Birsay

The Brough of Birsay, a tidal island, is one of the bestknown archaeological sites in Orkney, projecting out into the Atlantic at the northwest corner of Birsay Bay and separated by the 238-m-wide Brough Sound from the Point of Buckquoy. Its name derives from Old Norse borg (fortress or stronghold), which can refer to either a broch (a fortified dwelling), or, as is more likely in this case, the natural defensive qualities of an island difficult of access.

The earliest archaeological work on this site appears to have been by Sir Henry Dryden in 1870, who cleared out the chapel. The site came into the care of the secretary of state for Scotland in 1934, and considerable clearance and excavation took place to prepare the site for the general public. This work was curtailed with the outbreak of World War II, but the finds from the excavations have been published by C. L. Curle, along with the finds from the later campaigns of C. A. R. Radford and S. H. Cruden in the 1950s and 1960s. Interim accounts of aspects of the later work have been published. Earlier structural elements uncovered below the chapel have generally been associated with the pre-Norse church. However, these earlier structural elements no longer need to be associated with the so-called Celtic church but, by analogy with the Brough of Deerness and Brattahlid in Greenland, may be dated to the Norse period. 

Work was resumed on a small scale in 1973; in the area to the east of the chapel, Room 5 was excavated. Essentially, four major periods were distinguished. From analysis of the associated finds, together with some radiocarbon C-14 (ninth century or later) dating, the first may be assigned to the pre-Norse (Pictish) phase (pre-800) and the later three to the Norse. Only the last phase relates to the laid-out, standing building. Following this work, a renewed large-scale series of excavations was begun by J. R. Hunter and C. D. Morris in 1974 and continued until 1982. There is now clear evidence from the Brough of Birsay for many buildings (far more, across a wider area, than originally envisaged) dating to the Norse and Pictish periods. There is also clear evidence here for multiphase activity, with the replacement of buildings and often their complete reorientation in relation to the local topography. 

There has been much discussion of the significance of the entries in the Orkneyinga Saga concerning the "minster dedicated to Christ" at Birsay established by Earl Thorfinn the Mighty. Both Radford and Cruden take the view that the buildings mentioned in the Saga can be identified with structures excavated on the brough. Others (e. g., the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland; R. G. Lamb) see these structures as twelfth century (rather than eleventh) and monastic in character and favor a location for the "minster" in the village area. In 1982, excavations took place under the direction of Barber in advance of restoration of the parish church of St. Magnus. Structural elements uncovered below the present church have been accorded a probable twelfth-century date, and it is suggested that the present building was preceded by a pre- Reformation church of some sophistication. However, the dating accorded to the remains does not enable firm associations with the historical data, and so it cannot yet be claimed that the "minster" was originally located in the village. 

Norse Christianity clearly focused upon Birsay, but once the cathedral was built in Kirkwall, the focus of secular and ecclesiastical power shifted away. Little is known of events here between the twelfth and the sixteenth centuries. However, by the sixteenth century, much of Birsay had been transferred from the hands of the earl of Orkney to the bishops of Orkney, and in that century it is clear that the bishops used a palace hereabouts. In the sixteenth century, an otherwise unknown writer, "Jo Ben," described Birsay as having "an excellent palace"; according to local tradition, the presence of walls and other features in the area to the south of the parish church may relate to this palace. 

The significance of Birsay in the sixteenth century is reinforced by the building of an imposing Earl's Palace to the north of the Burn of Boardhouse. This was constructed with ranges of buildings around a courtyard with projecting rectangular towers at three corners, perhaps dated to 1574. It is probable that, in the construction of the Earl's Palace, stones from the older Bishop's Palace were reused. However, the regained significance of Birsay was short lived, and P. D. Anderson (1983) has suggested that deterioration of the Earl's Palace is recorded from as early as 1653. The gaunt ruins of the palace are perhaps visible reminders of what has been described as the "dark period" of Orkney's history under the Stewart earls. 

There are clear indications that buildings from the Viking and late Norse periods remain to be discovered in the area to the south of the village. The place-name Tuftaback, bank or slope of house sites, might well be equated with the area to the south of the Burn of Boardhouse. Here, buildings and middens of some complexity have been uncovered on top of a mound site composed of archaeological deposits presumably going back into prehistory. A second such mound site almost certainly exists below an adjacent modern building and extends down to the riverbank. 

Beyond the village to the south are the Links, at the southern end of which is Saevar Howe, another multiperiod mound site, which was examined in the nineteenth century by Farrer and more recently by J. W. Hedges. Pictish buildings here were apparently built on top of a prehistoric site and were themselves superseded by Viking Age dwellings. On top of these were the remains of a Christian Norse cemetery-although not recognized as such in the nineteenth century. 

