Eliseg News
In previous blogs I have tried to keep you all up-to-date in developments with Project Eliseg; a collaborative fieldwork project investigating the fascinating Pillar of Eliseg, near Valle Crucis, Llangollen, Denbighshire. Between 2010 and 2012, three seasons of fieldwork investigated in the mound beneath, and landscape immediately around, the Pillar of Eliseg. Most recently I wrote about bid to secure funds from Cadw to support our plans for rapid completion of the post-excavation stage of the fieldwork here.
Good news: we have just learned that we have secured post-excavation funds from Cadw, so it is all steam ahead in the work towards the completion of Project Eliseg’s 2010-12 fieldwork. Gary and Nancy at Bangor are leading this up and again we are gaining support from Llangollen Museum’s David Crane and Sue Evans.
CPAT Day School
This news coincides with today’s Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust Day School at Oswestry, where I had the opportunity to present our work on Project Eliseg to an assembled audience of 130 local people and fellow archaeologists. To learn more about what I said, see earlier blog here.
The CPAT day school was well-organised, with plenty of drink, sandwiches and (most importantly) lots of cake. I had the pleasure of listening to superb presentations by:
- Ian Grant outlining CPAT’s work at Borras Quarry including Neolithic, Bronze Age and early medieval finds.
- Roger White talking about the Wroxeter and its hinterland
- Keith Ray on his forthcoming book on Offa’s Dyke with Ian Bapty.
- Shane Kelleher about his work at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust.
I confess I missed the presentations by Bob Silvester and Bill Britnell, whose research on Welsh church archaeology and half-timbered halls respectively I have heard before and is excellent. Instead I had the opportunity after lunch had finished to talk with Keith Ray about his forthcoming book and present to him some of my preliminary ideas on the relationship between Offa’s Dyke, Wat’s Dyke and the Pillar of Eliseg. The two final papers in the day I missed too, having to leave for home, but they comprised of Viviana Culshaw presenting on Price’s Pottery, Buckley, and Richard Hankinson on Military Aircraft Crash Sites: both great topics I regret having to miss.
Parallel with work on Project Eliseg, Patricia Murrieta-Flores and myself are pursuing further work on the landscape context of the monument. Over the next year, it will be exciting to be able to present new work on the Pillar itself and on why it was located where it was.
Archaeo𝔡𝔢𝔞𝔱𝔥 