1977-79:098 - DUBLIN CITY, Dublin

(a) Fishamble Street I.
Excavation was carried out from 1977-8 in the area of the Viking-period embankments. A low (flood bank?: Bank 1 -Waterfront I) of the early 10th century was replaced by a more substantial embankment (Bank 2 – Waterfront II) partly built around an existing wattle fence. This bank was constructed across the waterfront from east to west and probably originally enclosed the early 10th-century town. It was protected by a sturdy line of posts-and-wattle inserted in a narrow channel to which was added a large post-and-wattle breakwater. A deep narrow ditch with a sloped bottom was cut into the rocky foreshore outside this bank and may have been intended as a fish-trap rather than as a defensive measure. An even more substantial embankment (Bank 3 – Waterfront III), built in at least four stages, was constructed further out in the river bed later in the 10th century. At one stage this was topped with a post-and-wattle palisade which was later replaced by a series of staves laid edge-to-edge along the top. This bank, which probably also encircled the town, was replaced by a stone wall (Waterfront IV) built further out in the river and parallel to the banks. This wall had inner and outer stone facings and a soft rubble filling and appears to have been built at the end of the 11th century. Numerous finds of Andennes ware, French grey wares and Normandy red-painted wares were recovered from the layers banked up behind it. The wall was either inserted in the front slope of a high bank of estuarine mud or similar material was piled up behind it to stabilise it from tide and river pressure. The extended skeleton of a female was found in Bank 2.

(b) Fishamble Street II.
Excavation began on the eastern part of the Viking banks south of the old city wall and on the 11th-century house and properties along Fishamble Street in November 1977. A series of trapezoidal plots, demarcated by post-and-wattle boundary fences was identified. These plots narrowed towards the waterfront and had their widest ends along Fishamble Street from which the property lines radiate. A continuity of property lines from the 10th through to the 11th century is evident from the excavation. Comparison of these lines with those on Rocque’s mid 18th-century map shows the continuity of topographical lay-out and property alignment in this part of the old city.
Finds include a variety of pottery especially late Saxon cooking-wares, wheel-stamped pottery, rouletted, stamped grey wares as well as two Hiberno-Norse coins, a carved openwork finial consisting of two birds heads in the Ringerike style, a scored bucket stave with an elaborate Ringerike design, a carved wood figurine, a carved bone deity (Thor?) and a sword pommel. A coin of Eadgar minted at Chester  c.AD965 was also found.
Excavation continued in the houses, plots and pathways in 1979. About thirty houses or parts of houses were excavated, all rectangular in plan and most divided into three aisles – a wide central aisle flanked by a narrower chamber at each side of an aisle-board. The hearths were placed at the centre of the middle aisle. In single door homes the door was usually at the west end, but in the rare instances of two doors they were at each end. The 10th-century houses had a single wall of post-and-wattle and 8-12 roof supports. They averaged about 9m by 6m in size, with larger areas of flat stone paving in contrast to the 11th-century houses which only rarely had small areas of stone cobbling. The latter, though retaining the three-fold division of the 10th century were much smaller in plan – so that the side “chambers” must have been extended bedding areas, not proper rooms. Continuing study of the roof supports enables us to say that the 11th-century houses had low side walls and high, steeply-pitched roofs. The door jambs were substantial (occasionally grooved) beams which probably supported the roof structure. Doorsteps were also in evidence and a number of the houses had internal drains. Outhouses were found in association with some of the residences. These tended to be smaller in area and were not provided with hearths and had not the three-fold internal division universally associated with the dwellings. Access to the houses was by means of pathways which usually consisted of flat horizontal screens (occasionally under paving stones) laid along the boundary fences.
Tools and implements included iron knives, hinges, staples. tongs and axes; wooden shovels, handles, bowls, plates, stave-built barrels and kegs; stone whorls and net sinkers; textile fragments; bone and antler combs, whorls and gaming pieces; leather straps and shoes. Also found were wooden artifacts richly carved in the Ringerike style (a crozier-like finial and a stylus handle), a series of Hiberno-Norse coins minted in Dublin in the early 11th century, a coin of Aethelread minted at Exeter, a stave bearing a scored Runic alphabet on either side, antler with a runic inscription and a decorative toy (?) in the shape of a horse. Antler and glass beads were found as well as evidence of amber working and iron working. Animal bone and botanical identification was undertaken on site.

(c) St. John’s Lane.
This small area at the south of the Wood Quay site was partly excavated before it was bulldozed in January 1979. A series of property divisions, houses and pathways was identified as well as a wood-lined pit which contained an early 13th-century scored gaming board, a bronze-coated, iron prick-spur, a Ringerike-inscribed wooden stirrer, nailed ships’ timbers and a walrus ivory gaming piece. A silver inlaid iron sword found in the city dump almost certainly came from the bulldozed part of this site.