Rare 18th-Century Warship Rudder Found in the Solent
The rudder was discovered intact, 60m (200ft) from the main structure of the wreck
The lost rudder of a warship that sank in the Solent in 1758 has been discovered on the seabed, 60m (200ft) away from the main shipwreck. HMS Invincible – built by the French in 1744 and captured by the British in 1747 – is regarded as one of the most significant warships of its time.
The 11m-long intact rudder was spotted during a routine inspection of the site near Portsmouth.
Marine archaeologist Dan Pascoe said it was “unique and significant”.
“We weren’t particularly looking for it. A feature had shown up in geophysical surveys, 60m off the stern,” he said.
“It looks like it’s in pretty good condition and is complete from top to bottom.”
The 11m-long rudder has been scanned on the seabed
The 74-gun ship was lost when the rudder jammed and it ran aground on a sandbank between Langstone Harbour and the Isle of Wight, capsizing three days later. No lives were lost.
Mr Pascoe said: “The ship was highly manoeuvrable and the rudder was critical to its design.
“It’s the last piece of the jigsaw that tells the story of Invincible. It’s a fantastic, wonderful find and extremely rare – it only survived because it was buried.”
The rudder is due to be protected with sandbags to prevent it from being quickly eroded by the elements underwater, but bringing it to the surface and conserving it could cost up to £80,000, Mr Pascoe estimated.
“It’s a unique find – there are no other examples from warships of this era. Its future depends on whether it is financially viable to raise and find somewhere to display it,” he added.
HMS Invincible’s class of ships became the “backbone of the Royal Navy”, the National Museum of the Royal Navy said
A major excavation project, carried out by Poole’s Maritime Archaeology Sea Trust (MAST) and Bournemouth University experts, began on the wreck site in 2017.
Among the artefacts discovered were a gunpowder barrel, swivel guns, a bottle of corked rum and woodworking tools.
Many have since gone on display at the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth.
The 6500-Year-Old Grave of the Unfortunate Ladies of Téviec
Téviec would be a rather anonymous island located somewhere in Brittany, France, if it wasn’t for its great archaeological value thanks to the many finds – mainly from the Mesolithic Period – that have been excavated there. These finds include the skeletons of two women, dated between 6740 and 5680 BC, who may have been violently murdered.
Archaeologists Put Téviec on the Mesolithic Map
Téviec Island, Brittany, France. ( BCD)
Téviec is one of the very few known Mesolithic sites in Brittany, along with Pointe de la Torche, Hoëdic and Beg er Vil on the Quibe.
It has been the subject of a biotope protection scheme for the past 35 years. Therefore, landing on the island has become a troublesome task for contemporary archaeologists, since it is generally prohibited from 15 April to 31 August.
That wasn’t always the case, though. From 1928 to 1934, archaeologists Marthe and Saint-Just Péquart discovered and excavated a culturally and archaeologically rich Mesolithic site on the island, dating to between 5700 and 4500 BC.
According to most historians, this is considered the end of the Mesolithic period in western France and it overlaps with the beginning of the Neolithic period.
Marthe and Saint-Just Péquart – after first discovering the tomb. 1928
The main finds at the site were substantial middens formed of oyster and clam shells and ten multiple graves containing 23 skeletons, including adults and children.
Among the shells were the remains of animals as well, such as dogs, crabs, fish, lobsters, seabirds, deer, and boar among others. Due to the acidity of the soil in the location, the bones have been remarkably preserved, even though many of the skeletons showed clear signs of brutality and violence, including one with an arrowhead embedded in its spine.
A midden, composed of shells, animal bones etc. provides insights into life on the island.
The Unfortunate Ladies of Téviec
The most fascinating and mysterious of all discoveries, however, is undoubtedly the grave that includes the skeletons of two women aged 25–35, dubbed the “Ladies of Téviec.” Their bodies were buried delicately in a pit that was partly dug into the ground and coated over with debris from the midden.
The corpses had been protected all these centuries by a roof made of antlers and supplied with pieces of flint, boar bones, and jewellery made of sea shells such as necklaces, bracelets, and ringlets for their legs. The grave collection was unearthed from the site as a whole and is now on display at the Muséum de Toulouse, where its restoration in 2010 earned several awards.
The Ladies of Téviec, both feature traumatic injuries to the skull.
