Interactive Digs

June 27, 2016

Achill Island 2016: Week 4 – Cromlech Tumulus


Quadrant 5 after the second cleaning

This week, the whole team concentrated on completing the first phase of work in the north of Quadrant 5. The trench was carefully cleaned and the sides straightened before it was photographed from a multitude of angles. Once this was completed, the rest of the week was spent recording a detailed plan of the upper deposits and layers within the trench. These two time-consuming tasks took the entire week to complete but are a vital stage in our excavation process as the next stages of the excavation cannot take place until this work is finished. As we proceed, we will repeat this process a number of times, building up a very complete record of the archaeology that we encounter.

On Saturday we decided to undertake a local charity, challenge to climb to the top of Slievemore Mountain whose summit is 671m (2201 feet). The weather was quite fabulous for the climb and the team made it to the top, along with around 80 other people from the island, raising over a thousand Euros along the way. We had an absolute blast climbing to the top of the mountain and, even more enthralling, were the stunning views over Clew Bay and most of County Mayo!