Vindolanda 2016 Day Two

The warm weather continues.  I started the day up on the rampart excavation, where various walls and drains are turning up.  It was a morning dedicated to defining features rather than clever finds, but the sun was shining and spirits were high.

One of the excavators had promised a young niece that a favorite T-Rex would make the trip and participate in the dig.  Paleontology meets Archeology...

After lunch some of us were detached to reopen the deep trenches that had uncovered such interesting stuff last year.  Down we went into the mysterious anaerobic depths where wood and leather are preserved intact.

There was a bit of after winter tidying up to do.

Actually the trench I went into is shown below.  The orange area is discoloration from intense heat.  This spot held a huge oven back in good old Hadrianic times.

We moved a lot of rock, mud and sticky clay, with just a few artifacts to give us solace.  We have for instance begun to encounter Samian ware with its delicious pumpkin orange colors.

Sometimes it has patterns.

Once in a very great while you find a bit with graffitti on it.  Here we have a message from the past, circa 120 AD.

The meaning is obscure.