Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, Archaeological Recording

Excavations and archaeological recording were conducted across several site visits from August to November 2021. Because of the constraints of the space, the requirements of the Main Contractor, and the machines used in the excavations, very little archaeological inspection in plan was possible. Most of the archaeological recording and definition of contexts was done from a series of sections cut across the area of excavation. At the start of the archaeological recording, concrete piles had been inserted at the north, west and south limits of excavation. The east side of the excavation area was defined by the PSA Wing basement gallery. The concrete wall of this gallery was removed, leaving the east side of the excavation area open down to the level of the gallery's floor. The concrete foundations of the plant and store rooms of the PSA Wing were removed by machine. Lengths of the iron piling of the PSA Wing remained in place during most of the excavations due to their depth, though they were successively cut down as excavations progressed. The removal of most of the PSA wing structural foundations left an area of remaining Mound deposits to be excavated and recorded. Addyman Archaeology undertook a programme of archaeological investigation at the Scottish National Gallery in relation to the works being undertaken to alter and extend the underground facilities at the Gallery. The Gallery is a Playfair-designed, A Listed building. The wider site is the Mound, an artificial bank of material laid down in the late 18th and early 19th centuries from excavations and building in the New and Old Towns. An area to the south of the Gallery building was excavated to the required formation level after the insertion of concrete piles and props. This allowed the first archaeological investigation of the deposits which constitute the Mound, their deposition and character. The deposits could be characterised as well-ordered dumps of material cast from the east side of the Mound, sloping down from east to west. The deposits appeared in five broad types: coarse sands; mixed dark earth and clayey material; redeposited bedrock material; builder's dross and demolition material, composed of sandstone rubble and lime mortar; and gleyed mixed clays. The pattern of deposition was stable throughout the area excavated, and suggests a well-ordered, controlled depositional process. Concentrations of discarded material culture were not high, but included ceramics, oyster shell and a limited amount of animal bone, a small ceramic assemblage, clay tobacco pipe fragments, ceramic building material, glass, and architectural fragments, mostly confined to the demolition rubble deposit types. A lack of general household waste and midden material suggests that the area was not used as a generalised garbage dump. An investigation of the historical sources also suggests that the Earthen Mound was in origin a form of 'desire path', created by individual city dwellers as a solution to a lack of practical routes across the city, only later institutionalised by Council mandate.