SERF blog: Happy St Serf's Day!

Monday, 1 July 2013

Happy St Serf's Day!

Prof. Steve Driscoll slays the Dragon as Mairi invokes St Serf

Fortuitously for us in the St Serf's trenches, July the 1st is St Serf's feast day. St Serf is an obscure Pictish saint whose dossier only dates back to the 12th century but incorporates much earlier material. One of the most famous legends which have grown up around this shadowy figure is his slaying of a dragon with his staff, which is said to have occurred in Dunning. Taking the initiative, our student volunteers crafted a dragon last night, which we then flew over our trench today. At the end of another grueling day, our supervisor Prof. Steve Driscoll re-enacted the slaying of the beast, with our trusty ranging pole representing St Serf's venerated staff. Huzzah!

The Dragon flying over our trench.

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2015 SERF Field School

The Strathearn Environs and Royal Forteviot (SERF) project field school for archaeology students will takes place 20 June - 10 July 2015 in and around the village of Dunning in Perthshire.

We will be posting updates of the excavations here and you are welcome to follow along and make comments. To find out more background information about SERF please visit our webpage.

Follow us on Twitter: SERFProject

We would like to thank local landowners and farmers for their support of our project.

Events in the Local Community
As part of the current phase of the SERF project which is based around Dunning, we will be continuing our community archaeology programme. This is intended to involve participation of local community through a range of activities including a Big Dig, a programme of schools outreach and public lectures.

Previous Seasons

2013 Season
In 2013 we excavated a prehistoric enclosure at Baldinnies, St Serfs church in Dunning, an Iron Age site at Kay Craig.

2012 Season
In 2012 we began the second half of the SERF project, or the first half of our acronym, moving out from Royal Forteviot into the Strathearn Environs! Work now shifted to the Dunning area, focusing on the prehistoric cropmarks at Leadketty Farm. A few trenches were opened around the medieval church of St Serf's in Dunning, which revealed a fragment of a Pictish cross amongst other things. Work also continued on Castle Craig Broch, turning up important evidence for the use and re-use of Roman material culture on an Iron Age settlement site.

2011 Season
In 2011 excavation began on new sites across Strathearn. A new hillfort with three visible ramparts was excavated at Ben Effrey while just down the hill a possible hillfort at Castle Craig turned out to be a broch! The topographic survey of this site shows the ramparts of an earlier enclosure on the site. Digging at Haly Hill in Forteviot uncovered the remains of a post-medieval structure and roadway and produced a lot of interesting finds.

2010 Season
In 2010 further excavations of the Forteviot monument complex were undertaken. We excavated trenches over a henge monument with a large central pit and a double ditched enclosure with a central 'triple cist'. Meanwhile the palisaded enclosure was revisited which enabled us to further record the nature of the postholes outwith the avenue. Also, in the same field, another Pictich square barrow was excavated.

2009 Season
In 2009 we continued our investigations of a Neolithic henge which has been extensively reworked in later prehistory/Early Medieval period. We also dug at a Pictish cemetery - focusing on a large enigmatic square enclosure.

Exploration of the wider context of the complex archaeology of Forteviot will continued with walkover and topographic surveys and a small excavation of a nearby river terrace fort.

2008 Season
In 2008 we opened a trench over a Neolithic henge monument within the large palisaded enclosure. Trenches at the Dunknock hillfort were also opened and aimed to ascertain the location of the rampart and ditch system.

Meanwhile the wider context of Strathearn was explored with standing building survey at Muckersie, topographic survey at various sites including Exmagirdle, Forteviot Churchyard and Muckersie Chapel and a geophysical survey at Blackford near the Pictish symbol stone. Walkover survey took place on the high ground above Forteviot aiming to record cultivation remains, enclosure boundaries and past routeways.

2007 Season

The first season of excavation at Forteviot focussed on the avenue of a large Neolithic palisaded enclosure. This site is full of interesting monuments and features such as a large henge monument within the enclosure.

Elsewhere a large trench was opened at Jackschairs hillfort to investigate the rampart and ditch system. In conjunction with this a topographic survey of the hillfort was performed, with the aim of recording the extent of the ramparts remaining under thick vegetation.

Walkover survey took place at the Black Hill of Kippen, geophysics was taking place in and around Forteviot and a standing building survey was done of Exmagirdle Chapel.

Over several weeks after the fieldschool a Pictish square barrow with several graves was also excavated by a group of keen students.

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Monday, 1 July 2013

Happy St Serf's Day!

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