[speaker001:] Anybody been here before?... No. Okay, excellent, so you don't know what's going to happen? No? Okay brilliant. Well what do you think ARC stands for then? Have you been told this? No.
[Toby:] Say that again? Okay. It's archaeological's the first word. Well the second two
[speaker001:] Resource centre.
[Toby:] resource centre okay. Archaeological Resource Centre. So what do archaeologists actually do then? Any idea? Yes,.
[speaker001:] Look for bones and things.
[Toby:] Pardon?
[speaker001:] Look for bones and that.
[Toby:] Look for bones, okay. What else do we look for?
[speaker001:] Erm old things from the Romans.
[Toby:] Ro Rom Roman stuff, okay. What kind of things do you think? We've got we've got bones is one good one. Yeah?
[speaker001:] Bowls.
[Toby:] Bowls,potter pottery yeah. pottery's another one. And what's another one?
[speaker001:] Coins.
[Toby:] Coins maybe.
[speaker001:] Fossils.
[Toby:] Fossils, that's really palaeotology, that's to do with dinosaurs and that kind of thing. We're involved with people, okay? ? Well china, pottery, bowls all the same kind of thing. Buildings, brilliant. Okay they're the main three. We've got pottery, we've got bones, we've got buildings, okay. So you might want to remember that when you get in there cos on the first exhibit you're gonna t have to use that bit of information. Okay. Right what other things do you think we might dig up? They're the main three. We've had coins as one.... What else?... Think of some everyday things that... you probably don't even think of. Pardon? Okay maybe. What else?
[speaker001:] . Weapons.
[Toby:] Weapons possibly, depending on what period.
[speaker001:] Clothes.
[Toby:] Clothes, brilliant. Okay we find quite a few clothes bits of leather, shoes, stuff like that, okay. That's another exhibit that's gonna be in there, you'll be able to have a go at making a shoe. Right. Okay, we've got these three kinds of building these materials, okay. We've got bones, we've got pottery and we've got building material. Right what do you think happens to them once we've found it? We've dug it out the ground. What's the next thing that's going to happen to it. Yeah?
[speaker001:] Clean them.
[Toby:] Clean them, okay. What with?...
[speaker001:] Brush.
[Toby:] A brush and what else?... Well w we've got the we've got the the object, we've got a brush what kind of liquid thing? Are we gonna use bleach or what?
[speaker001:] water.
[Toby:] Water, okay. Brush and water that'll do. Okay, right so we've cleaned it, now what we gonna do?
[speaker001:] put it in.
[Toby:] Yeah we're gonna have to dry it first, okay. We've got a wet wet object.
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER].
[Toby:] Right okay. At the moment we've got these piles of washed finds here. We've got building materials, shells, bones all sorts all mixed together. What do you think we might do before we send it off? Sort them out okay. And that's what you're gonna do as soon as you get in there, that's your first activity. You're gonna be given...
[speaker001:] Toby because they're late... they'll have to miss the video.
[Toby:] Oh. Right well okay.
[speaker001:] Cos the other group are here already, they're here on time.
[Toby:] Right-oh.
[speaker001:] So erm
[Toby:] We'll the talk's nearly finished anyway.
[speaker001:] Okay.
[Toby:] Okay. Right, sorry about that. Right, okay, we've sorted them out.... That's what you're gonna do, you're gonna be given a pile full of bits of rubble, shells, all sorts, and you've got to sort them out to different piles. Okay? Right. So what happens after we've sorted them out? So we've got a pile of bones, a pile of building material,... lumps of wood, what do you think we might do to them next? Okay yeah, we might preserve them.... And then what?... We've got thi we've got these this lump of bone okay, we don't know what it is, what we gonna do with it? Okay. We might study it,... but... more likely? Do you think people who are digging all these bits up are going to know everything about all the things... they've dug up?
[speaker001:] Yes.
[Toby:] Well they might not because there are people I mean like me students who might not. Okay so... what what who do you think we could send them to to tell us what we want to know about them? Where could we send them? We could send them off to a university or something like that so the. Okay? Right, so we do that, send it off. And so we get this thing back erm and we find out it's a sheep bone and it's from about the age of the Vikings. What can we tell from those two bits of information?
