Our main goal this season is to understand the furnace area, and we’re making great progress already. We can already see that it’s much larger than initially thought, with more pits and spreads of metalworking dotted around.

But things are starting to get really interesting: on one side of the big circular feature, there’s a squareish stone stucture, with a skeleton inside. We’re currently trying to figure out if it’s a flue or stokehole into which a burial has later been placed, or whether it’s a very substantial stone-lined grave that has been dug into the furnace decades or centuries after it went out of use.

This bright blue glass boardgame piece is crowned with a ring of white bobbles. It is likely to be the King from a set used for playing a version of ‘tafl’ – a family of games played in Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Denmark and Sweden which are derived from the Roman wargame Ludus Latrunculorum.

This individual seems to have been laid to rest with their legs straight, but their upper body twisted to the side. We don’t know if the position was intentional or accidental… Anglo-Saxons buried their dead in a variety of positions, but for the early Christians, prone (straight, rather than flexed) was the most common.

Lindisfarne cross stone… in 3D!

The two halves of the stone have been digitally re-united. Zoom in to see the full design.

Early medieval inscribed stone

Feast your eyes on this!

It’s not been seen by human eyes for nearly 1,200 years, but now our little 9th century styca is all yours to examine. Click, zoom, rotate… enjoy!

Northumbrian King Aethelred II styca