CAER: Chester Amphitheatre Environs Research Project

Meggen writes - What a great day on site. We didn't get too much digging done, but new features did emerge today including what looks like another ditch parallel to our first one! Not quite sure what is happening yet but we've got four more days of digging next week to try and figure it out. The big event today was our Saturday Open Day. From 10am we had a pretty steady stream of visitors getting site tours, looking at and even helping us wash finds, making their own dig-inspired medieval floor tiles and the smaller would-be archaeologists excavated in their own 'mini-dig.' The sun beat down all day, my shoulders are sunburnt and I don't think I sat down once in 6 hours. Thankfully I had a great bunch of archaeology students (including some helpful final year students) and a group of history students really doing all the hard work. We hope everyone enjoyed it! Karen adds - Wow! Another amazing day both in the weather and our Open Day! Our full Open Day started ...

Hayley updates us for Friday - Today was scorching hot, it felt like we were sat in a sauna! However, it is the best weather we've had so far on the dig so I shouldn't complain. This morning the groups were excavating and clearing up the site in preparation for the afternoon. We were all very tired from the heat, but inspiration came in the form of Meggen's amazing cookies and brownies to rally us on. The afternoon was a great success with the first public open day. There were numerous vistors to the site; unfortunately not many kiddies to try out the mini dig as they were most likely in school, but hopefully there will be a lot more tomorrow. Fingers crossed for another glorious day! Nick writes - The group started the day off with photography, our second session of this. We took some pictures of the whole site from several angles, and they turned out great. By lunchtime the sun was soaring as we had a bit of a heat wave on site; the suntan lotion was applied and we got to...

Gary D and Mike C report - Today was 'Cheese Club' day and we all brought to site different cheeses with various crackers, grapes and olives. Was great - only problem was that we ate so much cheese no one wanted to do any digging afterwards!! We managed to get some planning done in trench VI of the possible boundary ditch and associated contexts. Once the dairy products had settled, some light digging in trench VII also filled the afternoon. Not many finds today, but hopefully more to come tommorrow. Meggen writes - I can't believe three weeks have gone already. Tomorrow afternoon is the first of our 'open days' so today was spent doing errands for that, an radio interview for local station Dee 106, trying to get the satellites to co-operate for our GPS (they didn't), generally teasing the students in the afternoon to make them work faster and baking up a storm this evening to keep them all happy tomorrow! I swear that baking isn't in my contract.... Make...

Rachel writes - This morning saw Group A in Albion Street with the finds. We bagged up the finds that we had marked and wrote labels to go with them so we know what they are and where they came from. Jonathan and I then went on to wash some finds, which is very therapeutic! After luch we were back on site and doing some section drawings of the pipe cut in trench VII. We set up the level to see if our section string was straight and after a slight mishap with the levelling staff (one member of the group managed to pull it apart), we found that everything was as it should be. The weather today was cloudy but at least we managed to stay dry. Mike D reports - It was a rather quiet morning on site as one of the groups was working away from the site on the finds, and a few were off ill. So, a few of us were given the job of levelling out the surface in trench VI. This unfortunately wasn't easy mattocking as the ground was full of thick, stubborn rocks. Around mid-morning, we moved on to ...

Dean's account of the day - The sun does strange things to people. As temperatures soared, the great and the good of Chester seemed to spring into life, with an above average amount of visitors to the dig today. Whilst heckles of "stupid architects!" and "have you found any mummies?" might bring the school system into question, the majority of visitors were genuinely interested and had an impressive grasp of their local heritage. To round off a vistor-packed afternoon, Ron Dixon of 'Brookside' fame came to have a nose at the archaeology; although, those born after 1990 had no idea who he was. Unfortunately, there was no sign of Sinbad or Jimmy Corkhill. Jenny writes - We all started off the morning doing excavation, but did not do this for long as we had an interesting talk about how to do soil sampling and why it is important. My group then did another photography session, which also involved creating some humourous 'action' shots of both our te...

Maria updates us on the start of week three: Today we finally had sun! My group started off the morning taking various photographs of different trenches from up a ladder and on the ground at different angles. Doing this, I learned that I am definitely no David Bailey! In the afternoon we split up into two pairs and planned different features, which took a very looong time! A good day to start the week so far! Ross tells us about his day: Finally some sunshine! Perfect weather for digging and planning (and a pre-work kickabout!). Not perfect, however, for photography, as those of us in group D soon discovered. As shadows crept forth from all the nooks and crannies and into the corners of our shots, the blazing sun cast its glare upon every reflective surface and down the lens of our camera. Otherwise it was quite a productive morning as we learned how to compensate for the shadows and frame a better picture. The afternoon was to be spent planning features and our group was split into tw...