[speaker001:] It's old.
[Toby:] It's old, yeah. Okay.
[speaker001:] It's an animal. It's from an animal.
[Toby:] It's from an animal. But more importantly we can tell the Vikings had sheep, okay? So I mean from a couple of bits of information we could tell they had sheep, they probably ate them, teeth marks on it, things like that. Okay. Right. If you want to How many have we got here? If you get into threes I think.
[speaker001:] How how many have we got altogether? I think there's too many to do the actually er...
[Toby:] Well if we get them into threes
[speaker001:] Toby.
[Toby:] and then the rest can do
[speaker001:] Yeah. Right. [break in recording] [many voices in background]
[Toby:] Welcome to the Archaeological Resource Centre. Sorry about the delay,... but the the school in front of you were... nearly half an hour late. Thank you very much for turning up on time. Now so welcome to the ARC. Now the ARC A R C. What does that stand for? Who can tell me? Yeah?
[speaker001:] Archaeological Resource Centre.
[Toby:] Archaeological Resource Centre, yes, good. Now I'm somebody now I'm gonna pretend I don't know anything about this. I probably know what resource means and what centre means, what does archaeology mean?
[speaker001:] find things study them.
[Toby:] We find things that we study yes.... What sort of things? Where do you find these things?
[Andrew:] Underground, good, yes. And how do we find them?... Yeah?
[speaker001:] can dig down.
[Andrew:] We can dig down to find them, yes, good. Now some archaeologists dig down to find things, others study things that are above ground. Things like this building. Now you were standing over the road for five minutes unfortunately, but I hope during that time some of you used your eyes. What sort of building was it before it became a museum?
[Toby:] A church. Yes, good. Which part of the church are we in now?... Which part of the church? What's up here? Can anybody see? Yeah? The tower. Yes, good. We're in the bottom of the tower so, what do you think that was?... That's right, yes. That's a door, you go through the door there, there's a staircase that goes upstairs. Now we can't let you go upstairs but later on you'll see the room up above here and you can see where that goes to. Yes good. So the reason I asked that question is because I wanted to see if you were already thinking like an archaeologist. Cos an archaeologist is somebody who looks for clues. Like that clue.... Anything else that you noticed when you were on the other side of the road?... Yes well the rest is all modern cos this used to be a church but then it was turned into a museum, it's now a museum. You can see some of the old things. When you're inside there if you look right at the far end you'll see one of the old windows, a beautiful old window that's five hundred years old. So keep your eyes open when you're going through. Good. So.... Now some of the archaeologists dig, some look at old buildings like this, but there's lots of other jobs that archaeologists do. So what we've done we've made a film just to show you all the different jobs that archaeologists do. And some of you'll be quite surprised at some of the things you'll see. Right so any more questions before we see the film? Good. Now when the film's over I've got one or two more questions to ask you so I want you to watch very carefully and listen very carefully as we go through the film.... [filmed presentation 430]... Well it's good. Right. S so... apart from digging and researching and looking at old buildings, what other jobs do archaeologists do? Yes? yes? Yes, good. They do. Er they put the pieces back to where they used to be. You saw in fact the lady as you came in about the same time as you came in who does that. Put the pieces back to make the pots. Yes because we very rarely find a whole pot. Usually what's happened is somebody's been doing the cooking, dropped the pot on the floor, and all the pieces have been thrown away. And one of the jobs we're gonna give you to do we're gonna give you one little piece of a pot and a picture and you have to try and work out which pot that the little pieces came from. Yes good, that's one thing we do, put the pieces back together again. Yeah? Yes, good. They look at them through microscopes just to find out what they're made of. Yeah? Yes, take pictures and draw sketches. Yes good, cos everything that we do has to be very careful recorded and taking the photographs and doing the the drawings and sketches that's one of the ways of recording. How else do we record? Now there was a lady who was working in the site and she was doing this... with her hand. What was she doing? Yes? Yes, good. She