Vindolanda 2023 - Day Ten and Last

On the long journey home so a brief last day report.  It may be more coherent than anything I'll be managing for a few days....

A good Last Day.  Of necessity it entails a fair bit of clean up work but some interesting finds and features did pop up.  Apologies for not being able to show off a nice shiny object I excavated.  There are policies in place to deter any illegal raiding of the site by "night hawks", unscrupulous nocturnal metal detectorists.  But here's a couple of fun things I can show.

A wooden key.  Or at least part of one.  The dirt on my fingernails will take days to scrub out.

We ran across enough odds and ends of Roman furniture parts to start a 1st century Ikea.  Here is.....something or other....

The background here gives a fair idea of what things look like with boots on the ground.  Or in sensitive areas, on planking that protects the ground.  Here's another picture or two of this aspect of the dig.

And a before and after picture of the site courtesy of a drone named, for reasons unclear, Steve.  Note the progress in the left lower area that is shown in the boots on the planks photo.

And so Vindolanda 2023 excavations end.  Just for me of course, others will be carrying on the work until September.  I'll have assorted odds and ends in the days and weeks ahead...