@hugh-willmott
Archaeologist and Senior Lecturer at the University of Sheffield Archaeology🏺 monasteries ⛪ and the occasional cat 🐈⬛ https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/hpdh/people/history-staff/hugh-willmott https://www.hugh-willmott.co.uk/ https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7945-7796
On another damp, fog-bound day here in the Pennines, I thought I’d share a few of the lustrous fragments of Saxon glass that I've just submitted for publication. Deposited in the early 8th century AD, they still sparkle with joy 1,300 years later 🏺✨
Miniature battle-axe!
Excited that my volume on the Early Bronze Age coffined burial from Tetney is now published open access by @antiquaries.bsky.social! Now everyone can read about this amazing find dated to 2032 BC and containing an amazing array of environmental and artefactual data.
library.oapen.org/viewer/web/v...
Not a lot has been written about Cerne, perhaps because, as the VCH noted, "The history of the abbey is perhaps the least eventful of any of the Dorset houses". I guess that's mainly due to the paucity of surviving documents, but it may depend upon which part of the estate.
Wind, what wind? Today, hardy sheffielduni.bsky.social archaeology students have been out demonstrating their Yorkshire mettle at #CerneAbbey in Dorset, despite Storm Chandra's best efforts
Finally had a chance to go through some of our finds from last year's excavation at #CerneAbbey & thought I would share this gem. Book clasps are quite common finds on monastic sites but this little fella is the finest I've ever excavated & must have come from a pretty fancy prayer book or psalter
It's been a pleasure collaborating with @helengittos.bsky.social on such an engaging and fun project!
The latest @timeteam.bsky.social feature length episode focusing on our excavations at Cerne Abbey has gone live. It's fantastic to see the work we've been doing over the last couple of years shared with everyone!
🏺 🐈⬛
youtu.be/DY68mzYXWK8?...
Well it's been a while in the making, but this Saturday sees the release of the Time Team feature length episode focusing on our work at Cerne Abbey
www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7Tm...
Nice to see a cracking set of Pitt-Rivers!
A little teaser from @timeteam.bsky.social highlighting the forthcoming full length episode coming out soon looking at our work at Cerne Abbas... 🙈
youtu.be/lL1ucbcLwLg?...
Pleased to see some coverage by the BBC of our excavations at #CerneAbbey which concluded at the weekend! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Today has been spent excavating an intact (if crushed) section of tiled floor in the east range of #CerneAbbey First laid down in c.1300, it’s survived remarkably well!🏺
Pleased to welcome back team supervisor Walter on our excavations at #CerneAbbey 🏺🐈⬛
The big man of Cerne looking resplendent at dusk yesterday. Whilst he usually grabs all the attention, The Trendle earthwork that sits just above him was looking even more fantastic!
A week to go before @hugh-willmott.bsky.social's third season of excavations at #cerneabbey! Here's an @timeteam.bsky.social reminder of what a gloriously evocative site it is.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctpR...
Walter the cat inspects the section
Walter the cat calling for the diggers to get back to work
...and of course we're looking forward to being joined again by local volunteer and chief mouser, Walter! 🏺 🐈⬛
Excavations in 2024 showing walls, a fireplace and floor surfaces from a hall at the monastery
This time next week all this (and more) should be exposed again as excavations recommence at #CerneAbbey 🏺
We'll continue to work on the late medieval hall but also start investigating the intriguing earlier features that began to appear at the end of last season...
I should learn to hide better 🙈😉
A selection of broken medieval floor tiles decorated with animals and floral designs
A small selection of medieval tiles found last year at #CerneAbbey 🏺
Perfect entertainment for any jigsaw enthusiasts out there!
#TilesOnTuesday
Congratulations!
As I was just telling Helen, I grew up in the shadow (metaphorically) of your fabulous monuments!
There are clear caveats basing an interpretation on a single illustration, but this horse just doesn’t strike me as something cut in the 17th century; one can point to the legs, tail and emphasis placed on his manhood. Indeed did it even start life as a horse? We probably will never know 🤷♂️ (4/4)
Mr Gee is said to have overlaid and replaced a smaller horse, and a single surviving illustration from 1772 shows it was very different. Conventional wisdom is that this horse dates from the late 1600s, but I’m just not sure... (3/4)
The current design is said to have been cut by a Mr Gee in 1778 and a depiction from 1885 shows that it was largely similar to today’s horse, with subtle differences. The steepness of the hill meant that the horse degraded quickly and had to undergo repeated repair. But it wasn’t the first… (2/4)
Thinking about hill figures, another I’m really interested in is the Westbury White Horse. What you see today was permanently ‘preserved’ to prevent erosion by being covered in concrete in 1957. But what lurks beneath is rather more interesting… (1/4)
A photo of Lethbridge looking rather enigmatic!
Unfortunately the area is largely covered by trees today, meaning that for the foreseeable future it will hard to have another look to see what, if anything, was really there. Only Lethbridge knew what he actually saw, and he died in 1971.
Perhaps that's what makes the site so intriguing! (5/5)
Another air photo of the hill figures after excavation
Furthermore, there are credible historical accounts of giant figures at Wandlebury, the earliest dating from 1605, and from this time on the spot was known locally as Gogmagog Hills, or variations thereof (4/5)
The 1931 Cambridge Antiquarian Society report on Lethbridge's Anglo-Saxon cemetery excavations
But he was an experienced, albeit slap-dash, excavator and Keeper of Anglo-Saxon Antiquities at the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. So not the von Däniken type figure he is sometimes made out to be today (3/5)
Like drawing of all the figures Lethbridge claims to have identified
Whilst I don't believe for a minute the full 'montage' he published, I can't help thinking that somewhere behind this is a kernel of reality. Lethbridge was certainly a very unorthodox character both professionally and personally; he was an advocate of dowsing and a believer in parapsychology (2/5)