Vindolanda 2017 Day Six

Sometimes the plastic bag you get at the beginning of the day tells you what to expect:

But this was not as bad as you might expect, clearing rubble does get you to interesting things underneath and there are always a few odds and ends that find their way into areas like this.

So another day of digging in idyllic weather.

Elsewhere on the site some fun bits of the highly decorated Samian ware are popping up.  Enjoy a close up of grape vines, leafs and happy looking birds.

By the end of the day we had a few less posh pottery fragments and a curious bit of polished bone.

Close to quitting time I came up with an odd bit of rounded stone.  I had it in and out of the discard bucket a couple of times.  But something about the color, weight and shape just did not fit the multitude of other stones that went under the trowel.

Finally I brought it to the supervising archeologist - who in general does not like "pot lids"  for an official ruling.

Yep, pot lid.  A worked bit of pottery or as in this case stone.  It is the most humble of artifacts but at least I got to deploy the staff of recognition as my modest contribution to the advancement of ancient times got recorded and bagged.