Over the last three years, we’ve unearthed lots of different clues from the Anglo-Saxon monastery, many of which tell us how the early islanders’ buried their dead, and what they did to commemorate them – things like namestones, graves, and those unforgettable white quartz pebbles.
This year, we’re shifting our focus from how the community died, to what their lives were like. To do it, we’ll be focusing our efforts on the Anglo-Saxon building that we started investigating in 2018.
Last season, we managed to uncover just one corner of it, and found two large, circular pits inside, which we *think* may have been ovens, and a few pieces of pumice stone. We know it was eventually abandoned, because there were some more recent graves cut right through it. If we can uncover the rest of it, we think we’ll have a pretty good chance of finding more evidence that can tell us exactly what this building was for. Was it a home? A workshop? Or a place of worship? That’s what we hope to find out!
We’ll also be taking a closer look at the huge wall that runs through the middle of our eastern trench, to see if there’s more we can learn about the monastery itself.
Since the whole area was used as a cemetery for several centuries, we do also expect to unearth human remains along the way. As always, we’ll treat them with dignity and respect, and only remove them from their resting place if absolutely necessary.
We can’t wait to see what we discover!
