This large book is not a work of light literature but a report and analysis of the excavation of a site at Woodstown, on the southern bank of the River Suir, a little less than 10km upriver from the city of Waterford.
The site was discovered in 2003 during routine testing in advance of the construction of the N25 Waterford city bypass. Since about 2000, testing of new routes has included a search for possible archaeological features: herringbone-pattern trenches along the centre line of the designated route of the road yielded substantial evidence of ancient activity. (Coeditor Ian Russell led the fieldwork.)
It was at first proposed to preserve the site by burying it under the road construction. Further archaeological excavation in 2004 revealed yet more evidence of historic occupation, however: traces of an enclosing ditch, a possible entrance, evidence of metalworking and a “furnished” warrior grave of the Viking age, together with the systematic collection of objects of many periods from the topsoil, made the site’s significance clear.
The importance of the site was recognised when, early in 2005, it was declared a national monument. The route of the bypass was changed to allow for long-term preservation of the archaeological deposits.
An expert working group was set up to advise on the site. They recommended focused research excavation, and this took place in 2007. Waterford Museum had mounted a well-received exhibition on the excavations and now has a permanent display on the discoveries in Reginald’s Tower.
The results of the excavations are published in this impressive volume, the fruit of the knowledge and skill of the 35 contributors. Some reports are wide-ranging and engaging surveys; others are detailed analyses, frequently highly technical.
It would be impossible to discuss every contribution here, so what follows offers a flavour.
There is a preface by David Griffiths, who not alone assesses the significance of Woodstown in the Viking age but also outlines the task of putting the report together in a time of declining financial resources – the discovery itself having been made in the years of the boom.
Maurice Hurley’s executive summary sets the scene perfectly. He traces the history of the discovery and tells us of the two D-shaped enclosures found at Woodstown: these were open towards the river and seem to belong to an ill-defined class of monument, known to the Irish as longphoirt (ship harbours). These were constructed by the Vikings as places where drawn-up ships and associated waterside settlement could be protected.
Woodstown seems to have been occupied during the second half of the ninth and the first half of the 10th centuries, when a substantial settlement around Reginald’s Tower in Waterford city began to thrive, becoming the preferred centre of Viking age settlement in the region.
Long-term occupation
The nature of the excavation – numerous narrow trenches – militated against revealing the layout of the settlement. Only one house plan was recovered. However, there are numerous indications of activities implying long-term occupation. Woodstown appears to have been occupied by traders, warriors and artisans with a strong Scandinavian background. We learn about crafts such as the smelting of iron (a type of furnace not of native Irish form was found); blacksmithing hearths were also noted at which many common objects were made.
Iron ore may have been obtained in the region. Silver was assayed and melted on site, and there are numerous pieces cut from silver ingots or ornaments – hacksilver – which were used as currency.
The section on silver by John Sheahan is a fine analysis of the Woodstown material in the context of all the known Viking age silver finds from Munster and discussed in its wider international context. Most of the Munster finds are hoards deposited at one moment in time, whereas Woodstown provides the first extensive range of silver from a settlement site; it is not concentrated but dispersed.
The evidence of the weight of the pieces of cut-up silver, but more especially of the numerous lead weights, studied by Patrick Wallace, confirms that there was an underlying system of units of weight, even if quantities were not precisely measured.
Human image on weights
An interesting aspect of Viking age weights in Ireland and Britain is that some had cut-up pieces of decorative metalwork of native origin fused to their lead base. Raghnall Ó Floinn analyses these and other copper-alloy metalwork and notes the growing understanding that these fragments were not always randomly reused – there is some evidence that pieces with human face masks were favoured, and Woodstown provides an excellent example in glass.
There is one tantalising piece with the remains of an inscription that contains the DNI abbreviation for Domini, which must have come from a Christian object. There were coins on the site; some later medieval examples were found in the topsoil, which also yielded a quarter of a possible Anglo-Saxon coin.
Two fragments of coins from distant lands were also found in the topsoil; they are of types associated with Viking trade with the east, possibly through the Caucasus. They are often called Kufic coins, because they carry Islamic texts in Arabic in the angular Kufic script. One was struck in a mint in southern Iraq in about AD 740; the other was minted at Samarkand in the early 10th century.
Huge quantities of these coins were imported into Scandinavia, where they were frequently melted down for their bullion content. In Ireland Viking age silver tends to be of very high purity compared with the silver of the preceding period. Most of the finds came from the deeply ploughed topsoil, so their contexts are by no means sure.
Stephen Harrison sets the historical scene and in another chapter describes and places in context the warrior burial. Bone did not survive well at Woodstown, but, reading the distribution of the weapons and other grave goods, he reconstructs the position of the body – likely to have been prone and extended. Weapons – sword and spear – were decommissioned, by breaking them, before they were wrapped in cloth and buried.
Textiles survived as impressions in the corrosion products of the metal that Elizabeth Heckett, the textile expert, discusses. Some of the nails from the site indicate the repair or manufacture of boats at Woodstown.
Underwater surveying, reported by James Eogan, geophysical survey, analysis of the materials from the site, and reports on the conservation of the metals are all included: the international cast of scholars reporting in this volume is impressive.
But if you like drama then read the three pages (21-23) in which Susan Hegarty describes the geological history of the area, the rise and fall of mountain ranges, the opening and closing of vanished oceans and, very recently, the modification of the terrain by glaciers and the development of its plant cover after the last Ice Age: 500 million years in a nutshell.
Michael Ryan is an archaeologist and former museum director. He has published extensively on the art of early medieval Ireland