The thing that shocked archaeologists the most though, was the blatant violence and brutality the two women sustained before they died. Scientists examining the skeletons concluded that one of them had suffered five blows to the head, two of which were possibly fatal, and had also received at least one arrow shot between the eyes.
The other body also had traces of injuries, but not as violent as the body of her “friend.” In recent years, however, this diagnosis is debated by some archaeologists, who claim that the immense weight of the soil above the grave may have been the cause of damage to the skeletons.
An obvious question that probably occurs upon reading this is: How could the weight and composition of any soil – no matter how heavy it might be –ever justify an arrow shot between the eyes? It doesn’t make any sense, does it?
A Very Cold Case: Attempts to Solve the Téviec Mystery Almost 6,500 Years Later
In 2012, replicas of the two skeletons were laid for the first time on a mortuary slab of Toulouse Natural History Museum, during an exhibition titled Prehistory: The Investigation, which became a big hit in France.
“When you create an exhibition, you need to create an atmosphere and a lot of TV shows are about CSI and forensics and they always start with a forensics table – and here it is,” said Dr. Francis Duranthon, the director of the Toulouse Natural History Museum, pointing to the mortuary slab.
In the city of Toulouse alone, more than a hundred thousand people visited the exhibition, while in Paris two hundred thousand people watched closely the attempt of the scientists to solve this prehistoric mystery.
Isotope analysis of the two women’s teeth showed a diet of seafood and meat. That caused scientists to speculate that the two females possibly came from a small community that farmed, harvested the sea, and hunted. The exhibition also revealed that this was probably a community where women fulfilled a more domestic role. “It is unusual to find women killed this way during this period,” said Duranthon and added, “What we know is that at least two people were involved in these killings.”
Exhibit A? Skull from the Téviec burial. This female died when she was 25 to 35 years old from a violent death with numerous skull fractures and bone lesions associated with the impact of an arrow.
According to several academics, raids, in order to steal food, were pretty common back then and they suggest that the two unlucky women could have been victims of a bloody raid. However, some historians claim that what possibly killed the women was a long series of unfortunate meteorological phenomena. Droughts back then would usually decimate a farming community, while an extreme hailstorm destroyed crops, and people would see these as signs that the gods needed to be appeased. Thus, the two women might have been sacrificed as victims of ritual murder, slain by people they knew – or even family members.
So, what really happened to the “Ladies of Téviec”? As it’s the case with many historical mysteries throughout the centuries…We will probably never know!
Volunteer delighted to uncover very rude Ancient Roman graffiti at Vindolanda
You see them scrawled on school desks, toilet walls and underpasses across the UK. However, it seems that the tradition of drawing the male appendage as graffiti goes back far further than any of us would have realised – after a volunteer uncovered graffiti at Vindolanda depicting an explicitly carved phallus.
Dylan Herbert, the volunteer who discovered the stone
The popular museum has found some hugely significant archaeological finds over the years, including the world’s oldest boxing gloves and the largest collection of leather shoes, consisting of around 7,000 items.
Earlier this year, a Roman Altar from the 3rd century AD was uncovered, thought to be from a similar time period to the most recent discovery. Though this one is quite a lot ruder!
Not only was there a drawing, but the 40 x 15cm stone is also engraved with SECVNDINVS CACOR, making the graffiti a very personal insult. Specialists in Roman epigraphy, Drs Alexander Meyer, Alex Mullen and Roger Tomlin, recognised it as a mangled version of ‘Secundinus cactor’ or in English, ‘Secudinus, the sh**ter.”
Retired biochemist Dylan Herbert was delighted to make the discovery on May 19. He said: “I’d been removing a lot of rubble all week and to be honest this stone had been getting in my way, I was glad when I was told I could take it out of the trench.
“It looked from the back like all the others, a very ordinary stone, but when I turned it over, I was startled to see some clear letters. Only after we removed the mud did I realise the full extent of what I’d uncovered, and I was absolutely delighted.”
The stone with the depiction of a phallus and the insult
Dr Andrew Birley, director of excavations and CEO of the Vindolanda Trust said: “The recovery of an inscription, a direct message from the past, is always a great event on a Roman excavation, but this one really raised our eyebrows when we deciphered the message on the stone.