Cemeteries from both the Roman Iron Age/Pictish and the Viking periods have also been recognized from the area between the village and the brough to the north. The earlier burials are marked by cist graves below mounds of sand and stone cairns, without accompanying grave goods. The later burials were either in cists or simply dug into the contemporary ground surface, but they were accompanied by grave goods recognizably Viking in form and date. 

Radiocarbon determinations have confirmed these chronological attributions. Even earlier, the area was clearly of significance in the earlier Iron Age (structural evidence) and the Bronze Age (midden deposits). Fragmentary traces of settlement remains of the Viking period have also been excavated in this area, with accompanying rich midden deposits, and a characteristic figure-eight-shaped dwelling from the late Pictish period. This series of excavations directed by Morris between the village and the brough has received full publication. Of particular interest and significance was the nearby site at Buckquoy excavated by A. Ritchie. Here, a Pictish farmstead was uncovered, of two major periods, succeeded by a Norse farmstead. It has also been suggested that the evidence points to some degree of coexistence by the two groups. 

Extensive archaeological research supports the conclusion, derived from written sources, that Birsay was a center of political and ecclesiastical power during the Viking and late Norse periods. In addition, there is also evidence to support Birsay's importance in the preceding Pictish period, together with its imperfectly understood role in prehistoric Orkney.

Publication of Novgorod in Focus (1996)

"Novgorod Marketplace", a painting by Appolinary Vasnetsov (1856-1933).

Slovensk (Novgovord) in the 1st century AD (reconstruction). The settlement was composed of wooden houses.

For nearly 70 years the medieval site of Novgorod in the former Soviet Union has been excavated, the largest excavation ever undertaken in Russia. The scale of work undertaken at the site, and the quantity and quality of the finds, make Novgorod not only the most important archaeological site in Russia, but also the most important European medieval archaeological site. In 1996 papers about it were translated into English and published by Henrik Birnbaum as Novgorod in Focus. For the first time the details of this remarkable site, which elucidates the origins and development of the early Russian state, became widely available in the West.

The site of one of Russia's oldest towns, Novgorod is located 160 kilometers south of the modern city of St. Petersburg on the Volkov River. It can be reached from the Baltic Sea, or from the Gulf of Finland along the Neva River via Lake Ladoga, and then into the Volkov River. 

Until the excavation of Novgorod, the archaeology of Russian history between the ninth and fourteenth centuries AD was virtually unknown, primarily because medieval Russians lived in wooden buildings that rarely survived the common hazard of fire. Few artifacts from the period survived as well. There were few documentary sources from the period, and any that remained were official, and therefore limited in the information they provided. Myths, legends, and stories about this early formative period of Russian history were concocted during the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries for nationalist reasons to help explain the evolution of the modern Russian state. Because of its importance, and the lack of evidence about it, Novgorod was always the subject of political interpretation. During the mid-nineteenth century Czar Nicholas I, and his historian Uvarov, regarded Novgorod as an example of the benefits of a strong but benign monarchy. During the midtwentieth century the communists described Novgorod as the cradle of Russian democracy. 

The systematic excavation of the remains of the medieval city began in 1932. Both historians and archaeologists believed the excavation would be an objective window onto the medieval past, but results were beyond their original expectations. The wet conditions prevailing at the site meant that there was good preservation of organic artifacts made from wood, bone, leather, textiles, and bark.

During the next sixty years, 21,000 square meters of the city were excavated, and a great deal of data were accumulated. Blocks of the medieval town, with its wooden roads and buildings, have been unearthed and dated using dendrochronology. There have been 150,000 individual finds, including tools, weapons, pottery, clothes, furniture, horse equipment, shoes, musical instruments, toys, food remains, icons, books, craftsmen's raw materials, and imported items. 

Perhaps the most remarkable and valuable of all of the finds, however, has been the discovery of more than 800 written birch bark documents containing unique information about the community of Novgorod between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries. These valuable historical sources are letters, contracts, notes, complaints, bills, school exercises, and administrative details. Furthermore, data from the site have begun to answer many questions about the history of Russian statehood during this period by providing details about the economics, social structure, and politics of Novgorod. Some of the larger issues to be elucidated include the better understanding of Novgorod's republican system of government, which was a complete anomaly in Russia. Was it the result of western European influence? And why did this powerful and wealthy city-state fall to the Muscovites in the fifteenth century, instead of conquering them? 

We now know that the area around Novgorod was first settled by Varangian Vikings from the area of Pomerania in the western Baltic, who were forced to migrate east during the eighth and ninth centuries by the growing population and power of the Saxons. The Varangians traveled up Russia's network of rivers and were followed by German and Swedish merchants from the Hanseatic League ports at Lubeck, Visby, Riga, Dorpat (Tartu), Reval (Tallinn), and Gotland; by Danes and people from the area that became modern Poland; and then by eastern Baltic people, such as Estonians, Lithuanians, and Finns. 

The Varangians founded a hill fort and trading post near what became Novgorod, as a base for their business of escorting and protecting merchants and their goods traveling to and from Scandinavia and Byzantium. The earliest rulers of Novgorod were Varangians, who were sometimes resented by local Slavic people for their special privileges in the town-as rulers, enforcers, and protectors. 

The town was established AD 859 beside the original Varangian hillfort, its name literally meaning "new town." The fort continued to be used as the official residence of the princes of Novgorod, which was useful after they were eventually exiled from living inside the city walls, and the town itself was the combination of three other trading posts around it. A new fortified center, or kremlin, was constructed and this was where Santa Sophia Cathedral was first erected in AD 989, and then reerected between AD 1045-1050 after a fire destroyed the original building. 

Novgorod was one of the great centers of Old Russian/ Byzantine culture, the northern-most outpost of Byzantium, east of the Balkans. It controlled land from the Arctic and White seas in the north to the Ural Mountains in the east. It was located at a major crossroads of eastern European waterways that connected the Baltic to the Black and Mediterranean seas, and eastern Europe and Scandinavia to Christian Byzantium and the Muslim Near East. Novgorod also had strong ties to western Europe-in much the same way St. Petersburg did during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries.

Originally administered by the archbishop of Kiev, Novgorod was part of the eastern Byzantine church. Its first bishop was Greek, but his successor in AD 1036 was a native Russian. Its official conversion date was AD 988 but archaeological evidence shows that local pagan and combinations of pagan- Christian rituals were still being used there in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In the late sixteenth century there were sermons recorded that criticized heathen and pagan customs-some 500 years after the conversion. In AD 1071 most of the population of Novogorod supported a pagan leader against the Christian bishop and the prince, and took to the streets and rioted. 

By the fourteenth century the population of Novgorod was around 30,000 people. At this same time it has been estimated that Paris had a population of 80,000; London 35,000-40,000; while Milan, Venice, Florence, and Naples had 50,000 each. Lubeck, Valencia, and Lisbon were the same size as Novgorod. Kiev, the first capital city of Russia, had a population of 40,000 in the early thirteenth century. Moscow eventually outgrew both Novgorod and Kiev in size, but during this period it comprised only 20,000 people. 

Novgorod survived the Mongol invasions of AD 1040-1238, unlike Kiev, by collaborating with them and becoming their tributary dependent. During its heyday, from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, Novgorod was known as the "Republic (or Realm) of St. Sophia"-a city-state led by its archbishop who presided over a council of lords and other governing groups. Before this Novgorod was governed by princes (who were related to the rulers of Kiev) through a town council, but after the destruction of Kiev and the retreat of the Mongols, Novgorod ruled itself via a town council or veche, open to all free men, although this was always dominated by the boyars (noble land owners) and merchants. 

The prince of Novgorod was elected by the free men of the city, and his former military, judicial, and economic power was taken over by members of the veche, a unique arrangement in Russia. The veche chose the legislators, executives, and administrators, including the lord mayor of the city. Eventually, during the fifteenth century, the numerous subdivisions of power and factions created by the veche, and their support of and patronage by the emerging duchies of Poland, Lithuania, and the Muscovite state, led to the city's downfall and its incorporation into Muscovy. 

The birch bark documents suggest widespread semiliteracy among the ordinary people. Despite the personal nature of these documents (love letters and complaints are among them) many would have been written by scribes or clerics on behalf of the sender. They also confirm that the language used by the inhabitants was a local form of the last phase of the ancestral language of the ancient Slavs, a blend of both eastern and western Slavic with some characteristics of southern Vlavic or Slovenian, and very different from common Russian or the Ukrainian language spoken in Kiev. 

We also know a lot more about the social hierarchy in the town and its impact on politics from the residences that have been excavated. The feudal lords or boyars were at the top socially because they owned the land, even though they lived mostly in the city in mansion compounds, which also housed servants and artisans. Many of these lined the main streets of the city. Merchants controlled and made money from long-distance trade and bought land as well. Then there were the clergy-a whole other hierarchy politically allied to the boyars. Ordinary people, laborers, craftspeople, manual workers, shopkeepers, peddlers, peasant farmers, and slaves (who were mostly criminals) were at the bottom socially and were known as "black" folk. 

