2011-06-06

A LARGE entrance.

There has been pause in the excavation for some days due to the long weekend. On Friday we spent the day washing finds, doing makro flotating and showing the site for a newspaper and visitors.

Now we have reached as long to the north as we can along the western wall of the 8th century hall building. The length is so far 45 m. We can  unfortunately never find the full extension as the northern gable has been destroyed. A good thing however, is that that house is very symmetrical. We can mirror the southern gable upon the north, which still makes it plausible that the house was about 50 m long. A major goal for this year was to find evidence of the full length of the house and gather enough data for reconstructions. With two weeks of field work remaining, we can already state that this goal has been fulfilled. The major constructions elements that we still lack, is the placement of all the pairs of roof bearing posts. If we have time, we will uncover at least one pair on the surface this year.

Previously it has been debated whether the house had an entrance in the south or along the walls. Today it seems very clear that it had two entrances along the western side. The entrance in the north, uncovered this year, is over 3 m wide when measuring between the uncovered stone fundaments for the wall. It seems to be more of a gate than a door.
Archaeology students standing "inside" the entrance to the house.

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