TWMBARLWM ARCHAEOLOGICAL DIG 2021

The Big Dig continued from Monday 2nd till Friday 20th August

Hello again folks

I’m excited to get started on the Dig after so many delays over the past couple of years. Please note that I’m writing this blog from a keen amateur’s standpoint and the society’s involvement – all the technical stuff and information about any findings will come from the professional archaeologists at a later date. Their final report will be made publicly available on this website and other archaeological archive sites.

Monday 9th August 2021

The day started dry and sunny but very windy at the top and a few showers came in during the day.

Volunteers Bob R, Rod H, Mike W, Bill FW (and me) – Will arrived a little later.

ASIDE STORY II

Richard and Harri arrived just before 10 and we loaded up the Kit Car and set off up the hill. Bill accepted a lift up with me and half way up we discovered an abandoned and vandalised vehicle – so we stopped to check it out and take photos of it. I reported the vehicle to the police on their 101 service. Later in the day we saw, from the top, a police off-road vehicle arrive drag the car out of the ditch it was stuck in and towed it back down the hill.

DAY 1 of TRENCH 2

The location of this our second trench had already been decided upon – it only remained for Richard to decide and mark out its exact location. Approximately 30m west of the motte there appeared a circular formation of rocks abutting the rampart of the surrounding ditch. It was decided to position the trench half way through the circle and extending a metre or so over the outline of the circle – this should give us information on the construction, both inside and outside, of the structure.

BACKGROUND

This location was possibly the one spot that prompted this entire investigation – as you may recall, Twmbarlwm suffered a few weeks of wild fires back in 2018 – as the fire was at last under control and dying back the society invited Will and Amelia of Cadw to the mountain to show them the damage the fire had caused. As we all stood on the motte looking out over the bailey we could see that a great deal of rock and rubble had been exposed on the top of the surrounding ditch which had previously been covered in thick undergrowth of tussocky grass, heather and whim. In a few places we could see some areas that definitely looked circular in formation – as we walked around the first circle closest to the motte Will remarked that maybe this could be worth investigating.

We, of course, jumped on this remark and eventually persuaded Will and Amelia to help us apply for permission and funding for a professional archaeological  investigation of Twmbarlwm – and so here we are, a couple of years later…

Although re-growth of the undergrowth across has been generally vigorous, the peak of the ramparts remain extremely rock with tussocks of grass and moss binding the rocks together – so our first job was to clear away all the vegetation from around the rocks – this proved to be a long laborious job, but by the end of the day we had succeeded in cleaning the area revealing large flat rocks on the surface defining the circle with a definite dip in the centre of the circle.

At this stage there doesn’t seem to be any major clues in the arrangement or orientation of the rocks for the archaeologists to formulate any concrete opinion on the nature of the structure.

After lunch Amelia arrived (with Finn the heritage hound) to lend a hand (and paw) – her first task being to help herd a few cows away from the site.

A few visitors to the Twmp came over to the site to enquire what we were doing and most were very interested in the on-going project. The location of the trench gives us a great view across the entire ridgeway of Mynydd Maen and most times we look up we see groups of walkers making their way from Car Park 2 of the newly re-opened Cwmcarn Forest Drive to come and visit the Scheduled Monument – the walk is approx. 1.3miles.

The team worked till about 5pm before packing up and making our way back down to the car park after a very productive day.

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This archaeological investigation is funded by:
Ariennir yr ymchwiliad archeolegol hwn gan: