Operation: Evaluation
Excavation period: 21st July – 1st August 2008
Excavation directed by: Guillaume DEMEURE
Developer: The association of Les amis de la tour

Following a request by the association “Les amis de la tour”, the Regional Archaeological Service (Service Régional d’Archéologie, also called SRA) of the Limousin region (France) authorized an evaluation of the Château-Chervix donjon. A third of the donjon area was excavated.This very well-preserved four-storeyed tower rising 30 meters high is the only remain of the Viscounts of Limoges’ castellum dating back to the 11th century.
This operation aimed both to study stratigraphical data in the excavated area and initiate four members of the association into archaeological practices.
Though the excavation area was relatively limited (approximately 10m²) the six excavators in the team proved very apt at the rather difficult task of shifting the earth outside the excavation area through the tower’s one and only access located four meters inside the tower and six meters high from the ground outside.

The unusual height of the stratigraphy (4 meters) required special security measures. Although the evaluation trench was only 1.3 m, we nevertheless managed to reach the rocky substratum upon which the projecting foundation walls were constructed. We were then able to unravel the tower’s complex stratigraphy. This involved an initial backfilling of the foundations, followed by medieval occupation levels, abandonment levels and then the debris resulting from the collapse of the roof and the upper part of the walls. Studying the ceramics collected should provide us with precise chronological information about the site history.
Unfortunately the strata along the southern wall were mixed up by an illegal evaluation trench in the 1920s.
Now, the quantity of archaeological artifacts and material we have collected on so small an area proves that the medieval occupation levels are very rich in archaeological remains.