The veche was an oligarchy of boyars and merchants, a predemocratic forms of government, and one that was completely different from any other forms of government in Russia at the time, which were usually autocratic and absolutist. Conquest by the Muscovite state in AD 1478 ended Novgorod's independence and dramatically weakened its ties with western Europe. These were restored two centuries later during the reigns of Peter the Great and the empresses Elizabeth and Catherine, and the foundation and development of the city of St. Petersburg. 

The archaeological remains of craft industries in Novgorod were substantial, reflecting its strong trading and manufacturing economy and its sophisticated and skillful tradespeople. Many different wooden musical instruments have been excavated with strings, pipes, and rattles-and have greatly expanded knowledge about medieval music. Artifacts from churches include carved ivory staffs, ornamental metal book bindings, plates, cups, and censers. Embroidered shrouds and everyday textiles, as well as enameled items and jewelry of Byzantine origin, have also been found.

Evidence of the Novgorod scriptoria has been located. This church library produced manuscripts decorated with illuminations and miniatures that were traded throughout the monasteries of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Examples from Novgorod's own schools of icon and fresco painting and many architectural details have been recovered.

Novgorod was a wealthy and sophisticated city of learning, commerce, and craftsmanship, similar to the Renaissance city-states of western Europe, as well as being in touch with and a product of the eastern Byzantine world.

Further Reading Birnbaum, H. 1996. Novgorod in focus: Selected essays. Columbus, OH: Slavica Publishers. Rybina, E. 2000. Novgorod. In Medieval archaeology: an encyclopedia, ed. P. J. Crabtree, 239-241. New York: Garland Publishing. Yanin, V. L. 1990. The archaeology of Novgorod. Scientific American 262 (2): 84-91. Yanin, V. L., et al. 1992. The archaeology of Novgorod, Russia. Lincoln, UK: Society for Medieval Archaeology, Monograph Series 13.

IRELAND’S VIKING TOWNS - DEFENCES

Evidence for town defences has been found at Dublin, Waterford and Limerick. The Dublin evidence for town defences is the earliest and most complete found to date. It is clear that Dublin was enclosed by an earthen bank in the 10th century and that a larger second bank was built outside this around the 11th-century town. It also appears that according as the latter bank was being enlarged, especially by the addition of layers of estuarine mud in the 11th century, a stone revetment was placed in front of it. It seems that in places this wall was more than a facade and was a free standing town wall. Both Dublin and Waterford were encircled by such walls in the Hiberno-Norse period. Limerick’s bank may have been stone-faced; Wexford appears to have been defended by a stone wall at the time of the Norman Invasion.

The most extensive series of defences were excavated at Fishamble Street, Dublin among a succession of nine waterfronts along the south bank of the River Liffey. These waterfronts included two possible flood banks and two definitely defensive embankments which date from the Viking period and a stone wall of about 1100. The earliest embankments were low and non-defensive and were located above high-water line. They were not more than 1m high and do not appear to have been palisade. It is not clear how much of the settlement they encircled. Their primary function was to keep dry the properties on the sloping ground above the foreshore where there is some evidence for the accumulation of possible yard detritus before the construction of the embankments. Some time later in the 10th century an extensive embankment was erected along the high-water line. This appears to have been built in a number of sections although probably conceived as a unit and probably erected by royal authority. It was built on top of dumped organic refuse and was established by a pre-existing fence. The bank was bonded in mud and its location on a naturally rising slope made its external aspect higher than its internal. It was protected from the erosive action of the tidal river by a breakwater which was secured in a channel cut into the rocky foreshore. A cobbled stone pathway existed inside and parallel to the bank along the western stretch and towards Fishamble Street. A ditch, 1.6m deep and 2m wide, was cut into the natural limestone immediately outside part of the bank. A series of planks were set edge-to-edge on the outer slope of this part of the bank, each with a large mortise through which they were probably originally pegged to the bank. These planks appear to have been intended to provide a smooth beaching/docking slipway for ships or, less likely, they may have been the surviving lowest part of a palisade erected on the forward slope of the bank. This first defensive Viking embankment seems to have encircled the whole town because it appears also to be represented in Ross Road on the south side.

