Author: Alberto Pearson

Thursday 15th July – Week 6 Day 2 [Day 27] Last week of digging Well it’s the National Archaeology Days this Saturday and Sunday, and Friday there are some VIPs and massed ranks of the press (so that’ll be the Swindon Evening Advertiser and the free paper, that comes through the door with all those […]

  Wednesday 14th July – Week 6 Day 1 [Day 26] Last week of digging Ok – suitably refreshed from the “weekend” and raring to go on the final week digging. Today myself, Kat and Neil will be concentrating on “deep room” (it all sounds vaguely “Black Ops” or early 1970’s Watergate ), peeling back […]

Saturday 10th July – Week 5 Day 4 [Day 24] Planning and recording the wooden feature until lunchtime. Then pack the timber with the clay that was excavated from around it and backfilled to protect it for future excavations. In a way heartbreaking after 5 ½ weeks, but then again secure for the future. I […]

A medium size piece of samian was found along side the timber and intriguingly some wood that looks like a sort of roman ply wood i.e. made from laminates of wood grains at 90° to each other. An expert will be looking at this and it is being speculated that this is showing us the […]

Sunday 4th July – Week 4 Day 5 [Day 20 ] The last day of this week and time for an appraisal of our small area. Finds from our area this week:- Bags of red painted plaster, plaster with impressed sea-shell, broken roof tile – tegula and imbrex, broken box flue tile some with plaster […]

Saturday 3rd July – Week 4 Day 4 [Day 19] Conditions:- warm, sunny, gusts of wind. Ok.. I am digging the SE corner of Trench 6 with Kat and Neil, a very rich trench in terms of finds and in terms of interpretations too. Let’s start with Bryn and Bernard’s interpretation:- A plunge pool of […]

Friday 2nd July – Week 4 Day 3 [Day 18] _ Conditions:- warm, occasions showers, windy. Day three already Sam’s feature has been nicely cleaned and recorded. Just a matter of removing the stones from it. I stupidly volunteer to help remove one of the stones before setting eyes on it. Well, it is slightly […]

Thursday 1st July – Week 4 Day 2 [Day 17] Up bright and early, not too stiff, just a little writers cramp from recording all those small finds. As I have said previously Sam and I worked together last year on the Big Dig, and while I’ve got the suggested plunge pool with a myriad […]

WHAT A ROOM. Plaster on the walls, soil kept on to protect it till we’ve emptied it out completely, red painted lumps of plaster in the debris. Massive amount of pot, last week half a figured Samian vessel decorated with acanthus leaves and a hippocamp – a kind of sea monster, half horse half fish […]

Thursday 24th June – Week 3 Day 2 [Day 12] Conditions: Cloudy, sustained periodic sunshine, few small showers, very windy. After yesterdays postponement due to Wimbledonesque weather today is the first of the primary school mock excavations. The day of truth for Dawn and the Outreach crew. Is the first school going to resemble St. […]