had a computer actually on the it was on the side of a surveying instrument, so she was probably working out how far down she'd actually dug by looking through the sights and reading the numbers and then she was entering up the numbers on the computer. Yes, good. Now also on the site working there was a man kneeling down like this,... and he had a black beard, Don't haven't got the question yet. And a trowel and he was trowelling away. What did he have on his head?... Yes? He had a helmet called a hard hat. Does anybody know why?... Yes? Cos something might fall on his head, yes, and he's also he's working on a building site and that's the normal regulations. Safety rule regulations have to have a hat on your head. Now as he was digging he was finding things. What was he doing with the things that he was finding?... Yes, good. Well it wasn't actually a box. Did anybody notice what was it? It was a? No. Somebody else was doing the washing. What he was putting them in a? It wasn't a bucket. It was a tray, a black plastic garden seed tray that we call a finds tray, and all then things he was finding he was putting them in there. Now at the end of the day the finds trays come here and all the finds are washed and dried, and there's somebody called a finds assistant. A find assistant's job is to sort them out into different types of materials. That's gonna be your first job here today as archaeologists. Right we're going to give you a tray and ask you to sort the finds out. They're all things that have been found in York.... Right, are there any questions before we start? Yeah? Yes, good. A R C is superimposed into the film. Yes, good, fine. Any other questions? Now when you go through most of the things that you will see you can touch, but there are things up on the shelves at the sides and we put them there for special reasons, usually cos they're very heavy or cos they might break easily. Now if you want to see something that's up on a shelf at the side, ask one of the helpers wearing a red jersey and they'll take it down for you and show it to you. If you get stuck, anything you don't understand, anything you want to know, ask somebody with a red jersey and if they know the answer they'll tell you. Right, if they don't they won't. Now... upstairs there are people working, so when you get to the far end we ask you don't go straight upstairs, if you can wait please and we'll... we'll we'll all you'll all go up in the room together,. Right so how many have we got altogether?
[speaker001:] Thirty one.
[Toby:] Thirty one.... Okay.
[speaker001:] But we're in er groups of... five....
[Toby:] So... for the first activity you'll need to be in twos or threes. So what I'm gonna ask you to do in a minute is to line up in threes. So if I can just come through here.... I think there might be a parcel for you at the door is it?
[Andrew:] For me?
[Toby:] It's from. [break in recording]
[Derek:] Yeah that's it. That's right. Okay step back.... Yeah. Right I'll tell you in a minute. Right.... Sh.... Right. Now if you look in front of you you'll all see little a green tray with lots of objects.... a lot of the people that work here are archaeologists and for the day we want you lot to pretend that you're archaeologists as well. Right, can you do that? Right now the first job that we want you to do is to help us to sort out some of the things. Now sometimes when archaeologists carry out the work they have to get in and out of a site really quickly. Now all they have time to do when they're working on the site is to put them in the trays and wash them. So you can see that none of these have got any mud on them or anything like that. Now if you all want to pick one object from the tray.... Right. Now tell me what what you've got one at a time, starting at this end. Yeah?
[speaker001:] Bone.
[Derek:] Yeah? No not stone. We call that we classify that under building material. Bone, yeah? Yeah? Bone, yeah that's right. Do you what that is? Bone, that's right. Shell, that's right. Pottery, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Bone yeah. Bone. Pottery, that one. Yeah. Bone. Building materials. Bone. Bone. Yeah.
[speaker001:] [yawn]
[Derek:] Yeah, well done. That's right. Right. Now quite a lot of you picked a piece of bone didn't you. Right. picked pottery, some of you got building material, this lad here and... someone round there, right, and a couple of you picked a piece of shell. Now they're the four things that you'll find in your tray. So do you want to take e each object out one at a time and then put it on the table in the categories so you've got one pile of bones.
[Toby:] No that's a piece of tooth. Yeah that's right.
