Day four

We had drizzly rain on and off all day, only becoming dry in late afternoon. A heavier spell of drenching rain came at 10:30, leading to a retreat to the tea hut and a decision being made to take an early lunch and restart at noon. In the end we only lost half an hour of digging overall, by putting in a long post-lunch session from noon to 2:30.

It was largely uneventful day, with the trench looking more and more rocky everywhere, but with few easily-determined features appearing. One exception was the linear jumble of rock at the western end, which continues to look like a collapsed wall, and the massive stones at the eastern end seem as if they might be part of the intervallum road (although seem slightly out of alignment for that). Here's a view of the eastern end and the massive stones there; if you look carefully you can also see two large fragments of a pot lying trapped in beneath some smaller rocks in the foreground:

Remarkably few finds of note anywhere in the trench, although I did get another small find that is not earth shattering but can't be described in detail, suffice it to say that it was not even exciting enough for me to photograph...! I'm now about 70% of the way back to the southern edge of my slice, hoping to get close to completing it tomorrow. The Canadian students spent the day picking through sticky black mud in the vicus trench, hauled up to grass level spade by spade by supervisors Alex and Kate; the slightly sulfurous smell of the anaerobic soil wafted up and across the path downwind.

Here's a view of my slice standing at the southern end of the trench, beginning to reveal a jumble of stones (foreground) rather than the back wall that Andy and Justin were hoping/expecting to find:

Forecast tomorrow is for clear skies all day and warmer, lets hope it's more accurate than today.