THE BIG DIG FOR ST KEVIN
OUR REPORTER DAVID MEDCALF JOINED THE CROWDS AT THE SUMMER DIG IN GLENDALOUGH, WHERE PROFESSOR GRAEME WARREN AND HIS TEAM HAVE BEEN BRINGING THE PAST TO LIGHT
HOW DO SENIOR academics pass the long vacation?
Many professors presumably head for their favourite spot in the sun or retreat to the garden to tend the roses. Maybe on the other hand they indulge in some light reading and background research. Perhaps instead they knuckle down to writing up their great academic thoughts.
We never know exactly what they get up to during the holidays because, unless they choose to pop up at some well publicised summer school, they are largely lost to sight. But not Graeme Warren. The recently appointed head of archaeology at University College Dublin spent much of the summer in a hole in the ground. And not just any hole in the ground.
This particular hole, not much bigger than a tennis court and not much deeper than the shallow end in the average municipal swimming pool, was in a very public place with thou- sands of people passing every day. Then he invited the world at large to be his guest and step inside the fence to take a close look at what was going on in or around the hole. Here is a professor who does not see his work as being confined any ivory tower or dusty library. Come along and join in, everyone! And if you cannot make it in person, then follow proceedings on the internet, where the flow of information from the hole in the ground is posted up for the world to see. Followers are even invited to sign up for a regular newsletter bulletins. The dig being conducted at Glendalough is not quite as dramatic as the exploration of the Pyramids on the banks of the Nile. It will produce no stunning death mask of St Kevin or collection of priceless jewellery. Nevertheless, the Co. Wicklow site is – just like the last resting place of the Pharaohs in Egypt – in a place where visitors have been arriving in their droves for decades from all over the world. As a tourist attrac- tion and as a location rich in history, Glendalough makes the ideal spot for archaeologists to combine the study of past heritage with thee promotion of their discipline to the general public. And no better man than Graeme Warren to pursue these twin aims.
The soft-spoken Englishman certainly made a very clear and engaging spokesman recently for his subject, waxing knowledgeable to a rapt audience beside the hole in the ground a stone’s throw away from the famous round tower.
By the time this article appears in the newspa-pr, the hole has disappeared, put to rest beneathh tonnes of earth for another year, to be excavated once more next summer.
However, before the 2016 digging seasonn came to a close and the participants headed back to their college campus, they shared their activities with all and sundry as part of Nationall Heritage Week.
Host for the occasion was Professor Warren,, wearing a high-viz waistcoat in a sartorial style that looked more motorway maintenance than Belfield lecture hall.
The casual outdoor attire emblazoned with the text ‘UCD School of Archaeology’ did nothing to dent his ability to command an audience though he wore his knowledge as lightly as the waistcoat while he jumped in and out of the hole as other members of the team continued setting about their tasks as if no one was watching.
The free heritage week gig attracted audiences of anything from 30 to 110 people each afternoon: ‘It’s a pleasure to show you around,’ said the man in charge as he took them under his welcoming wing – and he really seemed to mean it.
His production set in a grassy field was in
friendly competition with the tour guides who showed parties around the cemetery next door where the round tower is a stunning landmark centre-piece surrounded by more than a thousand gravestones, most of them clearly inscribed with the names of the dead.
In contrast, the archaeologists’ hole in the ground was a considerably less theatrical attrac- tion with no guarantee that the saintly Kevin, elusive star of the Glendalough show, ever set foot on any of the stones uncovered in the dig.
Furthermore, the plot lines in this piece of outdoor theatre were distinctly blurred, with more questions than answers and our host not at all disposed to act like a smart alec Hercule Poirot in some Agatha Christie whodunit.
The hole in the ground has been dug out, filled in and then dug out again each summer since 2014 without yet leading to any very firm conclusions as to what was going on here back in the days when Ireland was the Island of Saints and Scholars.
THE PRECISE SPOT excavated was selected using a geophysical scanner which charts electric resistance beneath the soil to help establish patterns that may signify historic activity. Any past disturbance of the ground is likely to show up to be marked on complicated coloured charts.
The geophysical mapping of the area continued during heritage week, with one volunteer walking up and down the meadow pushing a device resembling a Zimmer frame. Instead of wheels, the Zimmer was armed with electronic probes which took readings at set intervals to allow compilation of detailed charts to guide future digs. The exercise illustrated how ar- chaeology has long teamed up with sophisticated technology such as carbon dating and genetic analysis.
However, most of the groundwork remains as low tech and dependent on human sweat as it ever was. Other volunteers set about their shift armed with simple trowels and rulers.
The site was littered with wheelbarrows, with earth heaped in containers that might in other circumstances have been used as household laundry baskets. In one corner, a sieve was being deployed vigorously to check soil for artefacts not immediately obvious to the excavators. Even ears of charred grain may prove significant.
The list of items uncovered by all the trowelling and sieving is a perplexing mixture from a Stone Age flint scraping tool to an 18th century metal shoe buckle. Other finds included pieces of ancient pottery, the stem of a clay pipe, a coin bearing the likeness of King Sitric and a pretty blue bead.
The dig has also brought to light rocks which suggest that a series of walls used to stand here. Holes where once there were wooden posts as well as the scorched earth of old fire pits have also been found. Professor Warren was slow to jump to conclusions as to what it all means.
‘We don’t know what they are,’ he admitted, speaking of the walls, ‘ because we are not finished excavating. I think we will probably be here for another two or three years.’ He was at least prepared to speculate a little. Perhaps these mysterious walls were intended to keep the nuns in St Mary’s church strictly, chastely separated from the monks in the round tower.
Perhaps, on the other hand, those boulders signify a system of military defence not only against marauding Vikings but also to keep out Irish residents envious of the monastery’s wealth.
Whenever he and his colleagues come up with definitive answers to such questions, Glendalough will be well on the way to becoming an official world heritage site. The public needs to be warned that the archaeology may disclose a past which as much industrial as it is religious.
Our knowledgeable guide pondered that St Kevin reputedly retreated to the upper lake in order to enjoy peace and quiet. Hmmm! The evidence suggests that the area was anything but tranquil in the sixth century AD when it was at the heart of an iron smelting operation using charcoal to heat the furnaces. The manufacture of this fuel led to the extensive deforestation of this lovely valley, though the trees have grown back in more recent times.
Graeme Warren learned his archaeological skills on sites in the north of England, Scotland and Jordan before arriving in Dublin in 2002. He enjoys the annual summer outing to Glendalough with colleagues Conor McDermott and Matthew Seever, with the backing of a range of organisations which includes Wicklow County Council, the OPW, the National Heritage Council and the Parks & Wildlife Service.
They have been joined by willing workers, mostly undergraduates from UCD serving their apprenticeships: ‘This has been set up as a teaching exercise.’ It was a bonus that, as well as giving work experience to his students, they have also been able to offer an insight into archaeology to the general public.
Commercial archaeologists tend to be called in to conduct hurried surveys of building sites or motorway routes, under strict cost and time pressures. Glendalough has proven a more measured exercise conducted in the full glare of a renowned centre of pilgrimage and tourism. No problem, reckons Graeme Warren: ‘It’s great to have the opportunity to tell people about archaeology.’