Stephen, who worked with us at Bective Abbey and Newgrange, came to work for the day with Billy in cutting F. He single-handedly pushed the settlement history of Beaubec back to prehistory when he found a finely crafted leaf-shaped arrowhead and thumb-scraper. Before the finds trays had even been distributed around the site this morning, the tower team found part of a medieval timber churn in the latrine fill which also produced remains of figs and oats. John, in the ditch cutting J, excavated the last remnants of the post-medieval fill and is ready to move into the medieval fill of the moat (which appears to curve in this section). Anthony, Bernie and Catherine, under Laura’s able leadership, have exposed part of a wall and the edging for the eighteenth century avenue. Tom and Mary in Cutting G are finding medieval pottery and lots of animal bones including a number of almost complete skulls. It was an honour to welcome to the site Donal Hall and his wife,. Donal is President of the County Louth Archaeological and Historical Society. Other visitors included the Boland family from Swords, relatives of Bernie. Glen Boland very kindly took some drone photographs of the site which we should be able to put up on the blog tomorrow. Anthony Mullen came to the site and generously gave Geraldine and Matthew copies of his novel. We look forward to reading it. Matt was most excited today by a visit from his boss James Kelly, Head of School, Department of History and Geography, Dublin City University. James and Judith toured the site but Matt was so busy talking he forgot to take a photograph to mark the occasion. James also visited with the three DCU students volunteers; his first sighting of an actual student since the lock-down in March.
The beautifully-crafted, Neolithic, leaf-shaped arrowhead found by Stephen Newe (photo: Billy SInes)..
Stephen first worked with the Stouts as a thirteen year old at Bective Abbey. He finished his degree in Archaeology at UCD and has also dug at Newgrange.
The tower crew (Craig, Alex and Lennon) with the churn lid. Later they found the handle and some other pieces of the churn.
Long structural timber found in the latrine culvert.
Anthony Mullen shares his publications with co-director Geraldine.
Donal Lynch worked in cutting K today with Matt and Ger. It is the most unforgiving and unproductive cutting on the site. Matt taught Donal at St Patrick’s College. Donal later qualified as a secondary teacher and taught Brona, who later became a student of Matt’s at DCU and is volunteering at Beaubec. Brona is hoping to qualify as a secondary teacher. Who will she teach?
Mick Mongey tooks this lovely view of the excavation from the latrine tower doorway. Lennon, one of the tower crew, is in the foreground (photo: Mick Mongey). Note some of the better photos in this blog are by Mick and Billy Sines. They are not always credited properly.
Geraldine and John discuss the intricacies of cutting J (photo: Mick Mongey).
Bernie (left), part of the cutting E crew, discusses the finds from cutting J with John (left) and her Boland relatives (photo: Mick Mongey).
Glen Boland taking drone photos of the site.
Just arrived at the time of going to press are Glen Boland’s drone photos. Here is a sample, more tomorrow (photo: Glen Boland).
A fine photo of the busy finds office, you might almost say a “finds” photo (photo: Mick Mongey).
Co-director Matt explores the latrine culvert (photo: Craig Downie).
Beaubec Excavations 