What is recorded here

Copper Alley in Dublin reveals a seven-metre Viking house where an oval row of massive posts held the roof above a central hearth. People likely stood in that narrow chamber, watching sparks rise through smoke while walrus ivory pins and amber pendants waited in nearby drawers. The ridge still breathes because human hands shaped every joint, measured every rib-bone inch and lived inside the wooden frame.

Excavations were undertakenin 1996-1997 within the Viking settlement at Dublin, in the north-east corner. At the lowest level, evidence was found (at Copper Alley) of the foundations of an early rectangular post structure (7m long by 4m wide) with a central hearth, the roof of which was supported by an inner row, oval in shape, of large posts. Several rectangular post-and-wattle houses with tripartite divisions, central hearths and four-post roof supportswere then constructed at the northern (Essex Street West) and south-eastern part of the site. At the south-eastern corner the houses, orientated roughly north-south, appeared domestic in function, with small subsidiary post-and-wattle structure with no hearth linked to the main house by a wattle path. The siteproduced a wide variety of finds, including the usual Viking finds of bone pins, antler combs, bone gaming-pieces, amber pendants, metal dress-pins, quernstones, fragments of leather and textiles. More unusual finds include a collection of walrus ivory pins (including the butchered skull of a walrus), an antler handle with a runic inscription, a panel of delicate gold filigree (possibly from a kite-shaped brooch), a bone trial-piece, and a rib-bone/ruler marked out with the Viking 'inch' (Simpson)

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