What can one say about the excavations at York? They are possibly the biggest, perhaps the most lavish, and certainly the most imaginative excavations of our generation, where so many ideas are being tried and tested in experience. Yet there is a temptation for archaeologists to pass them by, to be put off by the overt appeal to the general public. Thus the press releases deal almost entirely with 'finds' and concentrate on what has been called 'Ooh Aah!' archaeology, producing results over which the general public can say 'Ooh Aah!'

Yet this has been very successful: finds are what the public likes, and they have been pouring in in their hordes, and even though the entrance fee is only 35p, the financing of the excavations through much of the latter part of the summer has depended on the receipts from the tourists. The excavations were, in fact, due to end in October, but they have been partially reprieved, for development is not now due to begin until the summer, and all that is needed is a further £20,000 in order to enable the excavations to continue for the time that is available to them (any offers?).

An iron die

But if we can leave aside the finds and turn to the archaeology, the results are extremely important. At the street frontage end of the site, we are basically dealing with the Viking Age occupation of 100 years. The sequence starts at the top at around AD 1000 – the later levels having been removed by cellars – and then continues down to the foundation of this part of the Viking city around AD 900. In this period, the excavation area covers four tenements whose boundaries, where they ran back to the rear of the site, were maintained into the medieval period and, in part, at least down to today. York is, in a very real sense, a Viking city.

In this period, the archaeology divides into two phases marked by entirely different architectural techniques. The earlier buildings were built in a wattle work construction and were fairly flimsy, for there were numerous rebuilds in this very short period of 50 years. A lot of rubbish was also thrown out and the ground level was constantly and quickly rising.

There is much evidence for metal-working in silver, copper alloy and lead alloy during this phase of occupation. Ingot moulds, crucibles, ores, slags and unfinished lead alloy jewellery have all been recovered, and what is perhaps the single most exciting object recovered in the excavation (Ooh Aah!) has also been found in one of the structures. This is an iron die, the lower from a pair, which has been engraved with the design for one of the St Peter pennies minted at York c. 920. It is unique in Anglo-Saxon England. Two lead strips found nearby bear test impressions of later dies for pennies of the English kings Athelstan (934-9) and Eadwig (955-9), and it seems probable that this building was used by one of the die-engravers or moneyers who produced coinage on the king's behalf in the city.

Willow twig screens

Then, during the decade 950-60, all four structures were rebuilt in a new technique. This rebuilding seems to have been simultaneous throughout the site, suggesting that it was either the act of a central authority, or of one landowner. The new houses were semi-subterranean, cutting away part of the early period; they were built using substantial oak planks and posts with the planks set horizontally one on top of the other. One of the houses had a double-skin wall creating the appearance of cavity walling, and there are indications that others were lined with screens of interwoven willow twigs in a technique similar to the 19th-century Scandinavian 'wood wool', which is apparently a very effective form of thermal insulation.

One of the workshops contained the debris of waste products of a wood turner making wooden bowls, and much attention has been paid to this house as the street is named Coppergate, derived from old Norse words meaning the street of the wood turners. The other three properties probably belonged to other craftsmen, one of whom was importing amber and making it into jewellery, particularly rings, pendants and beads.

The Romans and the Angles

Underneath the Viking York there ought to be both Anglian and Roman York. The Romans are, in fact, very much in evidence, for traces of a large and substantial building are already appearing, running on a completely different alignment to the Viking and the modern layout. However, the walls are only preserved in two places, the rest being entirely robbed out and with no floor levels surviving. The area lies outside both the legionary fortress and the colonia, and the building's function is not yet known. Below it are even more vestigial traces of an earlier Roman timber phase, cut into the natural soil.

Anglian York, however, remains a mystery. Over the majority of the excavation site, the Anglian levels have not yet been reached, but in those areas which have already been completed, Anglian levels are represented by 50 cm (20 in) of sterile soil, with no traces of any structures and few traces of any activity at all. Indeed Anglian York is still generally a mystery, and one wonders whether, if there was a settlement, it was not essentially non-nucleated with a minimal habitation centred round the Minster. But certainly the results are showing more and more that York was essentially a Viking city, and it is to the Vikings that the great expansion of the city and the modern layout is due.

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