Vindolanda Redux

Dutiful readers of Detritus of Empire might have noticed an absence of postings in 2018 from the excavations at Roman Vindolanda.  I found the Hill 80 dig to be a great deal of fun and hope you also enjoyed the change of pace. (I note that the link to the Hill 80 site has for a cover The Best Work Photo ever of our team taking a selfie gathered around a live British 8 inch shell!).

But today I grab my travel bag and hop a plane for Northumberland.  This time of year the morning sun comes in low and bright, and by next posting the long shadow I will be in will be of Hadrian's Wall at dawn.

Much has changed in the 12 years since I started making the trek.  What was once a quirky rustic inn habituated by back packers and farmers has become a tidy gastropub for city dwellers on holiday.  The spirit of the previous, cantankerous Liverpudlian innkeeper lingers on in odd corners but it is overall a less fun place for me.  Still, they have honored the traditional excavator's discount.  And now the showers work.*  

The excavations have been up and running for a month now and I have been getting updates.  The main "project" this year involves digging out a section of the fort's ditch to see what fell, or was tossed, into it.  This entails a combination of pick axe and rubble wrangling...followed by careful trowel work when the delicate layers of anaerobic preservation are reached.

After so many years of doing this I am less excitable.  Sure, you can never be entirely sure what is in the next few inches under your feet but with experience comes fewer surprises.  I'm quite good at "reading" soil to look for changes.

But there are other senses to utilize.  One thing about the anaerobic layers is that, while their depth varies, their odor does not.  Hopefully the moment will come where a few stray whiffs of the deep, funky smell tease me, then the very tip of the mattock breaks through into black, noisome layers of moss, manure and perfectly preserved artifacts.

A few pictures from the crews working the weeks ahead of me:

1800 year old fabric.

Roman bling, a jet finger ring.

Alas Poor BowWowRick....I knew him well Horatio...  Dog skull from a Pre-Hadrianic level.

Said to be a Roman game board.  Found near a bath house which makes sense as these were something akin to social clubs and various gaming counters are also found in such places.  It does also look a bit like the sort of pattern seen on wall/floor surfaces with plastered decoration but I assume the folks on site have the better take on this.

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* Last time I was there the showers worked but the wifi signal could only be found in a tiny corner of the pub.  Posting may be haphazard for a bit until I figure out where the impish wisps of internet signal can be captured.  In the event of internet Dark Ages, the official facebook site for Vindolanda seems to be kept up nicely this season..