Day 11: Finds and fancy pens

Day 11 on the dig and I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of these early mornings. After walking to the site and staring at the clouds above I was convinced today was going to be a cold dark day with the odd rain shower. However much to my excitement my team, group D got told that we were washing and marking finds until lunch. This may not sound overly exciting but the fact I was going to be out in the cold for the morning brightened my mood greatly. 
The four of us sat around a bunch of tables and discussed the finds we had in front of us, which we had worked on in previous sessions. The theme of this session was marking the finds. 

We discussed which finds and materials could be marked and what finds and materials couldn’t. After we had filled in our worksheets required for the third elelment of our portfolio we then were told to begin marking the finds. Expecting to be given some fancy pen to write on the finds with, I was then given a pot of ink and a basic quill to write on the finds with. I sat and stared at the pot of ink and then at this tiny piece of pottery in my hand and began to wonder how on earth I was going to write in the ink on this tiny piece. After many failed attempts I finally finished marking my tray of finds and could get on with washing a new context worth of finds.

After lunch me and Harry returned to a new trench that we have been working on since last Friday and began the search again for the layer of orangy clay, to show we have found the edge of the pit we were looking for. Digging for 30min seemed to be getting us no where until suddenly we both began to see the orange appear from under the soil. I have never been to happy to see a change in the colour of dirt before in my whole life! We then cleaned and cleaned the trench untl it was time to pack up and head home. All in all another great day on site.

Hannah