Little time elapsed between the abandonment of the first bank and its replacement by its successor, which in places incorporated the earlier structure. A second larger embankment was built in at least four different stages and erected at the river - ward side of its predecessor, probably around the year 1000. Gravel, stones and earth were used in its construction, the dumped layers being rein forced by discarded post-and-wattle screens and by layers of brushwood. At one stage in its history this bank was crowned by a post-and-wattle palisade; later, when the bank was heightened, a more robust stave wall, anchored from behind, was placed on top. In its final phase, this bank was covered over with estuarine mud brought from the bed of the river; this dried out and formed a firm surface. This second defensive embankment also encircled the whole town. It too appears at Ross Road as well as on two sides of Dublin Castle, in the Powder Tower, where the eastern ramparts of the Viking town were unearthed with a short southern stretch west of the Birmingham Tower. Part of its eastern stretch may also have turned up in Parliament Street, where the defences overlooked the west bank of the Poddle. It seems that an even higher bank was erected before the construction of the stone wall.

It is likely that for a considerable part of the Hiberno- Norse period Dublin was encircled by the earthen embankments just described. Towards the end of the 11th century a stone wall about 1.5 m wide and possibly as much as 3.5 m in original height was built outside these embankments. The average surviving height of the wall was about 2 m along Wood Quay, across which over 100 m of wall was uncovered. The wall was composed of a rubble fill within mortared stone facings. A number of splits in the coursing of the inner face of the wall indicated that the outer face might have been built first and the wall completed on the inside. It seems that the wall was not meant to be completely free-standing and that its lowest part may have been a revetment or quay wall which fronted a bank of organic and mud layers dumped behind it. The recent discovery of a long stretch of this wall at Ross Road in the southern part of the Hiberno-Norse town strongly suggests that this wall also encircled the whole town. It is possible that the reason the Dún of Dublin was marvelled at as one of the wonders of Ireland in a poem about 1120 in the Book of Leinster was because this stone wall was a relatively new feature at that time.

The development of Waterford’s defences seems to parallel the Dublin experience. However, it was only after the expansion of the town that embankments were added and this was well into the 11th century. About 35 m of the 11th-century earthen bank have been exposed in four separate excavations. This bank was accompanied by a ditch, which varied in depth between 2 and 2.5 m and was 2.5 m wide at the base. The bank is described as ‘substantial’ and was made of turfs interleaved with clay and was up to 4 m in width, the original height probably being in excess of 3 m (surviving to a height of 1.65 m). The bank was built in sections by gangs of workmen under the control of some municipal authority. Interestingly, oak beams ‘may have formed some sort of superstructure on the bank’ and these have been dated to 1070-90. Planks on the front face of the first defensive bank at Fishamble Street, Dublin present a possible parallel.

In the second quarter of the 12th century the bank was demolished and the ditch backfilled to accommodate a substantial stone wall of which 22 m survived to a maximum height of 1.65 m or 8 courses of construction. The wall was built as a revetment against the eastern half of the bank and, according to the excavator, was never entirely free - standing. Like the Hiberno-Norse wall around Dublin, it had a projecting footing and was slightly battered. It had a rubble core and was built in different sections with vertical joints appearing between these sections; all of this finds parallels in the Dublin wall. There was a cobble pathway outside the wall.

Uniquely to date, the Waterford excavations also produced evidence for a pre-Norman gateway. This was at Peter Street, where the outer face of a 1.72 m wide gateway in the town wall exposed. It consisted of ‘two ashlars built jambs… above projecting plinths’ which survived to a height of 3 and 4 courses.

What was described as a 10.1 m stretch of a ‘clay bank riveted by a limestone wall’ turned up at the King John’s Castle site, Limerick. It had a maxi - mum surviving height of 1.7 m and had a 1m wide pathway on a berm at its base, beyond which was 2.8 m deep ditch. It is thought that these features may represent the south side of a ‘massive stone-riveted earthen rampart which, from the associated finds, may date to the 12th century.’ That this ‘earlier structure was utilised in the Norman defences for a limited duration’ was confirmed by the discovery of its being bonded to the later, mortared east curtain wall of the castle.

There is no archaeological confirmation to date for the Viking Age defensive embankment pro - posed for Wexford. The Bride Street excavations revealed no trace of a bank. The absence of banks from the relatively closely located Bride Street and Oyster Lane excavations could mean that Wexford was not defended by a bank along its 11th-century waterfront. The surviving walls of Wexford seem to date much later. Giraldus Cambrensis uses the term murum for Wexford’s defences, a term he also uses for the town walls of Dublin, Waterford and Limerick which implies that the towns in quest - ion were each defended by stone walls before the coming of the Anglo-Normans in the 12th century.

LINK