Its author clearly had a big problem with Secundinus and was confident enough to announce their thoughts publicly on a stone.
“I have no doubt that Secundinus would have been less than amused to see this when he was wandering around the site over 1,700 years ago.”
What do you think of Vindolanda’s latest discovery? Let us know!
Though the Roman phallus is often seen as a good luck charm or symbol of fertility, in this case, the author has taken the meaning and subverted it to their own aims. Each letter has been carefully carved, which would have taken a while, leaving little doubt about the depth of feeling held.
Described as a ‘fabulous’ bit of social commentary, it is expected to amuse visitors for many years to come.
According to the team at Vindolanda, carving such a message would have been one of the best ways to get a lot of people to notice a point of view, centuries before printed papers or social media existed.
Excavations have taken place at Vindolanda for almost 100 years, and in that time the site has chalked up more phallus carvings than any other on Hadrian’s Wall.
The new addition takes that tally up to 13, and while that’s considered unlucky for some, Vindolanda archaeologists hope it’s a great sign for the rest of the excavation season in a huge year for the Wall.
Remains at Bronze Age Funeral Pyre in Italy Analyzed
A team of anthropologists studying Salorno, a stretch of scorched earth in northern Italy, say the site is a Late Bronze Age cremation platform where the remains of at least 172 individuals may have been burned. What’s more, the researchers believe the remains were simply left on the ground for the last 3,000 years.
The ustrinum at Salorno during excavations in 1987.
The site is called Salorno—Dos de la Forca, and it dates from 1150 BCE to 950 BCE. Besides the cremains (cremated remains) researchers found charred animal bone fragments, pottery shards, and bronze burial goods.
There was also a uniquely shaped boulder on the site (seen in the image above); it’s unknown whether it had any ceremonial purpose.
Though Salorno was first excavated in the 1980s, researchers only recently completed a bioanthropological analysis of the remains on the site. The team’s analysis was published last week in PLoS One.
“What is interesting at Salorno is that different from contemporary known cemeteries characterised by fields of cinerary urns or burials, this site appears as something very different: a pyre of dead bodies that were not selected for burial but intentionally left in the open, commingled with offerings and their own personal goods,” said Federica Crivellaro, a bioanthropologist at Stony Brook University and a co-author of the recent paper, in an email to Gizmodo.
“Salorno must have been a ‘sacred’ place for its community, in the way it was chosen but also protected from being looted or destroyed, but we cannot assess why exactly,” she added. “The fact that it serendipitously was preserved till today is simply very special.”
The site is a ustrinum, Latin for a cremation platform. Cremation was a widespread means of disposing of bodies in the Late Bronze age, but often the remains would be buried after they were burned.
At Salorno, they were simply left in situ, setting the site apart from other ustrina.
Tooth fragments from the site.
Crivellaro’s team looked at the number of human remains and calculated the likely number of individuals that were burned on the site at between 48 and 172, based on the total mass of the cremains. (The number of individuals represented at the site depends on whether all individuals were cremated and left in situ, or some bones were later buried elsewhere.)
In any case, the team knows the individuals were burned because of the bones’ condition (specific cracks in the fragments indicate heat-induced trauma) as well as their white colour (a shade distinct from ordinary, hydrated bones), which suggests the pyre temperatures may have exceeded 1292° Fahrenheit (700° C). The site was used over a couple of centuries, judging from the style of grave goods and pottery found on the site.
Because the individuals at Salorno were burned, it’s difficult to discern whether they were all related genetically.
“Cremated human remains are never sexy for traditional physical anthropology as they are fragmented, deformed, and skeletons and teeth are normally depleted of DNA,” Crivellaro said.
But based on the quality of the goods, and the sizes of contemporary settlements in the area, the team posited that the individuals burned and left in Salorno may have been a small number of nuclear families or a group of local elites.
Though the researchers don’t know who started the fire, they know it burned for about 200 years and incinerated nearly 50 people at a minimum in that time. ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ takes on a new meaning when the remains are left right where they were burned; if not fodder for worms, the remains are great fodder for archaeologists.
Ongoing excavations of Viking-era, man-made caves near Oddi in South Iceland have revealed an extensive system of interconnected structures that is not only much larger than originally thought but also much older. Mbl. is reports that excavations, substantiated by tephra layers, show that the caves at Oddi were the first dugout in the middle of the 10th century.