[speaker001:] [break in recording]
[Derek:] Right now listen. Stop what you're doing a minute. Right. Now if you look in your tray you'll see a label with a number on. Right?... Now... it's quite important this label, and I want you to copy down this number onto one of these labels, one for each category. Now before you do that, Don't do it yet. I want I'm gonna explain what this number is, right. Now if you look at the first four figures there, does anybody want to have a guess at what those first four figures mean? Yeah?
[speaker001:] When they found them.
[Derek:] That's right, that's the year the excavation took place. Now does anyone have want to have a guess what the next number might mean? Now it's nothing to do with the day or the time or the months or the week or anything like that. Yeah? No. No. Yeah? Yeah. No. No. No. No. No. Right. Yeah. No. Yeah. No. Right well I'll tell you.
[speaker001:] I've got I've got one.
[Derek:] Yeah? No. I've been having some quite intelligent guesses but no one 's hit the nail on the head. This is the number of the site. cos each site... has a number and could you have a guess at how many excavations? Yes? More than seven. This one's number seven and this one was in nineteen eighty eight....
[speaker001:] Ten....
[Derek:] More than that. More than that. a guess? More than nineteen. Yeah. More than er twenty two. Yeah? No not that many. Yeah? Higher. Yeah? Yeah? That's right. Not far off a hundred sixty. Well done.... Right. Now what about the number in this box then? The first number there of the two. Now the last number is the number of the site, any ideas what number that might be? Right something that nobody's said yet, so I'll give you a bit of a clue. When you when archaeologists carry out the dig they don't dig up the whole site. Now what do they do? Yeah?
[speaker001:] Er do they put them into boxes?
[Derek:] Not... not quite.
[speaker001:] Do they have a special kind of ring round
[Derek:] Well I don't think anyone's gonna get this so I'll tell you. When you dig when you carry out the digging on the a site you dig trenches. Right? So they dig a trench right down and this is the number of the trench. Then the last number, which someone said earlier, is the number of the layer in the ground. Right. So do you want to copy this number down onto one label for each category and then put them into a bag... and then... But before Now wait a minute, wait a minute.... Now before... before you put them into the bag I will check them, right?... Yeah just out all those numbers on there.... Right. [break in recording]
[Toby:] ... So that's a fish's backbone a vertebra, so that would go in there.
[speaker001:] What's that? Excuse me is this your group here or
[Andrew:] No, no I'm
[speaker001:] [break in recording]
[Toby:] There is a nearer one to you there. [LAUGHTER]... This is for real, this is a bit of real archaeology. they really do get used.... It's from a stone age and it's between four and five thousand years old.
[speaker001:] [break in recording]
[Toby:] Guess what it is. It's not a rock. Well it was it is rock but it it was something else, it was a bone. No a f a fossil is something that's been turned to stone in the ground. You're thinking of a fossil as being an ammonite a curly one, yeah. But that's a a fossil is anything that's turned to stone. That's three quarters of a million years old. And the animal it was from would have stood about the height of that balcony. Well you find them in Africa and India these days. No. An elephant. That's from a prehistoric elephant. They were colossal animals. The mammoth you mean?
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[Toby:] No that's a warm. A mammoth was a cold climate.... That's from a warm climate.... Mammoths were around till... fairly recently
[speaker005:] That's right. It comes from real bees. You know when they make honey? They make a honeycomb out of wax? Do you see that? Well when we take the honey away and we get the wax left over we can make it into lumps. and if you'd just like to try try it on. at one end put the thumb down put it on the wax and put the thumb over the top and pull pull it along.... Like that. Well done, that's right.... So you're catching the right amount of wax onto the outside of the thread. Isn't that good? And then in the air it stiffens very slightly as it cools down, but I think on a nice warm day like this is might be. So you've [cough] you've got a slightly stiffer end which gum gums it together, so it doesn't.... now you do some lacing. Can you see them? Do you think you can follow those? Mm I think if you try and do it... here, so you make it into a shoe shape, you curl it all up into a shoe shape, where do you think it's going to go? There, it is, that's right.... Ah. It's a sort of That's right push it through the hole and catch it at the other side. That's right, yeah.... You've got it. Aha. And you can just pull it so that it flattens. That's right yes. And then you have to pull it pull it tight. Aha. Nearly right. And then if you pull it together it'll pull together.
