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Daniel Wray
Sahy Excavation 2005
I was first made aware of this dig through a course lecturer suggesting that we use it as part of our courses "placement module". After applying and being accepted on the 6 week placement I began to find out more about Slovakia and its past to prepare me for the trip. We all met at Luton Airport and it didn't take long to realize that we all got on well together which had been probably my biggest concern for the trip.
By the time we had landed in Budapest we all knew a little about each other and the taxi ride to our new home for the next 6 weeks gave us time to take in some sights of the country. The next day we spent settling in. We were formally greeted by a member of the town council and over coffee (which was a shock in itself possibly the strongest coffee I have ever had) she told us a little about her town. This set the tone of the trip really as the locals were polite, kind and welcoming to us, and it made a great first impression on all of us. This meeting was followed by a tour and introduction of the lpel Union our contacts in Slovakia.
We then had lunch followed by the opportunity to meet Tibor, the local museum director and cultural historian (Slovakia's equivalent of an archaeologist) who showed us the site and told us about it's history along with a quick tour of the standing monastery. We then had a whistle stop tour of the modern town stopping at the museum where the area's history dating from the Palaeolithic to the 2nd world war holocaust, was displayed. At the end of my first day there I had the impression that the people of Sahy were friendly and welcoming, and were very keen to become an important member of the E.U. They felt as though they had a lot to offer and were obviously very proud of their country.
The next day Tibor met us again and we had a brief tour of another dig in Sahy (this time bronze age) which gave us an insight into Slovakian rescue archaeology. After this we began work on the Sahy monastery site. The Monastery was first recorded in 1237 AD. It was damaged by the Mongols in 1241 and in 1246 King Bela IV gave permission to rebuild it. In 1442 a local noble family stormed the monastery and evicted the monks and then tried to fortify the site but before they could complete this they were evicted by the king. The site was sacked by the Turks in 1552 as part of their rampage across Europe and left in ruin. The building was then abandoned until 1680 AD, when a group of Jesuit monks moved in, rebuilt the monastery and built a new road. Finally the site was abandoned around 1788, only to be roofed again in recent years as part of Tibor's plan to preserve and restore the monastery.
The trenches from last year had been left open and so the first task was to clean down the sections and bring them level before cleaning up the base of the trench. The site, as we found it, consisted of one trench aligning roughly East/West in which 4 skeletons had previously been found. The lower limbs of two were still lying in section with the upper portions covered by the modem road. The excavation was at varying heights with a north/south revetment wall transecting the site. In the western (lower end) of the trench were two skeletons from last year (the upper bodies were lying under the modem road). These burials were unusual because they contained coffins when the practice at the time was to wrap bodies in linen and bury them in a "shroud burial". The wood was well preserved although it was unlikely to be identified as portions of it crumbled when it was dry. It took the rest for the week to plan, record and lift the skeletons. As we leveled the base of the rest of trench we discovered a child's skeleton in the southern corner below the revetment wall. The skull was particularly noteworthy as it was covered in copper staining possibly from a headdress. From the state of epiphyseal union (the joining and melding of bones as a person grows) and teeth it was possible to estimate the child was about 5 when it died. As though this were not enough, we found another burial in the eastern (upper end) of the trench which we also recorded and lifted. During the week we visited Dregney Castle, just inside Hungary. This was a 15th century castle that was destroyed by the Turks just 3 days before they destroyed the Monastery in Sahy. Although the castle had only 300 defendants they took with them about 700 Turks out of a force of around 10,000 Tibor seemed particularly proud.
We finished our first week by making the most of our weekend and heading over to the biggest festival in Slovakia to see Prodigy. Our trip took us to Bratislava were we stopped for an hour or so, and I was surprised at how "rural" the capital seemed. For me this was a great way to see Slovakia (aside from two 8hr train rides which should have only taken about two hrs!)
The next week we had some surveyors from Bratislava University visit the site to help us record it all before we dismantled the wall which was dividing the trench in two. I was surprised to see the planner draw the entire sire by eye from a height, as opposed to the grid square method the UK use. However the planner made an accurate plan of the trench. After they had finished we needed to re establish the site's grid peg system which had been removed earlier in the year. This was not to be as simple as we hoped. We decided to use 2 metre grid squares to save time. A basic principle of archaeological surveying states that to establish two 2 metre lines (at right angles) the diagonal between them must be 2.88 metres long. After locating plumb bobs the problem was fixed and we had learnt how to plan a grid system the hard way, but at least we'll never forget it.
My second week saw one of my first attempts at planning. I had learnt the theory at university but applying it to a site was to be more difficult than I had imagined. We used a 1 m x 1 m grid square (a wooden frame with string running up and down every 20 cm). The site was sloping and people were all working at different heights. However, we found that the best way to get the job done was to have two people supporting the frame with one plumb bobbing the features so we could see where they intersected the drawing grid accurately, allowing a third person to draw an accurate plan of the features. In the top end (eastern part) of the trench we found another burial which was missing it's right side due to rockfall and erosion. This weekend we visited Estergom, once again just inside Hungary. It was here that I was really struck by the stark contrast between Hungary and Slovakia on the Hungarian side, an impressive old royal town and on the Slovakian side, large chimneys and communist architecture. Sturovo was just the other side of the Slovakian border and we visited a swimming complex. After spending a week learning about the intricacies of planning we spent the day relaxing and feeling just a little out of place as all the other men were very big on Speedos.
