Castle Moats: Holy for Some, Sewer for Others

[Krystal Coenen]

Castle Moats: Holy for Some, Sewer for Others
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

Aug. 12, 2009 -- Over 2,000 years ago, residents of at least one royal palace enjoyed convenient indoor toilets, with the contents regularly transported to the stately mansion's surrounding moat, according to a recent excavation. The dig also found that the inhabitants struggled, and likely failed, to keep the waste flowing away from the palace.

Yet another recent excavation at an estate in Scotland indicates moat water held spiritual and possibly even "cosmological" significance. Together, the two studies suggest ancient moats served functions that were not always related to defense.

"Even if a moat was advantageous, perhaps even necessary, in defense, people living in settlements or palaces encircled by a moat might have to endure, then, the several inherent problems, such as the spread of pathogens, bad smells, the proliferation of mosquitoes, and others," concluded Dong Hoon Shin and colleagues, who excavated the moat ruins at Weolseong Palace, Korea.

The palace dates back to 57 B.C. and was active during Korea's Silla Dynasty (57 B.C.-935 A.D.).

Hoon Shin, a researcher at the Institute of Forensic Medicine at Seoul National University College of Medicine, and his team found parasite eggs in a deep mud layer of the palace's moat. Since eggs of the parasite, Trichuris trichiura, are only shed in human feces -- many such whipworm eggs were found -- the researchers believe that "palace toilet contents were continually drained into the moat."

[Krystal Coenen]

[Krystal Coenen]

Architectural features show several attempts were made to "make the moat water flow continuously in one direction," through introduction of water inlets and outlets.

Co-author Taeeun Chung, also from Seoul National University College of Medicine, explained to Discovery News that "water around the palace flows from east to west," and "since moats were connected to each other by small canals, we knew that the water should flow in one direction, from east to west."

According to Chung and colleagues' study, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Archaeological Science, the Silla people immediately halted the moat work in the late 7th century, but it is unknown if the likely stench or the diarrhea-causing parasite hastened their abandonment of the moat.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/08/12/castle-moat.html

[Krystal Coenen]

The second and ongoing moat excavation, outlined in the current issue of British Archaeology, is at Fetternear House, Aberdeen, Scotland. The estate dates to the 13th century.

Penny Dransart, a reader in anthropology and archaeology at the University of Wales Lampeter, reports that "the medieval inhabitants kept their moats fairly clean" in this case, with shards of rare dishware and remains of a late 13th century timber bridge being the main finds.

Since Fetternear served no military purpose, Dransart and her team do not think its moat served much defense function, at least against humans.

Fetternear's moat "had symbolic value and was used in architectural allegories to do with Christian virtue and salvation as well as acting as a physical barrier to keep out wild animals," Dransart told Discovery News. "It would also have restricted entry, but at 6 meters (about 19.5 feet) wide, it was not as strongly defensive as, say, Urqhuart Castle on Loch Ness, one of the most visited sites in Scotland."

Her investigation additionally determined at least one prominent bishop worshiped at a chapel situated on an island in a small lake, Loch Goul.

"This location resembles the artificial islands at Fetternear" and other nearby estates, with the water possibly symbolizing the Virgin Mary's "tears she shed at her son's crucifixion."

Still other writers, she points out, associate moats with a pagan python deity, viewing the deep, water-filled ditches as "a cosmological expression" of physical strength.

The scientists hope future studies will reveal more about the function and symbolic meaning of moats, whose popularity rapidly spread throughout the ancient world, from West Africa to Southeast Ireland.

[Krystal Coenen]

Fetternear House