[speaker006:] Follow me all the way round and we have Emma here who is erm who Just keep on flooding round everybody and have a tray each.... Erm... So everybody just come round to here.
[speaker007:] .
[speaker006:] Yeah. Okay. Now we will run out of trays so if the people who haven't got a tray... would like to go on. If I could just introduce for you, this is Emma who is a erm experienced archaeologist who's with us on a three-month placement, and she will take people through this. If there's anybody who can't fit in here, there are one or two places round here, we you can er flood onto these activities here to start off and then swap round back again.... So over to you Emma.
[speaker007:] Has everybody got er... a tray or sight of a tray?
[Emma:] Right.... Okay... Well and you've seen the video so you'll be aware of the sort of things that we do here. And this is an introduction to look really you'll experience of the work of archaeologists. And... it's these finds in the trays are actually real archaeological finds from real sites in York. And they're what we call bulk finds. Er they're the sort of things that if you were if you were digging on a site you'd find these every day, you'd find an awful lots of them, er and they're really what the people of the time think of as rubbish. You know broken pot, throw it away. They're but we do. So in these trays you've actually got erm quite a variety of of material. You've got pottery, you've got building material such as tile lumps of plaster around somewhere as well, erm shell, bone, all sorts of things, okay. So what actually happens, these are taken off-site and they're washed but they're not sorted. And this is the first job that we have to do really, is to sort them out into their different categories. So you can just sort of take them out and put them on your desk, all the bone erm all the pottery.... I'll just tell you about this... Can I just tell you about this just for a minute? Cos this is quite this is quite important, okay. Right. If... you just... pick up a sherd of pottery, okay, that really by itself can't tell you an awful lot. I mean we can say what it's made of and we might be able to make a guess at how old it is. But if you don't know where it's come from it really isn't as much use. That's where these labels come in, okay. Now these actually each each tray should have one and they actually tell you where the stuff comes from. So here the first number, in this case nineteen eighty nine, is the date that the site was dug. Okay. The next number is the site code.... in this case it's number four. Erm all the all the sites are are given a code what that that one actually is. Now this next number in the box is the layer number. Okay, so we know exactly where these things come from. So then you we can tighten in on the site to not only a place actually on the site but how far down they came from as well. When y when you're dealing with seventeen feet of strata as in York, you n [LAUGHTER] you need to know where it's come from []. Okay. So I'll tell you I'll tell you what to do with those in a minute but if y at the moment if you'd just like to have a go at sorting it out. If you've got any questions please ask me, I'll try and answer them.
[speaker007:] When you've finished sorting them into... their piles, the next job is to put each pile into a separate bag, so that you would put all your bones into one bag, all your pottery into another. So these are now ready to go off to the specialists, okay. So... what you have to do then...
[speaker001:] Sh. Sh. Sh.
[speaker007:] Hang on.
[speaker001:] Sh. Sh. Sh. Sh. Hush.
[speaker007:] Right. Okay can you all I'm sorry I was talking to the study group. Did you all get the bit the bit about?
[speaker001:] No. No No.
[speaker007:] No? Alright okay. Erm... when you've finished sorting them out into their little piles, if you'd like to then put each little each pile into a separate bag, so all your bones would go into one pile er... one bag, erm all your pottery into another bag, and then this is where the label comes in. This is wh this is where the label is important. Because for each bag... could you
[speaker001:] Can we take them home then with us?
[speaker007:] write a copy
[Andrew:] Don't think so.
[speaker007:] of the label, okay so that we can actually and put it actually in the bag, so that when these things go off as they would do to their to the the various specialists who actually know more about pottery know more about bones and can do a more detailed analysis, still know where they're from. Okay?
[speaker001:] You're gonna trust me to do this? [LAUGHTER].
