Day 14: Cannon fire! by Aimee & Jordan

The cannon backfire, before being excavated

This was a productive morning in both trenches as headway was made digging into the ditch at the back of trench IV and much more excitingly the early modern feature in trench VIII was finally determined to be a cannon backfire because of the residue found on the end facing the Chester walls. Wasn’t long though until work began to remove it and excavate the context underneath

Trench IV, after the cannon backfire had been excavated

Find of the morning, a bone dice on top of a sandstone brick near the cannon backfire. This joins a matching set of five found nearby last year.

The afternoon was also productive in both trenches, however, in trench IV we had a bit too much enthusiasm. During the early afternoon it took a while to get things going again after a blissful lunch break in the sun, to which we were joined by a group of Mexican school children keen to learn about what we were doing and what we had found. This session continued on with them trying to identify some finds, which went really well. May have even convinced a few to think about archaeology as a subject in the future (happy days).

The later afternoon uncovered that trench fever is not the only thing affecting people, but also shovels. To say the least, it very much hurts when getting accidentally hit on the head with one, resulting in a possible, slight concussion. However, every cloud as a silver lining and that is that in trench IV a small fragment of nicely decorated Roman Samian appeared, gracing us with its presence. 

The bone dice from trench VII

Decorated Roman Samian after a bit of the mud had been taken off

Overall another great day in the mud and the sun.

Aimee & Jordan