“There really are no words to describe it,” archaeologist Kristborg Þórsdóttir said of the experience of standing in what is one of the best-preserved man-made structures of the Viking era. Kristborg is leading the current interdisciplinary study on the caves, which has been ongoing since 2020.
“The size of these structures is just so vast, there hasn’t been a study of such large structures, and definitely not from this time period in Iceland.”
An important medieval cultural and political centre
The first intact, man-made cave at Oddi was discovered in 2018, which was a remarkable discovery in and of itself. But further investigation of the site revealed a much larger cave connected to the first. It is this cave that is currently being excavated by Kristborg and her team.
The historic site of a church, farm, and vicarage, Oddi was once one of Iceland’s most important cultural and political seats and home to a powerful clan known as the Oddverjar. The current study has been ongoing for two years, with the primary aim of shedding light on the writing culture that was there during the 11th and 12th centuries, when the Oddverjar were at the height of their powers. Sæmundur fróði (Sæmundur the Learned, 1056-1133) was the most famous member of the clan. He studied in France and wrote one of the earliest histories of the Norwegian kings, although that manuscript was lost. Sæmundur’s grandson, Jón Loftsson, was a powerful chieftain who fostered Snorri Sturluson, the renowned historian, poet, and lawspeaker who is thought to have authored or partially authored major medieval works such as the Prose Edda (known as Snorri’s Edda in Icelandic), the most significant extant source on Norse mythology, as well as the Heimskringla, a saga of the Norwegian kings that was likely based on Sæmundur fróði’s lost manuscript.
Kristborg Þórsdottir. The excavation site seen from above
A race against time
“We’ve just partially opened up the large, collapsed cave that our little cave is connected to,” explained Kristborg. “We still have deeper to dig; we’re just working on making conditions safe. It’s gotten very deep and the rock isn’t sound. So it’s taken some time.”
Kristborg notes that the excavation is unique in terms of how demanding on-site conditions are. The caves are not only at a significant depth, which is dangerous for the archaeologists involved in digging them out, but also built into sandstone. “The rock is so porous that it just crumbles before our eyes.” It’s thought that the caves were not used for very long because they are so prone to disintegration.
Resources for the archeologists also remain limited. “We only have limited funds and time and you never know what’s going to happen next year. Maybe we can continue, maybe not. And information is always lost from year to year, preservation gets worse.”
A long and complex history, waiting to be uncovered
Kristborg says that the cave currently being excavated may possibly be Nautahellir, Bull Cave, which is mentioned in Jarteinabók Þorláks Biskups (Bishop Þorlákur’s Legends of Saints), which dates back to 1210 – 1250. The manuscript relates how Nautahellir collapsed with 12 bulls in it. One was then rescued from the rubble.
“Although it’s older than that, it’s likely that [the cave] was used for livestock,” explained Kristborg. “Whether it was for that specific bull, we don’t know. But the history of its use obviously goes back further than we’ve managed to trace yet.”
The caves at Oddi have a complex and fascinating story to tell, says Kristborg, but the scope of the current investigation is such that she and her team need to keep their focus narrow. “These are huge structures and an unbelievably large system of caves that we’re only just starting to come to grips with. […] We’d need to undertake a much, much larger study with a much bigger crew in order to get to the bottom of this and trace this history in full, the history of these caves’ use.”
Pompeii victim’s genome successfully sequenced for the first time
The genome of a victim of the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius over the ancient city of Pompeii has been sequenced for the first time, scientists have revealed, shedding new light on the health and diversity of those who lived in the Roman empire at the time of the disaster.
Although the experts sequenced DNA from a man and a woman, they were only able to sequence the entire genome from the man’s remains.
In a study published in Scientific Reports on Thursday, a team led by Gabriele Scorrano, an assistant professor of geogenetics at the University of Copenhagen, extracted DNA from two victims, a man and a woman, whose remains were found in the House of the Craftsman in Pompeii, a Domus that was first excavated in 1914.
Although the experts sequenced DNA from both victims, they were only able to sequence the entire genome from the man’s remains due to gaps in the sequences obtained from the woman.
Before this study, only short stretches of mitochondrial DNA from human and animal remains found in Pompeii had been sequenced.
