#pkay17

Day 5: Stone Moulds

Monday was our last day on site before the team had a well deserved break in the middle of the excavation. After a rainy Day 4 the weather was looking up, and we were raring to go.

It wasn't long before the Trench 2 team discovered a stone mould. This stone has a shape carved into it, used for moulding molten metal into a desired shape. This was really exciting, and Andy began to explain to some of the team the process of metal working in which this sort of mould would have be used. As the process of using crucibles to work with high sustained heat to work with molten metal was being explained, Bob from Trench 2 began finding fragments of crucible as if pre planned! This was great to aid our understanding of the process of heating and shaping metal to make objects.

As if this wasn't exciting enough, two further moulds came from Trench 3. These were slightly different, as they had previously been used as a saddle quern- a grinding surface for grain, seeds etc. You can see this from the curve, as the constant grinding alters the shape of the stone to resemble a saddle- hence the name. These later developed into rotary querns, where two stone discs were ground against each other with a handle to minimise work. These later evolved into mill stones you can see in windmills.

When held together you can see that the two pieces fit together, giving us more detail on the shape of the mould itself. These were found close to the wall or bank of hillfort, possibly suggesting that the stones were reused again, as part of the structure.

Day 1: The Root(s) of all Evil

The first day of excavation at King’s Seat marks the start of a three year season of excavation, each September from 2017-2019.

Today, the team navigated their way up the winding slopes to our base for the next two weeks, with tents, tools and (most importantly) Tunnocks in tow. Arriving at the summit, it was clear how much of an impact the rhododendron previously covering the site would have had on access and visibility at the hillfort. The efforts of the volunteers who initiated and completed the vegetation clearance made it possible to identify all of the interesting lumps and bumps of this monument, which hopefully will understand even more about by the end of this two weeks.

After a site tour by Sarah at PKHT, and a health and safety talk by Andy from AOC, we laid out the three trenches which will be excavated this year. Trench 2 is at the summit, encompassing a rather impressive glacial erratic boulder, Trench 3 focuses on the entrance of the hillfort, and Trench 1 focuses on the terraces and ramparts cascading down from the lower terrace area. Many of these terraces may have been later activity, as a result of landscaping and manipulation of the terrain, and we hope to establish a good chronology for this over the course of the project.

The morning began with a Tunnock’s fuelled deturfing frenzy. Although, as there isn’t really much in the way of ‘turf’, the team opted for mattocks, saws and loppers to clear the fallen vegetation, matted roots and root stumps left by the rhododendron. Part of this excavation aims to assess the impact of these plants on the underlying archaeology, yet they did not impact our progress today! We made fantastic progress, clearing a lot of the trench area by lunchtime, and even coming down onto stone and possible features in Trench 2.

Topographical Survey Workshop August 2017

Trowels Ready for King’s Seat

Welcome to the King’s Seat Community Archaeology Project Blog. Here you can read the latest news from the project including our excavation dig diary which will be coming very soon as it’s only 7 days now until we start our first season of excavations on the hillfort.

Preparations for the dig have been stepping up apace this week at PKHT and also on site with tree and lower lying vegetation clearance taking place to prepare the areas where the trenches will be going in. We have 5 trenches planned which we hope to open over the duration of the project and this year we’ll be starting with Trenches 1-3.

We’re delighted to announce the launch of Perthshire’s latest community archaeology project. The King’s Seat Hillfort Community Archaeology Project is an exciting new venture that we’re embarking on in partnership with Dunkeld and Birnam Historical Society to find out more about this curiously named hill to the east of Dunkeld.