Archaeological discoveries at Scone Abbey

Dig uncovers bones at seat of Scotland's kings
By Kurt Bayer
22 July 2008
The Daily Express


THREE human skeletons have been unearthed in an archaeological dig at a historical abbey site where Robert the Bruce is believed to have been crowned. Archaeologists have been digging at Scone Palace in Perthshire and believe they have found the walls of the lost Scone Abbey.

The abbey was the seat of ecclesiastical and royal power on an ancient mound known as Moot Hill, where Scottish kings were crowned on the Stone of Destiny for four centuries. But the abbey, founded by Alexander I in 1114, was sacked and burned in 1559 during the Reformation, and no trace of its existence was left.

Yesterday, archaeologist Peter Yeoman revealed that remains were also uncovered as part of the two-week dig. He said: "This is very exciting indeed. The site has been a place of burial since 900AD, possibly even longer than that, possibly dating to Pictish times, and was used well into the 19th century. So, it has probably been used as a burial ground for 1,000 years. We have discovered three skeletons, fully intact, and they happened to be in the upper levels of the trenches of the abbey that we have been working in. Almost every layer that we have excavated has revealed a number of disturbed bones, which relate to the long history of its use as a burial ground."

The first time the early monastery was referred to was in 906 AD, when King Constantine II met the Bishop of St Andrews on the Moot Hill. Scone developed from an early medieval royal settlement into a great 12th-century Augustinian Abbey, before the palace was created in the years around 1600. Mr Yeoman added: "We worked here last year to look at the radar and did remote sensing across the whole area. From the plot we got from that, we've now laid out these trenches and are starting to investigate and find parts of the medieval abbey. We've found a range of artefacts which tell us quite a lot about both the nature of the physical remains of the abbey church and the kinds of food and so on that were being brought in here in fairly large quantities to keep the monastic house going."

The team has also unearthed pottery, oyster shells, bits of glass, and an old coin, which give indications of the lifestyles led by previous inhabitants. The trenches will be filled in at the end of this week and the artefacts taken away for thorough examination.