Day 9: Boar hunt
Just to prove that you never know what you might find amongst the 'rubbish' of demolished buildings, Team 2014 turned up a few unexpected treasures in a day's work...
Jordy
With the string of nice weather alongside the introduction of a football on site, today was set up to be another entertaining day on the dig. This was however quickly proved wrong although the sun was still shining. John informed me as soon as I got on site that a) I had broken his glasses accidentally during the football game yesterday and b) Tom got injured also during the game (Which is apparently my fault although these things happen!). The morning mainly involved me and the rest of group B catching up on the washing of finds and marking them. Functioning on the little sleep I had as well as my unrivalled ability to make simple tasks hard, this proved difficult. 3 times in a row I found myself going back to the washroom after getting ink everywhere, on myself and the clay pipe I was marking. After lunchtime we were tasked with handling the public; after seeing other groups doing this all week it had become something I was dreading until I actually got talking to people. Brad and I had to deal with lots of questions and you could tell that the public were genuinely interested in what we were doing and wanted to know more about the past of the city they live in. Although the eventful week was rounded off with another great day, the weekend has never been more welcomed... at least until I decide to get my head down and finish these essays.
Jon
Today was a fairly eventful day, as Matt managed to unearth a wild boar skull in great condition. For the first part of the day I was replacing Adam's job by working with Matt, excavating some of the fill in the ditch of the possible manor house. This fill contained many animal bones and pieces of pottery, including one very sharp piece of flint I managed to cut my finger open on! After lunch, Freya and I carried on drawing up the plans for a late-medieval fill and drainage ditch, which we unfortunately did not manage to complete today and will carry on with on Monday.
Dave
Well, the week started out really bad weather-wise, but has been glorious since! The fine weather today enabled the team to really crack on with some proper archaeology of a possible medieval ditch. We have made really good progress, and some fantastic finds. There has been a lot more animal bone found on site, along with more medieval floor tiles, a small slither of some medieval glass, which is fantastic as it generally doesn't survive well in the archaeological record. Some more Roman and medieval pottery has been liberated along with a small section of a decorated lead medieval window grate. The crown jewel in today's excavation though has to be a complete boar skull found by Matthew. A truly AMAZING site, and it is in really good condition! I love Chester and one of the amazing things about it is that there is archaeology from all periods EVERYWHERE! You only have to skim off a few centimetres of soil before more archaeology is uncovered. Evidenced today, when we tried to use the mattock to cut through the baked soil, but with every stroke we saw something new, and resigned ourselves to just trowelling down as there was so much archaeology to be found.
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| Our trench at the end of Week 2: the Roman road is visible in the foreground and in the vertical section in the centre of the photo, running underneath the possible medieval structure left of centre. |
Jordy
With the string of nice weather alongside the introduction of a football on site, today was set up to be another entertaining day on the dig. This was however quickly proved wrong although the sun was still shining. John informed me as soon as I got on site that a) I had broken his glasses accidentally during the football game yesterday and b) Tom got injured also during the game (Which is apparently my fault although these things happen!). The morning mainly involved me and the rest of group B catching up on the washing of finds and marking them. Functioning on the little sleep I had as well as my unrivalled ability to make simple tasks hard, this proved difficult. 3 times in a row I found myself going back to the washroom after getting ink everywhere, on myself and the clay pipe I was marking. After lunchtime we were tasked with handling the public; after seeing other groups doing this all week it had become something I was dreading until I actually got talking to people. Brad and I had to deal with lots of questions and you could tell that the public were genuinely interested in what we were doing and wanted to know more about the past of the city they live in. Although the eventful week was rounded off with another great day, the weekend has never been more welcomed... at least until I decide to get my head down and finish these essays.
Jon
Today was a fairly eventful day, as Matt managed to unearth a wild boar skull in great condition. For the first part of the day I was replacing Adam's job by working with Matt, excavating some of the fill in the ditch of the possible manor house. This fill contained many animal bones and pieces of pottery, including one very sharp piece of flint I managed to cut my finger open on! After lunch, Freya and I carried on drawing up the plans for a late-medieval fill and drainage ditch, which we unfortunately did not manage to complete today and will carry on with on Monday.
 |
| That is a tasty boar skull. |
Dave
Well, the week started out really bad weather-wise, but has been glorious since! The fine weather today enabled the team to really crack on with some proper archaeology of a possible medieval ditch. We have made really good progress, and some fantastic finds. There has been a lot more animal bone found on site, along with more medieval floor tiles, a small slither of some medieval glass, which is fantastic as it generally doesn't survive well in the archaeological record. Some more Roman and medieval pottery has been liberated along with a small section of a decorated lead medieval window grate. The crown jewel in today's excavation though has to be a complete boar skull found by Matthew. A truly AMAZING site, and it is in really good condition! I love Chester and one of the amazing things about it is that there is archaeology from all periods EVERYWHERE! You only have to skim off a few centimetres of soil before more archaeology is uncovered. Evidenced today, when we tried to use the mattock to cut through the baked soil, but with every stroke we saw something new, and resigned ourselves to just trowelling down as there was so much archaeology to be found.
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