Day 4 - Tuesday 19th

Today we were visited by Colin who kindly brought a large orange digger to help us create 3 large 3m x 20m trenches in the middle of the site. The locations of the trenches were decided by the results of the test trenches we put in on Sunday. The digger stripped off the turf layer and subsoil till large masonry stones began to be revealed. At this stage it was decided that the trench would then be excavated by hand to preserve any archaeological finds in the trench. 

Once the digger had finished we jumped into the trench and started the process of trowelling back. This ‘cleans’ the soil to create clarity so that changes in colour of the ground can be seen this will hopefully define areas of possible features or cuts. 

The test trenches behind the monastery wall on the north side continued to produce small fragments of redeposited human remains. We excavated lower down in the trench against the wall of the monastery and found a strange change in construction of the foundations, hinting at the possibility of earlier foundations. Although extremely tentative, this may be the kildonnan monastery (it’s too early to confirm so keep posted for further updates).

As we are all working in small groups on the different projects around the site it was important to have a team tour so we could better understand what each group discovers. The team down at the boundary wall continued to investigate the area where the curved all intersects the straight sections. 

Tuesday evening we were kindly invited over to Mick and Jackie’s house on the other side of the Island to watch the England football match. As many of us are huge football fans, we greatly appreciated the opportunity to watch the match on big screen and get to know some of the locals. Everyone who went had such a great time and were amazed by the round pool table and the whale skeleton.  We would all like to say a BIG thank you to all the locals for being so welcoming!

Yet again we were spoilt by the sunshine and the amazing views on the Island. Happy archaeology team today!