Yesterday we had to retreat from the deeper anaerobically preserved end of the site. It was just too wet. Of course when there are tantalizing bits of post and floor fragments emerging it is hard to step away just when things start to look good. But this is an inevitable part of excavating at Vindolanda. Your time runs out. Quickly when you do two weeks, at a more leisurely but still inexorable rate when you do four. At the end you are always Moses looking out over a Promised Land you will not be allowed to enter.
I've used that expression a few times but only yesterday bothered to look up the origins of it. Without getting too theological it really sounds like a difference of opinion on excavating technique. Moses was supposed to speak The Word to a rock and water would flow forth. Instead he whacked it a few times with his staff and got the same result. We followed our supervisor's instructions precisely, spoke many words, got lots of water flowing forth, only smacked things we were supposed to smack. And yet the Promised Land is beyond our reach even if it is mere inches below our feet instead of seen afar from a mountain top. Sigh.
And so it was an uneventful last session. Scrape, scrape, scrape. A few bits of pottery, part of a quern stone. Then pack it up for another season.
Quern stone bit was actually kinda cool. Super light weight, hard to believe they used it to grind grain. If you look closely you'll see it is really porous. Basically it is a rock imported from far away volcanic areas where this "tufa" is common stuff.
I'll have a fair bit more to say in a few days when jet lag wears off. No promise on an early report of our surprising find from yesterday, I understand a press release is being puzzled over. Sometimes Life imitates Monty Python....
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