[speaker006:] Now now if I can say a little bit about the building to you. The er buil the building is erm the oldest fabric here is the tower, erm which from the er window the style of the tracery is clearly fifteenth century in origin. And also the main east window is also fifteenth century. Now much of the rest of the stone of the building also dates from the medieval period but in fact in the nineteenth century the building er was very popular as a church and the vicar at the time decided that what he needed was more [LAUGHTER] space [] and so they knocked down virtually the whole building apart from the tower and the east erm erm window and rebuilt it to put in the er gallery at the level that we're standing here. So and you can see this quite clearly if you look at the arches. You see that arch there? That is an is an original height of the arch cos that arch is keyed into the main arch of the tower. But if you look at the next one you see the arches er all the the other arches are have been raised about er a metre, and that was done deliberately to get the extra height on the outside wall so that they could put erm a er er higher roof in for the the knave and for the the aisle so that they could ge make it a bigger space. So as a result of that because it's been erm changed in the nineteenth century the eighteen forties and eighteen fifties, architectural historians who we who were faced with a real problem with York cos York had something like... fifty medieval churches and erm er about thirty of them surviving into into the twentieth century, erm and they had to make some decisions about which ones to preserve and which ones to let go. And this building was one that was allowed to deteriorate because of all this Victorian change. But for us as archaeologists it's a er it's wonderful because it shows change and that's what archaeology is all about, the the influence of humans on place or landscape or or whatever it may be wherever you are. So it's a particularly wonderful thing for us. And now that we've started to look after the building we've actually discovered some very exciting and interesting small clues about the building. If you look up there for example, can you see the row of heads supporting the beams,
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] there and on the other side? Well they're they're those those are from the the style the art style of the heads they are very highly dateable. They're quite clearly twelfth century in date, they're Norman like er er William William the Conqueror, that sort of kind of period. Twelfth century eleventh twelfth century date. And that's a table that would originally have been placed outside, and those heads are basically... designed to scare away evil spirits. But what er what happened is when they rebuilt this building in the fifteenth century the masons found these and reused them reset them inside because they'd lost their significance in over the three hundred years, so but they were useful structural er things. So that shows su suggests that there's twelfth century fabric in this building. And there are other clues. If you look very carefully at the stones you can see erm can you see that some of the stones have got diagonal markings all over them?
[speaker001:] Mm.
[speaker006:] Okay? And if you if you compare those diagonal markings with the sorts of markings on on er some of these other stones, these these are a bit diagonal but if you look carefully they go there're some going in that direction and some are going that direction. The tooling on on stones changes through time as as masons change their techniques, and er this is fifteenth century tooling, but that is twelfth century tooling. If you er you have to get up close to look at these features carefully, but it shows very clearly that there's a lot of twelfth century stone incorporated in the building. And that all if you put this together with the documents that we know, it suggests that there was a twelfth century church here which was demolished and then rebuilt in the fifteenth century. And in fact there are even more [LAUGHTER] subtle [] things than that you can find if you look carefully at Oh I might er I think that we might go out into the garden and I'll show you one or two other features out there that are er even more er interesting and er er exciting. But anyhow have you if you have a look here there's erm er the... er er I think we ought to be thinking about er
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] er moving on. Do you think that is about right?
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] Okay.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker006:] So if you'd like to go down the stairs there there are some coats oh your coats and things and I will er go and come and join you and we'll we'll take off and look at the outside.
[speaker001:] If I may ask you about the window?
[speaker006:] Oh sure.
[speaker001:] rebuild er every fifty or a hundred years or whatever?
[speaker006:] N no I don't think so. I think these these are fifteenth century. I think they're fifteenth century they they they they are they're well cut and they're well The g the glass? Er the glass the glass itself is replacement. Oh sorry, the glass itself is replacement. There but there are some traces of fifteenth century glass up there. Do you see the little coloured arrows in those? Those are fifteenth century glass. That survives. Glass will survive. What happens is that although it does tend to decay it builds a crust on the outside that stops it eroding. So you will be looking at er glass erm here and elsewhere that is really very ancient. Not no not well you know just like ordinary glass. I mean it's it's a fairly fairly imp er er permanent material. You can get Roman glass for example Roman glass f erm pottery erm glass vessels erm which are incredibly thin, the the glass is as thin as light bulbs, and that survives erm two thousand years. So we're only asking for five hundred years. Oh does it? Oh you do you work in it do you? Oh right. Yeah. Okay well I'll well I'll just get my coat and come with you.
