are to the right.

Callum, Kia, Shane, Richard, Alanna and Siobhán, the future of Irish archaeology.

Siobhán Rhennisch tells the crew about the history of the towerhouse of Rathmore.

The crew on top of the motte/ringwork/ringfort examining the entrance of the towerhouse.

Siobhán continues the tour with a discussion of the history and architecture of the Church at Rathmore. Siobhan has just completed a masterful study of the medieval settlement at Rathmore.

The last stop on the tour was to the late-medieval cross outside the church.

To home through the fields.

It was a busy day on the site with work progressing in all the cuttings and a lot of special visitors. The collapsed stone layer is being planned in the lay-brother’s range. Cutting Q is completely excavated. No ditch appeared but there is a shallow medieval trench passing through the cutting. The Garden Cutting R should be finished tomorrow. We expect to do a lot of planning in the next few days. Sample processing is in high gear and continues to yield fantastic material. A curving trench associated with iron slag is coming up in Cutting P. Could this be evidence for industrial activity just north of the grain drying kilns? We had new young volunteers on the site: Sara, Emer, Shane and Alanna. We hope they enjoyed their day and will make a career out of archaeology.

Cutting Q after excavation.

Cutting Q from the west with Bective Abbey in the distance.

Sadhbh (foreground) and Katherine (back) in cutting S South. Flora and Phoebe look on.

Flotation samples set out to … not exactly dry in this weather, just to get less wet.

Matthew surveys the collapsed wall in Cutting S North.

This report discusses the analysis of the plant macrofossil (archaeobotanical) remains assemblage and charcoal remains recorded from the soil samples associated with the archaeological excavations at Bective Abbey, Co. Meath (E4028). It includes the results of post-excavation work from Season 2010 and Season 2011.

While wood and plant macrofossils are constituted as environmental remains, they represent the results of two separate human activities. The crops and wild taxa are evidence of arable farming and reflect the plant remains brought to the site deliberately as part of human activity or inadvertently with other gathered plant species.  The charcoal material on the other hand is characteristic of the wood species selected as a fuel resource or wood chosen for use in construction and can go some way to understanding the local woodland environment.

Follow this link to read the full report

BectiveAbbeyEnvReport2012