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.

Voussoirs galore! Day three

Sorry for the sudden silence after day two, but I have determined that the Blogger iPhone app has its problems, and the issue also extends to another Blogspot app, BlogGo. I had tested both of them quite a bit before leaving for the UK and initially had no problems here either, but as of Wednesday evening the posts I wrote would never publish, even ones with only a few words and no pictures. The built-in browser interface seems to work though.

Having lost the original day three post, here's what I can piece together on Friday morning, while I wait for it to be time to get up.

No time lost to rain, began to make quicker progress as I got more confident. Andy and Justin are confident we are still in largely unstratified material, so they are encouraging a more aggressive use of spades rather than gentle trowel scraping. A feature of the day for me was finding three more voussoir stones in the floor, at the northern edge of our trench; the builders of this 4/5th C building probably stole these from one of the bathhouses, possibly the main one in the vicus. Voussoir stones are specially cut to help form arches; the examples here are characterized by having a very flat surface and neatly carved "ears" at one end that (if I understood Justin Blake correctly) supported the ends of wooden beams that formed the bathhouse roof. Here's a shot of the first additional one I found:

And within an hour it became clear there were two more adjacent to it, with four of them (the first was discovered a few weeks ago) forming a sideways L-shape:

Sean and I both found plenty of crusted/rusted Roman nails/hobnails from sandals as well as many pottery sherds, including this nice rim that Sean unearthed:

I also managed to record a couple of "small finds" in the last hour of the day - these are more unusual/special items that get their own bag and their find location is recorded in 3D space, using a digital level. Nothing too spectacular, but unfortunately I can't describe them here.

Finally, here's a shot of our little piece of the trench at the end of the day:

Day two

Low clouds hovered overhead all day, but the rain thankfully held off until about 3:30. Time was called at 4 when the rain became a little steadier, but given the forecast we did well to get almost a full day in. 

Everyone pushed their slice of the trench down 3-6 inches or so, revealing another big flagstone next to the ones I worked yesterday, and a few more that may be part of the floor but are less obviously flags. At the western end of the trench it looks like there may be a wall appearing, forming an end to the building. Sean and I had many more nails and assorted pottery; I also turned up a golf ball sized piece of slag. Could be just a remnant from an earlier period rather than an indication of an industrial use for the building. Erin to my east had a couple of nice finds, one a spindle whorl, but again it's not clear if it really "belongs" with this late period structure.

Here's a closeup view of the area around my slice at the end of the day:

And a full view across the trench looking east, not looking a lot different to yesterday, but I think tomorrow we'll see things change a bit more significantly as we all get down to the floor level:

Supposed to be dry tomorrow, hopefully the forecasters have it right. 

Friends Night

[this post is out of sequence, it failed to upload 2 days ago].

Our visit happened to coincide with the annual Vindolanda Friends night, when the 1,000 or so Friends of the Vindolanda Trust can meet the staff and get a live update on site. About 150 or so were present this time.

After a midge infested start from Patricia Birley, telling us about the Trust's non-digging news while we listened near the museum, we moved up to the fort. Midge-free, but cold in the stiff breeze. 

Here's a shot of the spoil heap from all the southeast quadrant work this season being moved, ready for the coming week:

(Pic later, can't get it from my big camera onto the iPhone I'm connecting to the net with)

Justin Blake gave us his usual energetic update of the fort progress, making sense of the huge and complex expanse of stone. At least three periods of occupation are clear, with a very late possibly post Roman building lying on top of 3rd, 4th and possibly even 5th century remains.

(Pic to come)

Andrew Birley gave a description of some  finish-up work being done in the vicus, on a pair of small wattle & daub structures in a pre-Hadrianic level, probably 105-120AD. They will shortly be covering them back up with the same clay that had maintained the anaerobic conditions for 1900 years. Photo to come...

And finally, Beth Greene described the complex and interesting set of ditches, pits and a hearth in the North Field. Dating evidence for these is scant at the moment, not clear yet whether any of the ditches are pre-Hadrianic. The trench has been so productive it will be continued into next season. Pic to come. 

First day on the dig

The day started with sprinkles of rain but by the time we reached the site there were large expanses of blue sky. We stopped for a slightly early lunch due to rain and again for tea, but no time lost so far. Sean and I are in the SE quadrant of the fort, with all but five of the volunteers, pushing the trench further to the south. Some big pieces of amphora, several nails, 10-15 pieces of pot were among our finds, here's a general view of the deturfing:

After tea break we helped deturf our neighbor Claire's strip (she somehow got a piece twice as wide as the average) but spent about an hour overall beginning to trowel down into the real archaeology - the deturfed 8 inches or so is fully mixed due to decades of ploughing in the 18th/19th centuries, but below that is presumed to be less disturbed and as it was left by the last occupants of the fort.

The edge of our section had some very large stones, probably forming the floor of a 5th century building, and most likely robbed from the vicus according to Justin Blake. As we began troweling down more carefully some additional flagstones are beginning to show themselves, it will be very interesting to see how far into the building these extend. Here's a shot of the whole trench at the end of the day:

And a sample of our finds from the deturfing (amphora fragment on the left, nail and a nice piece of other pottery):

And last but not least, the beginnings of the floor appearing at the edge of our strip of the trench:

Forecast for tomorrow isn't looking too clever, but we had a great first day.