[speaker001:] [break in recording]...
[speaker006:] huge number of people died in... childbirth and in er as infants. A lot of women dialled giving died giving birth
[speaker001:] Childbirth?
[speaker006:] erm but there were er a small number of people who managed to make it to good old healthy seventies eighties.
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER]
[speaker006:] But there is er not not many. Right... We've a a man with a bicycle trying to get through so er I think if you if you
[speaker001:] That's alright.
[speaker006:] come through on the grass that okay?
[speaker001:] Oh yeah that's
[speaker006:] ... Have we got everybody? I noticed there a young man what's he called Richard is he?
[speaker001:] No,.
[speaker006:] Patrick?
[speaker001:] No.
[speaker006:] Robert?
[speaker001:] Mike? Michael.
[speaker006:] Michael.
[speaker001:] Mike.
[speaker006:] Michael. Michael. He's he's not come yet so erm... Perhaps while while we're waiting for the others I'll just say a few words about the building, because erm from out here you can see er quite clearly that the central portion of the building is the oldest erm from if you look at the state of the stonework. Er particularly if you look just at the ordinary wall fronts the front wall the stones are very much more heavily eroded there than they are on this this the aisle here. And er if you look also at the way that the stones fit together they're ve they fit together very neatly on the aisle where by the small window whereas the central part of the church there's much more mortar between the joints. So those are very good indications for for later building. But there is in fact a very interesting er story archaeological story which we can deduce from the outside of this building. And I'd like to erm try and get you all to see what you can tell by simply observing the building, and I'd like to concentrate if we may on the central part of the building, because there are a number of changes that have been made to that building erm which tell a story. And one of the things that archaeologists do all their time is try by looking at the evidence, whether it's stuff that comes from the ground, landscapes or old buildings, to try and understand the changes that have happened through time, to see things that were there that have gone, and to to work out what [end of tape] in the erm Victorian period the stone was far so far rotted they inserted some new stones there. Yeah? Anything else, yeah? Little holes in That's excellent. Why do you think they've got those little chips in them?
[speaker001:] To plaster over?
[speaker006:] Plaster over, brilliant. Now that's a very important clue that you've spotted. Brilliant. Now what I want you to do No this is getting very exciting to me. I'm ve I this is the first time it's happened this way round that anybody's got That's the most subtle clue and somebody's spotted it. I think it's wonderful. So what I want you to do is to follow these little chips er dimples here, they're on this stone there're a few on that but not on here, so that bit it goes in that direction. They're on here, they're on here, a few there, they're up there, but they don't go any higher than that. I'd like you to look along and see if they go to that line and stop and they g you can see some over here. See how far you can trace them along there. See how far you can go. See how far. How far do they go? Come on, how far? Here, yeah and h how far along? Three. Oh No. How fa how far how far up do they go? What's the highest you find them?
[speaker001:] Up to the window.
[speaker006:] Okay, up to there. So o so there was once a plastered surface across there, okay?
[speaker001:] Was it painted?
[speaker006:] Er it may have been but you can't we haven't got much evidence for that. Er er well that that bit you're go you're jumping too fast. Now what other changes are there? What other changes? Er er let's erm Have a look at this here, look at this here.
[speaker001:] Smoothness.
[speaker006:] What?
[speaker001:] The smoothness.
[speaker006:] Smoothness, yeah, yeah so that's a new stone, there's a very new stone. That was we put that one in in about nineteen eighty six that one.
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER]
[speaker006:] Erm but this this this doorway, does this doorway look as though it's always been here?
[speaker001:] No.
[speaker006:] Why not?
