We had an 'amazing time at York,' says Mick Aston. 'A very interesting city, of course – its long history founded in the Roman period and developed in the Viking and Anglian periods. Then, of course, a massive medieval city, one of the largest in England.
'Our job was to look at these three important periods – the Roman, the Viking and the medieval – each from a slightly different angle. We didn’t look at the Roman fortress and the town – we looked at the cemetery. We didn’t look at anything to do with Viking boats but at ordinary Viking houses and fences. In the medieval period, we didn’t look at the minster or the castle but much more of what ordinary people would have experienced – the hospital.
'As always with Time Team, we made no major discoveries that will change the course of history. However, we did uncover lots of useful bits of information that will go to making a much more detailed picture of these three periods.'
Results of Time Team's excavations
The following are among the team's discoveries made during the three days.
Three skeletons – a young man, a mature woman and a four-year-old girl – proof that the cemetery did indeed extend as far as the hotel garden. A wide variety of coins. Pieces of glass, not unlike that made for the programme. Chicken bones next to the male skeleton – the remains of a 'feast' for the dead before he proceeded to the afterlife. Evidence of substantial buildings – mausoleums – with the remains of 'picnics' (including oyster shells) eaten by mourners visiting the graves.
Woman – right, with remains of a girl – left
Exciting remains of what appears to have been a large tenement block – very similar to what was found at Coppergate in the late 1970s and proof that the Viking town extended to this part of the present city. Wattle boundary fences. Amber, evidence of leather working and a superb glass bead, unlike anything found in Britain before. Remains of the Viking diet, including grains, seeds, nuts.
Viking glass bead from Walmgate
Location of all the major structures on the site – the first time this has been done. The remains of the hospital under the Theatre Royal and how these join up with the rest of the site. The huge kitchen hearths, plus a sheep skeleton. Column bases (and one capital), which allowed the infirmary's SW/NW axis to be determined as well as a postulation of where the remaining columns and bays would have stood. Biggest surprise: the World War II air-raid shelter – found on the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of war.
A stone column base