CAER: Chester Amphitheatre Environs Research Project

Kimberley has some dabbling visitors… Today we started with bailing out the ditch we had been excavating which had accumulated some groundwater overnight, luckily this didn't take long and we were able to move on quickly. After this we continued to use mattocks and shovels to get deeper into the ditch. During our break we were visited by some ducks which is always a cute addition to the day. A couple of mallards hoping to have a dabble [ geddit? ] at archaeology perhaps? Lucy had a cracking day… Once I’d finally managed to get the hang of getting in and out of the trench without falling back in, today’s task had me and Holly focusing on the area alongside the possible Anglo-Saxon ditch. We were trying to find the cut of the larger ditch and dig down to the same level, all while trying to keep the water that kept seeping into the ditch at bay. One of the highlights of the day was when Holly uncovered a pig jaw bone with teeth still attached!! With cracking weathe...

Today was a measure of patience… as the dimensions of trench eight were calculated. The day yielded two coins, one Roman (trench IV), the other Elizabethan (trench VIII). Diligent finds marking The spoil heap was tended to today after once again being overloaded with soil. It would benefit all members of this dig to place spoil OVER THE SIDE OF THE SPOIL HEAP.  Finds were cleaned throughout the day and marked with their respective context numbers. This blog entry is the first to feature a complete view of the site from atop the now cleaned spoil heap (Which soil should be placed OVER THE SIDE OF). Excavation site at the end of week 3 Joe, Kieran & Rowan

The past week mostly consisted of digging and interacting with people coming to the site, but one of the things I found myself enjoying most was our finds workshop.  Whilst in all honestly, brushing bone with a toothbrush in some lukewarm water is most definitely not the first thing I feel like doing in the morning, I found the exercise to be rather relaxing, though I had to enlist the help of Dan and Chiara on both sessions to clean the teeth for me – I sincerely refuse to like to texture, it’s so… gross.  There’s not a lot to explain with the actual process of washing teeth; you fill up a bowl with warm water and brush the artefacts with a toothbrush, or a sponge if you’re unlucky enough and you then have to leave the artefacts to dry. Whilst I’ve lost the pictures of them being squeaky clean, I  do  have pictures of some of the artefacts we had to wash, though thankfully they can be seen even without the hard work of a toothbrush and a sponge. After...