Day 14 of the Galloway Picts Project. The last day of the excavation. Iraia’s trench (the Well opposite the Pictish carvings) was the first to be backfilled by the Trusty’s Hill squad, as her team had completed recording all the archaeology encountered there yesterday. Next was Scott’s trench (the rock cut ditch) which was the deepest excavation on site. Once Beth and Ronan, with Kenny’s help, had completed the recording of archaeological contexts in trench 4 (the largest area uncovered) on the east side of the fort, the whole team mucked in to backfill this, while Chris hurriedly recorded, with Pat and Alison’s help, the last of the archaeological contexts in his trench on the west side of the summit of the fort. Time was ticking on when we started backfilling this last trench and we practically attacked its mountainous spoilheap. After the last turf was laid, we brought out a bottle of Fizz to celebrate a Great Dig. Today was a hard day, a seemingly unending slog of digging soil and throwing it back into the trenches we had spent so much time over the last two weeks carefully excavating. But this had to be done, to restore the site to the condition we found it. We have had such a hard-working team of volunteers for this dig, so many really nice people, and we are amazed and grateful for all their help and enthusiasm. 68 people volunteered to help us in all over the last two weeks, and we thank each and every one of them, as without them we could not have discovered what an important site Trusty’s Hill was in Dark Age Scotland. Ronan & Chris

Volunteers 28th May

Backfill team 2nd June