Floor below ground The excavations at the Viking Longhouse in Belmont ended this week.

Hard at work The excavations at the Viking longhouse site at Belmont are gathering momentum as the Danish led team prepares to begin their final week on site.

Stone axe It’s amazing where you can find archaeology, as John Laurenson recently found out.

Excavation at Belmont begins The Viking Unst project has come earlier to the islands this year, with the arrival of the Danish team who have been excavating at the Viking longhouse in Belmont this week.

A NEW archaeological project got under way this month in the secluded location of Gunnister Voe in Northmavine.

Natascha Mehler, of the University of Vienna, and Mark Gardiner, of Queen’s University, Belfast, are planning a three-year project to investigate sites associated with the Hanseatic merchants. These German merchants traded around the North Atlantic between the…

Belmont work ends
THE VIKING Unst Excavations ended yesterday with the last of the staff leaving Belmont and returning to Denmark today. Anne-Christine Larsen, archaeological curator at the Roskilde Viking Ship Museum, is pleased with her season’s work at Belmont this summer.

“I am very happy with the way things have gone this year,” she…

by Val Turner

THE PAST five weeks have flown by and on Monday the Bradford University team of archaeologists who were digging at the Viking longhouse sites of Hamar and Underhoull completed their work and left.

Peat story
The discovery last year of peat covering part of the longhouse site at Underhoull raised our expectations…

BY Val Turner

SUPRISES always happen as time begins to run out for archaeological excavations. As the Viking longhouse excavations at Underhoull and Hamar draw towards their last few days, they have proved to be no exception to this rule.

Hamar pit house

This week the archaeologists working at Hamar have discovered that the earliest…

BY Val Turner

Busy at Unst

WORK is now proceeding apace with the excavation of the three Viking longhouses currently being excavated in Unst.

At the longhouse at Hamar, the remnants of a later room which was built over the top end of the longhouse has been removed and the team is coming down onto…

BY Val Turner

Danish team arrives

WITH excavations at the Viking longhouse sites of Hamar and Underhoull now in full swing, the third excavation of the Viking Unst project began this week with the arrival of the Danish team from Roskilde Viking Ship Museum and Copenhagen University.

This longhouse is situated on the slopes of…

A former Lerwick optician is suing his estranged wife and erstwhile business partner for more than £800,000, claiming that her actions after they went their separate ways six years ago effectively left him out of work.

New SIC chief executive Alistair Buchan came face to face with all councillors this week for the first time since taking up the post for what he described as “very positive” initial discussions about how to react to major criticisms in the Accounts Commission’s recent report on the local authority.

Multiple Grammy winner Steve Earle, the outspoken singer-song­writer responsible for a host of classic Americana songs including Copperhead Road, Guitar Town and Galway Girl, will be stopping off in Lerwick next Thursday for a re-arranged show at Clickimin.