Vindolanda 2016 Day Six

Sometimes one area of the excavation gets a little ahead or behind other areas and diggers
get moved about.  So from the damp mysterious anaerobic layers out onto flat ground.  I spend Monday clearing debris off a Third Century road.

Necessary work of course.  But less exciting.  Near the surface you don't find things in great condition.  And even clearing the road is a matter of picking through disorganized rubble from fallen walls intermixed with silt from flooding.

Here is the road stretch at the beginning of the day, before we lifted the turf.

And here it is at day's end.  Rough, stony ground.

It doesn't sound interesting and at times it isn't.  Rock and rubble need to be removed and inspected, the clay and dirt areas troweled.  Finds are unlikely but not impossible.  I came up with two stone pot lids and the next digger over got a clever little yellow glass bead.

But at the end of the day we still had a wonky looking roadway and had at most spots not gotten down to the proper surface yet.  More tomorrow.

A few yards over there was this odd find.  A flat bit of stone, probably slate.  And some peculiar markings.  Did somebody start to make a game board and give up on it?

As today's digging report is brief I will toss in a bonus post.

I find myself fighting fatigue and a very dodgy wifi connection.  But onward tomorrow and may there be small interesting things wedged among the cobbles.