Excavation

Date 1 August 2021 - 30 November 2021

Event ID 1161712

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1161712

NT 25433 73742 A programme of archaeological investigation was carried out at the Scottish National Gallery in relation to the works being undertaken to alter and extend the underground facilities at the Gallery. The Gallery is a Playfair-designed, A Listed building. The wider site is the Mound, an artificial bank of material laid down in the late 18th and early 19th centuries from excavations and building in the New and Old Towns.

An area to the S of the Gallery building was excavated to the required formation level after the insertion of concrete piles and props. This allowed the first archaeological investigation of the deposits that constitute the Mound, their deposition and character. The deposits could be characterised as well-ordered dumps of material cast from the E side of the Mound, sloping down from E to

W. The deposits appeared in five broad types: coarse sands; mixed dark earth and clayey material; redeposited bedrock material; builder’s dross and demolition material, composed of sandstone rubble and lime mortar; and gleyed mixed clays. The pattern of deposition was stable throughout the area excavated, and suggests a well-ordered, controlled depositional process. Concentrations of discarded material culture were not high, but included ceramics,

oyster shell and a limited amount of animal bone, a small ceramic assemblage, clay tobacco pipe fragments, ceramic building material, glass, and architectural fragments, mostly confined to the demolition rubble deposit types. A lack of general household waste and midden material suggests that the area was not used as a generalised garbage dump. An investigation of the historical sources also suggests that the earthen mound was in origin a form of ‘desire path’, created by individual city dwellers as a solution to a lack of practical routes across the city, only later institutionalised by Council mandate.

Archive: NRHE (intended)

Funder: National Galleries of Scotland

Philip Karsgaard – Addyman Archaeology

(Source: DES Volume 23)