About the publications
The fieldwork at Stirling Castle Palace has generated some fifteen thousand or so context sheets, many specialist reports and a number of more integrated narrative accounts that relay the history of the Palace over the centuries as gradually revealed through the course of the fieldwork. Together these represent somewhere in the region of a million written words.
Such a volume of work would be difficult, if not impossible, to publish in a more traditional, paper-based manner. On the Internet however this wealth of information can easily be made available, and to this end the context sheets are available to browse online (through the database section of this site), while the written reports and narrative accounts are available for download as a series of high-quality PDFs.
All available documents have been grouped into categories that reflect their content, and their place in the overall development cycle of the project:
Level I
The archival database containing the context sheet information.
Level II
These are the specialist reports that offer highly specific analyses of various aspects of the Palace, such as the timber, the finds from the excavation on the Ladies Lookout, the conservation work undertaken on the Stirling Heads etc. If you're looking for a detailed account of a particular aspect of the Palace (including detailed historical research of the sixteenth century court), this is the place to begin.
Level III
This is a full account of the archaeological development of the site expressed in terms of a series of historical periods, for both the upstanding building record and the archaeological excavation.
Level IV
The top-level documents offer archaeological and historical accounts that are more narrative in style, integrating both strands of evidence in a form that offers a more engaging history of the development of the palace and the people that inhabited its state rooms, corridors and courtyards over the centuries.
Do i need any special software to open these publications?
In order to open the documents you will need the Adobe® Acrobat Reader® (version 8 or later), provided by Adobe® (or alternative software that can open .pdf files).
The latest version of this piece of software is available for free from the Adobe® website - simply follow the link below.
