(the same piece of pottery waiting to dry, after having been washed)Page 1
RUSHEN ABBEY
ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS
This Week's News No. 2 June 25 2003
Two fairly large areas of turf have been removed and serious digging has begun. At the moment we are still working or way through the very disturbed (mixed-up) topsoil layer. This top 30cm (foot) of soil contains a lot of modern debris from the demolition of the Academy Night Club building (otherwise referred to as the Dance Floor or the Gymnasium). This material has to be picked out very carefully as there are quite a lot of rusty nails and pieces of broken glass mixed in.
we hope to have the helmet-camera in operation as of yesterday (Tuesday), so please feel free to use the "live link" facility to talk to the archaeologists.
And finally our website www.rushenabbey.iofm.net is now up an running.
Finds
Most of the pottery we have found so far is less than a hundred years old, and includes lots of pieces of flower pot (presumably from when the abbey was used as a garden centre in the 1970s) and small pieces of tea cups, and even half a teapot lid, from its heyday as a Tearooms between the 1920s and 1960s.
Whilst tidying up the main trench running down the centre of the site (below left) we found a very nice piece of medieval pottery (below right):
(the same piece of pottery waiting to dry, after having been washed)
Page 2
Calendar of Events
ARCHAEOLOGY
Wednesday July 2nd ................................................. 2nd Group of University students arrived on site to dig
Sunday July 13th ....................................................... An "Archaeology Day" at Rushen Abbey
Wednesday July 16th ................................................. Final group of University students arrived on site to dig
Saturday & Sunday, 19th & 20th July ......................... National Archaeology Days at Cregneash 11.00am-4.00pm
OTHER EVENTS
Sunday June 29th ....................................................... "Songs of Praise" at Rushen Abbey 2.30pm
Sunday July 27th ....................................................... "Songs of Praise" at Rushen Abbey 2.30pm
Why are we digging at Rushen Abbey ?
The Abbey was founded in 1134 by Savignac monks from Furness in Cumbria at the invitation of the Manx King Olaf 1st. In 1153 Pope Eugenius III in confirming the grant, adds the intriguing information that the Abbey occupied the site of the monastery of St. Leoc, about which we have no further information. Geo-physical survey work carried in 1997 suggested that there were several deep ditches in and around the area in which the archaeologists are currently working, and that the arrangement of these ditches suggested the boundaries of a early Christian burial ground. "Lintel" graves were recorded at the east end of the excavation site back in 1926 when a dance floor (later part of the Academy Night Club, and later still, a gymnasium) was being constructed.
Some of the main aims of the excavations are to find out the extent of the burial ground (but not to excavate graves), and see whether there is an trace left of religious buildings before the Abbey. Many large abbeys were built on sites that had already had some religious importance, such as small chapels (or keeills as they are known in the Island). Preliminary test pits, dug in 1998, produced some interesting organic remains in some of the ditches mentioned above. In particular some burnt grain was radiocarbon dated to 1075-1155 AD. These dates straddle the founding date of the Abbey, so unfortunately we cannot be sure if the grain was from the Savignac period of the Abbey (1134-1147) or from an earlier occupation of the site.
What do we hope to find this year ?
Our main aim is to find structures, or evidence of structures, that would assist in our understanding of the development of the site in the 11th and 12th centuries in particular.
Ideally, in connection with such structures, we would hope to find some organic material (wood, bone, etc.) from which we could get some fairly precise radiocarbon dates. Alternatively a coin or two in a sound archaeological context (e.g. within a particular floor level) would be quite handy!
As we are still working around an area which contains some burials, we may come across some burial goods which would assist in dating the graves. We will certainly continue to find small pieces of pottery of all sorts, including pieces of modern plant pot and ceramic jam jars!
Manx National Heritage 
This excavation is funded by Manx National Heritage and the University of Liverpool, and is being carried out by the Centre for Manx Studies on behalf of Manx National Heritage. All content is (c) Centre for Manx Studies 2003