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AN OCCASIONAL PROGRESS REPORT Day 1 of 20: Monday 16th June We're digging again!
As you can tell (if you've been paying attention all these years) many of the usual suspects have turned up again, and there are some very welcome newcomers. More about one of these later (5th from the right) - but you can guess what the story is... first time on a dig... Water water everywhere
And it was much worse than this last week when the site was uncovered...
... and it was worse today before I arrived - there was even a bucket chain in action!
The problem is a combination of the recent rain and the fact that the excavation is now along and below the spring line. This one will run and run (sorry!). A new-look site
Most of the action this year is on the lower slope, and the straw/tent/caravan village has shifted to the South and a bit East to be closer to the main event.
Gone but not forgotten
Yes, you're looking at the end of the villa wing, back towards the main part of the villa.
And here's the back wall of the villa. It's quite uncanny when you first see it!
After backfilling that section of the site, the area of the villa itself was sown with a different grass seed to the surrounding pasture - so it stands out quite clearly, especially when the grass is freshly mown. Amazing! Beginner's Luck The promised story. Spencer (5th from the right in the group photo above) is a history student from Kettering and this is the first day of his first ever time on a dig...
OK, so it's 'only' a nail, but you must admit that - unless you've been there yourself - it does make one a little envious! "Been digging for years and never turned up anything! At least my boots don't look so new!" By the way, a couple of small coins turned up last week when the site was uncovered, but Spencer's nail (as it will for ever be known to Archaeology) was the first small(ish) find of the dig. Stay tuned for more exciting news from the Whitehall Media Centre - I erected the Media Centre premises at the end of the afternoon after a prolonged feng shui session to determine the best location (lovely views, Sir), but forgot to photograph it. Typical. |
Dave and Tony back in the old routine.
Brian and Colin surveying the scene
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| Day 2 of 20: Tuesday 17th June
Victorian drainage The easternmost of the contour-hugging North-South drains has been excavated further and after planning and photographing-when-dry (!) tomorrow, it will be further demolished. So here's one of the last photos of the drain doing its job.
While the drain is Victorian, the materials used in it are Roman including... All dressed up and...
Another bit of the window frame found in previous years. Tesellation Only day two, and a Whitehall record has been broken - that for 'the largest number of tesserae still stuck together'. It used to be four. Now it's... well you count for yourself.
Loads more loose tesserae are turning up too. By the way, they were found by - guess who - Malcolm, who joined the team today: he has a history of finding tesserae. Pilae We are also doing exceedingly well on the pilae front - a veritable forest of stumps is being unearthed.
Just in case you don't know, pilae are the pillars of square tiles that supported the floor above the hot air circulating in a hypocaust heating system. That's all for today. Rain forecast for tomorrow - and high winds. Should be interesting on site! |
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| Day 3 of 20: Wednesday 18th June
It rained!
Touching base Here's the pot base Julia excavated yesterday.
Paw(s) for thought I think this is only the 2nd tile with a pawprint found at Whitehall.
Rabbit?
A new generation Nick bought a generator to power the office equipment in the village. While Nick consulted tha manual, Steve, being an archaeologist, got right down to examining the evidence.
Needless to say, they soon got it working. It sits behind the straw bales and is barely audible in the village. On site it's gentle purr provides a cosy background hum... That's all for today - sorry it's a bit brief. |
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Day 4 of 20: Thursday 19th June
Much better weather today, if a bit windy. Fluffy clouds.
Fine finds Several interesting finds came through the system today:
And yes, Dave Derby was on site to day - hence the last two finds, both from the courtyard pavement excavation. Drain again (see Day 2 for the story so far) To dry out the Victorian drain, the drain team took the cap stones off the north end so they could dredge it and let the water flow out. It worked pretty well, although some bailing and sponging was needed to get the drain dry enough to photograph. Underneath the capstones was found a completely different configuration of lining. An earlier drain ? Quite possibly. Out of contexts Much time was spent today context hunting.
The rules are a bit like Mornington Crescent, but apparently there were several home runs. Predicting pilae The placement of the pilae was precised today - they are 60cms apart (in both directions) which is possibly about 2 Roman feet (this is being checked!).
Our crack pilae prediction team is now dedicated to working out where to expect to pilae to break out next and place a discrete peg where X marks the spot. That's "X" as in "x" rather than the Roman 10. If you were numbering pilae (we have a crack pilae numbering team too) and wanted to do it with a column/row notation (e.g 1.1, 1.2, 1.3. ... a.b), could that be done unabiguously in Roman numerals? Answers on a wax tablet please... Mosaic outcrops (not evidence of Judaic settlement) The small ranging rod in the photo above shows where there are no fewer than three outcrops of mosiac in amongst the pillae.
Presumably they fell down from the floor supported by the pilae. Prediction Tomorrow is the last day of the first week - ALREADY!!! |
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| Day 5 of 20: Friday 19th June
There you are, you see - I was right! It's the end of week one. Amazing! A little bit hot and muggy this morning, but otherwise very pleasant. Fluffy clouds again very much like yesterday's. The main event today was the Friday site tour when everyone catches up on what's been going on. Of course, if you read the blog, you know some of that already... The principal points to emerge were: 1. Naming of Parts (a literary reference that - see here) OK, so now it's official: West of the drainage ditch (see below) is "The Upper Slope"; East of the ditch is "The Lower Slope". The range of rooms in the Lower Slope is still known as Bath House 2, and has at present two rooms - room 1, to the North and room 2. With me so far? There will be a test. 2. Bath house 2
Barbara provided a detailed breakdown of the strata in the BH2 area, which left me reeling... I won't try to reproduce it here! She also told the story of the pilae and mosic outcrops reported here already, and about the 7 coins found in a rubble deposit, all low denomination from the late 3rd century. So someone had a hole in their pocket as they shovelled rubble. Next week the hunt will be on for the west wall of room 1 and for links between room 1 and bath house 1. The record for articulated tesserae is now 21! 3. The drainage ditch
More naming of parts really - the "Victorian drain" has now become the "post-medieval drainage ditch". The Victorian tag came from some red bicks found in the drain alongside the re-used roman stone. Tony has analysed the material of the bricks and found that they are certainly no younger than Georgian and possibly a good bit older. So "post-medieval" is a safe description for now. The drainage ditch has two elements - the longer, southern part with stones leaning against the higher side suggests terracing (see Day 2), and was cut across older drains running downhill from West to East. At the North end of the drain was the capped section (see Day 4) which had a very narrow channel, and which matches up with a very similar drain on the other side of the East wall of bath house 1. The chances are that these two bits of narrow drain are the remains of a roman drain that ran right across the bottom wall of bath house 1 - such drains are typical.
The post-medieval drain is now fully excavated, and a perforated plastic drainage pipe laid along in the hope of improving the drainage of the area further down the slope. OK, so this pipe turned out to be lacking perforations... 4. The courtyard pavement
Higher up the Upper Slope is the patch of pavement which Tony's tream have been excavating. Here is where the possible bridle bit and the bronze stud were found (see Day 4). Dave Derby had a detector signal for a least one more large bit of (probably) iron waiting to be excavated. The aim here is to establish the link between the paved courtyard and the walls of bath house 1 just behind Tony.
Tony also showed us the work being done in examining the baulk at the North end of bath house 1. Interesting details of the stratifications are revealed in the section. More to come.
And finally... A swallow for solstice - easing the spring perhaps?*
*See Naming of Parts |
 Fred's back!
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