Roman coins, yay! (but on another site, boo!)

Christian anticipates the future…

After a weekend of rest we arrived at the dig site looking forward to three more weeks of archaeology in Grosvenor park. All members of the group started where they had finished last week, almost all the backfill and terram had been removed and we started the task of trowelling to remove the mud that had built up over the past two days and expose the archaeology that was uncovered last year. 

Later in the morning group A had a session about public archaeology. We discussed the importance of making the general public aware of what we are doing on site, and how archaeologists interact with the public in their day-to-day work. We had a tour of the city walls with the thinking behind the new information boards explained. The morning finished with a visit to a commercial archaeology site at George Street just as they unearthed what we were told was the best preserved Roman coin (dating from the reign of Trajan) they had ever found.

The afternoon was spent back at the park site as we started digging some of the features that could be seen. I started to remove the fill of a ditch feature that had been partially excavated last year, while others were excavating features which included a section of wall and what is thought to be a grave. This was the first chance for most of us to excavate previously untouched archaeology, which only made us all the more enthusiastic about what might be uncovered in the coming days.