Monday, May 6, 2013

Vindolanda 2013 - Day Six

A nice day of digging on site, balmy winds instead of the usual Northumberland rain and mud.

The area I am working on is in the corner of some sort of building.  Based on how Roman forts of this sort were usually laid out it ought to be a barracks.  But it is larger than expected.  There are also large numbers of arrowheads turning up.

Specifically I am up in one corner of the place.  The floor is made up of big flat slabs that appear to be sinking dramatically.  This often means they are subsiding into something older, perhaps a ditch from one of the earlier forts.  But there really should not be such a thing here.  Mysteries.

Various things turning up on site.  Broken coins - the late silver ones would have been sliced and diced for charge.  A possible butt end of a spear.  A bit of chain.

And of course the inevitable bits of pot.  Here is a nice wine cup (?) base.

Here is a bunch of just washed items to show the mix of pottery, metal and whatnot.

A lot of excavating is pattern recognition.  Observe the two items below.  One is a broken fragment of brooch.  The other just a seriously warped nail.  Can you see the difference?*



Here is a slightly easier one.  One is a lead item unearthed a year ago.  It is a "good luck" charm in a familiar pattern.  The other is an elaborate bit of soft stone formed by water erosion into a close miminc.  We refer to this as a "mudstone willy".  I seem to find these every other year or so.


Sun and glorious digging weather predicted for tomorrow!

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*don't feel badly, I couldn't figure these out without a bit of assistance and I could actually see them.

1 comment:

Honeybee said...

Sending you a package. Hope she arrived in fine shape. Keep in touch & drive safely.