The two individuals were found in the House of the Craftsman in Pompeii.
The man was aged between 35 and 40 when he was killed in the violent eruption of Vesuvius in AD79. Comparisons of his DNA with genetic codes obtained from 1,030 ancient humans, as well as 471 modern western Eurasian individuals, suggested his DNA shared the most similarities with modern individuals from central Italy and those who lived during the ancient Roman period.
Analysis of his mitochondrial and Y chromosome DNA also identified groups of genes commonly found in Sardinia, but not among those who lived in Italy during the empire, suggesting there may have been high levels of genetic diversity across the Italian peninsula at that time.
Further analysis of the man’s skeleton also identified lesions in one of the vertebrae and DNA sequences suggested he may have had tuberculosis before his death.
The female was aged over 50 and believed to have been affected by osteoarthritis.
“This could have been the reason for which they waited for it all to finish, maybe in the security of their home, compared to other victims who were fleeing and whose remains were found in open spaces,” said Serena Viva, an anthropologist at the University in Salento who was on the study’s team.
The scientists speculated it may have been possible to successfully recover ancient DNA from the man’s remains as pyroclastic materials released during the eruption could have provided protection from environmental factors that degrade DNA, such as atmospheric oxygen.
The Pompeii ruins were discovered in the 16th century, with the first excavations beginning in 1748. About 1,500 of the estimated 2,000 victims have been found over the centuries. Excavations in 2020 of a villa in on what would have been the outskirts of the ancient city revealed the remains of two men, believed to be a master and his slave.
The scientists said the findings confirmed the possibility of retrieving ancient DNA from other victims of Pompeii to provide further insight into their genetic history.
“In the future, many more genomes from Pompeii can be studied,” said Viva. “The victims of Pompeii experienced a natural catastrophe, a thermal shock, and it was not known that you could preserve their genetic material.
This study provides this confirmation, and that new technology on genetic analysis allows us to sequence genomes also on damaged material.”
Vase Kept In Kitchen Turned Out To Be 250-Year-Old Relic, Auctioned For 1.5 Million Pounds
A royal blue 18th-century Chinese vase decorated with gold and silver, which sat in a U.K. kitchen for several years, just sold at auction for about $1.8 million after historians realized it had once belonged to an emperor.
The 18th-century Chinese vase was auctioned for about $1.8 million.
However, the vase’s unclear history — combined with the looting of Chinese palaces in the 19th century — raises ethical concerns, according to an expert who was not involved with the sale.
The vase is large, about 2 feet (0.6 meters) tall, and it is marked with a symbol associated with the Qianlong emperor — the sixth emperor of the Qing dynasty, the country’s last imperial dynasty — who ruled China from 1735 to 1795, according to a statement released by the auction company Dreweatts, which sold the vase on May 18.
The vase is painted with a colour called “sacrificial blue” — so named because the same shade decorates parts of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing.
At this temple, the emperor of China would sacrifice animals in hopes that these sacrifices would ensure a good harvest.
This close-up photo shows a crane image on the vase. A mix of silver and gold was used in the vase’s decorations.
The decorations on the vase are made of a mix of silver and gold, and they depict clouds, cranes, fans, flutes and bats — symbols of the emperor’s Daoist beliefs that are associated with a good and long life, said Mark Newstead, a specialist consultant for Asian ceramics and works of art with Dreweatts, said in a YouTube video.
The combination of silver and gold used on this vase is “technically very difficult to achieve and that’s what makes it so special and unusual,” Newstead said, noting that a man named Tang Ying (1682-1756), who was the supervisor of an imperial porcelain factory in the eastern city of Jingdezhen, is sometimes credited with the creation of the technique used on this vase.
This vase would likely have been placed in the Forbidden Palace — where the Chinese emperor resided — or in one of the emperor’s other palaces, Newstead said.
During the Qianlong emperor’s rule, the government had to put down a number of rebellions. Despite this unrest, the arts flourished in China, wrote historian Richard Smith in the book “The Qing Dynasty and Traditional Chinese Culture(opens in new tab)” (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2015).
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the political situation worsened as China lost a number of wars against Europe and America, and foreign troops looted a number of palaces.
Uncertain origins
Much about the history of this vase is unknown. The vase was owned by a surgeon who “we believe bought it in the early 1980s,” Newstead told Live Science in an email.
