Tuesday, February 16, 2016

ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND—Renovation of the Aberdeen Art Gallery has led to the discovery of a graveyard associated with the thirteenth-century Blackfriars Abbey, a Dominican friary. A team from AOC Archaeology discovered about 40 disturbed skeletons outside the gallery, along with coffin wood, furniture, and textiles, all of which the archaeologists suspect were removed during previous development of the gallery in the nineteenth century. Under the gallery itself, the team unearthed 52 skeletons, as well as large quantities of animal bone, coffin fixtures, and coins. "We expected to find some remains underneath the Art Gallery, but the nineteenth-century building works actually left more burials intact than we ever imagined,” said Aberdeenshire Council archaeologist Bruce Mann in a press release. “This now presents a fantastic window into medieval life in Aberdeen." For more about archaeology in Scotland, go to “Letter from Scotland: Living on the Edge.”