In the past my final day at Vindolanda was one of frantic troweling. Surely that elusive find that had been taunting me all session was just another scrape away! But no more. I enjoy the last day, tidy things up, make everything nice for the next crew coming in on Monday. It was in fact a minimal finds day....but again with the magnificent weather we've had the entire two weeks.
A few bits of scrap metal. Iron, and as shown here, bronze. You recognize this stuff by the green tinge in the soil around it. I tell newbies to look for the color of motel swimming pools.
Iron can be trickier as there is plenty of low grade iron ore around, leaching into the soil But sometimes you can squint and see interesting things. Here's what you see when somebody leaves a sandal on the floor 1700 years ago. Just the ghosts of the hob nails.
And of course pottery. I have to remind myself that when I started out it was very exciting to get a nice bit like this.
Work this session was spread out across a wide area, so the end of session trench talk was very informative. For instance, the mystery post Roman "blob" might actually be two adjacent collapsed buildings. Next session will sort it out. Hopefully. I'll update when they do.
And so another digging season ends. We'll see if Fortuna, or more likely KLM, brings me back again.
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