The surgeon “was a buyer in the country salerooms in the [English] Midlands from the 1970s onwards and that is all we know,” Newstead said. After the surgeon died, the vase was passed on to his son. Neither the surgeon nor the son realized the true value and the vase was placed in the son’s kitchen for some time, and Newstead first saw it in the late 1990s.
The vase’s unclear origins and the history of foreign troops looting palaces in the 19th century raise some ethical concerns that the vase was plundered by foreign troops in the 19th or early 20th century, an expert told Live Science.
“It could have been a gift from the emperor to one of his officials, and that official’s family could have sold it on the open market in the 20th century when they fell on hard economic times. And from there it would have been sold many more times. Or, it could be the product of the military plunder of 1860 or 1901, which would make its auction much more morally dubious,” Justin Jacobs, a history professor at American University in Washington, D.C., told Live Science in an email.
Jacobs has studied and written extensively about the pillaging of Chinese art in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
“We just don’t know [how the vase left China] and likely we never will,” Jacobs said.
NEW research by Historic England and the Cornwall Archaeology Unit (CAU) has revealed a previously unknown stone circle inside Castilly Henge, near Bodmin.
Volunteers marked out the position of the newly discovered stone circle within the banks of Castilly Henge.
The first modern archaeological surveys of Castilly Henge, which is located close to the A30 near the turn-off for Lanivet, have been carried out as part of a project to conserve and better understand the site.
Although many people will associate the term with the Stonehenge stone circle in Wiltshire, the word henge actually refers to a particular type of earthwork of the Neolithic period, typically consisting of a roughly circular or oval-shaped bank with an internal ditch surrounding a central flat area of more than 20 m (66 ft) in diameter. There is typically little if any evidence of occupation in a henge, although they may contain ritual structures such as stone circles, timber circles and coves.
Castilly Henge is believed to have been built during the late Neolithic period (c. 3,000 – 2,500 BC). Defined by an external bank and an internal ditch, it would have formed an amphitheatre-like setting for gatherings and ritual activities.
Previous researchers have suggested that the site was used as a theatre (‘Playing Place’ or plen-an-guary in the Cornish language) in the Middle Ages, and then as a battery during the English Civil War.
The opportunity to apply modern survey methods to this intriguing monument arose in 2021, when it was included in a Monument Management Scheme (MMS), a partnership between Historic England and the CAU to conserve and repair monuments on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk Register.
Volunteers coordinated by the CAU cleared the site of vegetation which threatened below-ground archaeological deposits. This work enabled teams from Historic England to carry out the first detailed topographic and geophysical surveys of Castilly Henge.
The surveys, which will be detailed in a Historic England report released later this year, revealed:
1.Traces of a long-buried stone circle in the centre of the henge, making this only the second henge with a stone circle in Cornwall.
2. Detailed information about the henge’s original form and its modification over time.
Ann Preston-Jones, Heritage at Risk Project Officer at Historic England, said: “The research at Castilly Henge has given us a deeper understanding of the complexity of this site and its importance to Cornish history over thousands of years. It will help us make decisions about the way the monument is managed and presented, so that it can be enjoyed by generations to come.”
Peter Dudley, Senior Archaeologist at Cornwall Archaeological Unit, said: “The help of the local volunteers has been invaluable in removing the bracken and scrub obscuring the henge.
Over the winter, thirteen people gave 111 hours of their time and now the monument is looking so much better. The project has also re-fenced the field and the farmer is happy to start grazing again, improving the long term management of this amazing archaeological site.”
Castilly Henge is on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk Register because its location makes it difficult to look after, and as a result the earthworks and part of the interior were heavily overgrown with bracken.
As part of the MMS, volunteers have removed the bracken and other damaging vegetation from the monument, making it visible in the landscape again. The site has now been fenced, allowing it to be grazed.
Castilly Henge is protected as a scheduled monument. This late Neolithic henge monument is located at the centre of Cornwall, overlooking a major junction on the A30 trunk road with the A391 to St Austell and A389 to Bodmin.
It has well-preserved earthworks and survives as an oval enclosure measuring 68m long by 62m wide, with a level interior measuring 48m long by 28m wide. The surrounding ditch is 7.6m wide and 1.8m deep, with an outer bank up to 1.6m high.