Week three, and after fully planning the trench we could now take out the wall and remove the rest of the child skeleton under the wall. I was able to try my hand at excavating my first skeleton. I always thought that I would have reservations about excavating human remains but I found it surprisingly easy to just treat it as archaeology and get the job done. Learning how to excavate bones was new to me after trying different tools I was left to excavate the skeleton. I found that this was a lot different to most archaeology I had done so far. It was particularly time consuming. I also made the most of this experience to learn a little about post burial processes as well as a little skeletal anatomy. Towards the end of the week Tibor decided that we needed to open up an area to the north western end of our trench, which we began and we managed to reach the archaeology just before the weekend.
We continued taking the new area Tr 1/2005 down in week four and found the top of the natural/ditch bank. We didn't expect to find a cut into the ditch and at first we believed this to be a grave cut of some sort, as we had found a piece of human jaw bone in the fill of a rectilinear cut feature. We excavated the area keeping the surface level (so as to better understand any stratigraphic relationships we might come across). Context change could be felt with a trowel best when working on a level surface and it was also easier to see colour changes as there were no shadows cast by height differences.
We finished on Friday to visit Banska Bysterica is a small medieval town with an almost complete circuit of medieval walls still in place as well as some amazing buildings. We went on to the Tatras Slovakia's largest mountain range, to stay there until Sunday. This was obviously one of the tourist hotspots of Slovakia as there were ski resorts and hotels everywhere. However this did nothing to distract from the astounding views and scenery. We took a cable car up the side of a mountain to about 1100 metres, and from there took another (slightly more scary) cable car to the summit some 2633 metres above sea level.
In the fifth week the skeleton under the baulk between Tr 1/2005 and Tr 1/2004 was fully excavated to reveal what seemed to be lots of small clasps from the chest area. It was only possible to excavate this skeleton to the hip as the legs were retreating into the eastern section. Without the hips it was not possible to easily sex the skeleton. In female skeletons the sex is easier to differentiate as the hips sciatic notch is wider than it is in male skeletons. However the bones we recovered were quite robust with a heavy set jaw and so it is likely this was a male skeleton. Tibor's theory was that we had possibly found the only medieval cemetery in Sahy though it was still hard to prove this.
We then went to Banska Stivianiska for the weekend. The star of this trip was undoubtedly a small tea room we disovered up on a hill which lay off the tourist trail and commanded views of the valley. We explored a mineral museum as well as a mine and learnt about the rich mining history of Slovakia
Our last week on site, week six, was spent shoring up the southwestern face of the trench and we continued digging for the bottom of the ditch in TrI/2004, and to bring down Tr112005 to the level of TrI/2004. This was ambitious and if it were not for the rain we may have achieved it. However the rain turned the soil to deep mud and so work was slow and eventually we had to abandon our efforts. With no finds to speak of and no hint of bottoming the ditch we continued work on Tr112005. In true style the penultimate day of excavation revealed three planks of wood crossing the ditch and positioned flush to the section. The planks seemed to be lying in a cut (in the side of the main ditch) which we decided was contemporary with the main ditch cut based on principles of the Harris Matrix. The Harris Matrix is a simple method placing stratigraphic units (SU) in chronological sequence based on the physical relationships between features or events.
Once we had defined, recorded and planned these planks we lifted them only to reveal another burial lying beneath them. Even with the limited time left we decided it was too risky to leave the bones in situ for another year as, having been exposed, we felt an obligation to fully lift the remains in order to protect them from natural processes. So everyone put the skills they had learned over the last six weeks into practice to excavate, plan, level and photograph the skeleton within a matter of hours.
The last day on site we began sorting out and checking the records. After spending nearly 3 hours sorting through the level sheets I felt I now had a firm grasp on the principles of leveling, having had the equations burned into my head from working out nearly 300 levels. We had all the records sorted by lunch and so had a more relaxing afternoon running items to the museum from the site. We met Tibor for coffee and after a moving speech from Tibor, we said our goodbyes.
We left early Saturday morning for Budapest and after arriving and getting set up in our accommodation, we all set off exploring. By a coincidence this weekend was the end of the biggest annual festival in Hungary, so we made the most of it by visiting an air show and watching some of the best fireworks we had ever seen. We all had a final farewell dinner on the last night before turning in.
Gaining a place with GRAMPUS to go to Slovakia has been one of the highlights of my degree and career in archaeology thus far. I found that the chance to experience hands on archaeology, another country's history and the way in which the physical remains were viewed and treated by that country, enthralling. Slovakia's past is so different from anything I have ever experienced in the UK and the trip has given me great insight into alternative methods of archaeological practice. Equally importantly I feel that the trip offered me the opportunity to experience a culture that I would probably not have learnt about otherwise. Hopefully some of the people we met out there will keep in touch we are planning to meet up again next year. This trip has encouraged me to pick up and learn languages again as well as helped me learn a lot about myself and other people. I will be able to use the experience gained in Slovakia, particularly excavation and recording skills, as a sound base to build on for my future in archaeology. It will be interesting to integrate my new skills and experiences into my understanding of archaeology as a whole. I only hope that it is soon possible for students from countries like Slovakia to be able to partake in the scheme and share in the experiences that we have been lucky enough to be a part of this year.
Daniel Wray