[speaker001:] Cos the stones are sm are are little there while
[speaker006:] If you look at the w if you look around the windows you'll always get a drip course. This has not got a drip course, you know? You look even over there on that building there's above the window there's a drip course, by the doorway, is a drip course for the rain coming down dripping off.
[speaker001:] Oh yeah!
[speaker006:] This has not got a drip course. Okay? And if you also look the most the the the clearest change that's happened on the outside of this building, if you look at that window, if you if you follow the edge of the window the original window came all the way down... to this point, and then across and up, and this has been all blocked up. Okay? So and this doorway has been inserted that close to the corner of the window. That's you know any any architect'll tell you that's just wild, that's just ridiculous, it's very dangerous to put a doorway so close to the corner of a window. You have much more maintenance. So what we know is that this must have been blocked up before this doorway was inserted, okay? So what you have got here is an a blocked up window an inserted doorway and a plastered surface. Now if you can put all those three pieces of evidence together what does that suggest to you?... H er why would the people want to do that in a church? Plaster an outside of a wall with no so er with no drip course so this must have been an?... This must have been an internal wall at one point.
[speaker001:] There was a room out here?
[speaker006:] Exactly. Exactly. There was once a vestry built out here, and er this doorway was put in so that the vicar could get into the vestry to change his clothes. And that building has gone. It's no longer here. But by looking at the clues of the building we can see that it was there. And that's the sort of thing archaeologists are doing all the time. That's what we're trying to do all You know that's that's that's just our job, that's how we're we're looking at buildings. Now what is particularly interesting is if you take that and you try and date when these various things were done, and if I ask questions why was it done like this. And it was done like this, this was done at a period when this church was changing from a Roman Catholic church The the window the original glass in this was a massive stained glass window of the crucifixion, and that had been put there in the fifteenth century by a Lord Mayor of York who was very wealthy and very religious and he wanted to show how wealthy and religious he was by pu er donating this window to the church. But... England ceased to become a Catholic er country and we had the Reformation and the emphasis changed from people looking at these spectacular coloured windows to learn about the Bible bec er and people started to read, literacy came in. And the whole style in churches changed. They started to put up big screens behind the altar blocking off some of the stained glass and writing on those big screens the Creed or the Lord's Prayer in English, which was done in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. And that was the time when this was all done. So the archaeology of the building and the architectural history are reflecting big changes in what people were thinking, how people were erm what they believed their belief systems. But erm and it's all here for us to see, [shouting] if []... you have the eyes and the detective and the persistence and the research to pick all these little details out. And so that I hope that I hope you find that interesting.
[speaker001:] But the plastered wall's been inside?
[speaker006:] Yes, exactly. This was a this was plastered so it'd be be a ni nice inside wall for inside of the vestry. And this this we see, it's er quite interesting, this you notice this bit here is not plastered, and this has not got these dimples, so we think that what actually happened is when they first did this the the the the this bit of the window was blocked up with wood or wattle and daub or something like that, and so it was a a a and then when then when the vestry came down this these stones were put in here to block it up again. So this is that's why these don't have the dimples on them, whereas they should have done if they'd You see so there's al there's incredibly subtle things that you can you can pick up. Now I wanted to tell you a little bit too before we leave about one of the ARC publications that may be of interest to those of you who are self-propelled. Erm we've produced a little guide called the Time Traveller's Guide to York, which consists of four archaeological walks of the city. And erm each one begins here at the Archaeological Resource Centre and takes you through alleyways and back passages explains, where to go er with drawings text and explains it all. One of the Romans city, so you can pick out some Roman traces, one of the erm the er er Viking city, one of what happened in the Norman period the eleventh century, time of William the Conqueror and the two castles and the big er erm abbeys he put up, and finally the medieval city. And this you can purchase for two pounds ninety nine from here or lots of other shops. I thought I'd give you that opportunity cos it is a little ARC publication, it's one that we er So so if you want it. So I I've got that with me but I've what what what we'll do now is we'll start to erm make our way towards coffee, which I think might be welcome. Er er am I right? you c you couldn't be more right. Okay, let's er this way then. Okay. [tape ends]