Time Team experts Dr John Gater, Matt Williams, and Jackie McKinley have collaborated with the Orkney Research Centre for Archaeology (ORCA), Shetland Islands Council, and Viking specialist Dr Colleen Batey to investigate a potential Viking era boat burial. The site was first identified by County Archaeologist Dr Val Turner in 2023 and has since received Scheduled Monument Consent by Historic Environment Scotland. The excavation, set to take place in the summer of 2025, is the result of two years of focused work and will be featured in an upcoming film by Time Team.
Dr Turner first became aware of the site during a housing planning assessment in 2023. Her investigations revealed a 22.5-meter prominent and seemingly undisturbed mound on private land, displaying characteristic features associated with a possible Viking era boat burial. “On seeing the site, I blurted out to my colleague, ‘But that’s a Viking boat burial!’” says Dr Turner. “It’s going to be nerve-wracking, but an exciting few days until we find out if I was correct, thanks to the Time Team coming on board.”
Viking boat burials are extremely rare and are typically associated with high-status individuals. If the mound does indeed contain a boat burial, it would be a significant discovery and could greatly contribute to our understanding of the arrival and settlement of these seafaring Nordic invaders over a millennium ago.
Only a handful of Viking era boat and larger ship burials have been confirmed through excavation in the UK. These include two at Westness on Rousay, one at Mayback on the northeast coast of Papa Westray (Orkney), two at Pierowall, Westray (Orkney), and one at Scar on Sanday, which survived as a ghostly outline with a series of rivets. The meaning of these boat burials is a topic of debate, but it has been suggested that they could be part of a belief in the transportation of the dead to the afterlife.
In early 2023, the landowners of the site contacted Time Team to lead an archaeological investigation of the mound feature. Time Team previously excavated a disturbed Viking boat burial at “Da Giant’s Grave” in Fetlar, Shetland, in partnership with Dr. Batey and Dr. Turner for the Channel 4 series in 2002. The proposed new site has already been protected as a Scheduled Monument.
“This is a prime example of how Time Team, working together with local archaeologists, Historic Environment Scotland, enthusiastic landowners, and the support of our Patreon backers, can achieve amazing archaeological results,” says Tim Taylor, creator and executive producer of ‘Time Team’. “We are all very excited about this project.”
Two surveys were conducted in September 2023 and September 2024 by Dr. Nick Hannon from Historic Environment Scotland and Time Team’s Dr. John Gater (SUMO GeoSurveys), respectively. The results of these surveys have been highly promising. Time Team has been working with ORCA to develop a project design, with feedback from HES as the relevant regulatory body. The team hopes to confirm or dispel the theory that the mound truly contains a Viking boat.
“When you walk over the earthworks and study the immediate surrounding landscape, you sense the site could be very special,” notes Dr. Gater.
Time Team’s Dr. Gater, Williams, and McKinley will join Dr. Turner and experts from ORCA in the excavation of the site. “All of us at ORCA are thrilled to explore such an important site, especially with the added benefit of working alongside Time Team and sharing the story with a wide audience,” says Paul Clark, senior project manager at ORCA. “Some of the excavation team have spent years living and working in Shetland, and we’re very much looking forward to learning about this site and helping to inform its long-term conservation.”
The team will also conduct a wider survey and evaluation of the area around the mound, bringing into focus other identified archaeological features that may contribute to the story. The site will also be secured through an extensive metal detecting and recording survey.
Press release distributed by Pressat (https://pressat.co.uk/)