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AN OCCASIONAL PROGRESS REPORT Day 6 of 20: Monday 22 June A sunny, hot 'n humid day. Lots of new faces on site today with the arrival of student diggers en masse and the return of some old familiars. Most, I hope, are included in the column on the right.
More of that Nene Valley pot showed up today in the same place. Prettier and prettier.
The Trench, is now being attacked...
... at both ends. This is where the north east wing should have been, and it is hoped to nail its existence (or not) once and for all.
At teatime...
... Sandra issued the Whitehall Excavation Guide to all newbies. It's a very thorough guide to everything you ever wanted to know about digging (and a bit more besides). There will be a test!
Laura cleaned up the drain north of BH1 for a final photocall (but see Tuesday!).
The slicing of the north wall of BH1 room 5 continues - this is now the western half of the wall being taken down to the level of the huge foundation stones. Lovingly prepared for the photo and planning by Ulas.
Laura and James are looking underneath the huge stones at the east end of BH1 to try to establish once and for all if there is any link between BH1 and BH2. With any luck, this week will see the end of work on BH1 for ever! Then I'll enjoy a photographic orgy of shooting it from every conceivable angle, just to make sure we've got it covered before it is re-buried. Have you looked at our 360 degrees "virtual reality" views of BH1? You can find them HERE. |
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Day 7 of 20: Tuesday 23 June Today was the perfect day for sitting quietly in a North facing room enjoying the gentle breeze through an open window. Oh well, never mind! Tentish matters:
This is student campsite: as you see there is fresh sheep's milk available on the doorstep.
And this is the finds tent where Beryl reigns supreme.
Sometimes Beryl gets a bit carried away with the romance of it all.
Remember that drain I took a "final" photo of yesterday? Well they decided to take off the cap-stones (they had probably intended that all along), and here's the muddy result. The water flows at a speed of approximately zero.
Here's the boss getting his hands dirty by investigating around the little mound with our one bit of floor on it. Note that two supervisors have to be on hand at all times.
And here you can see the structure which Steve revealed beneath the floor. Jerry is cleatng up his Steve's loose.
This photo is for Jenny's Dad, who's working in Iran and, we believe, follows the blog avidly. An "interesting" time to be in Iran - we wish him well. Our farmer Nick is also a long way away: he's in South Africa, on safari I understand - at least, I think it had something to do with lions. |
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| Day 8 of 20: Wednesday 24 June
Hot again, but not so sticky, and a bit more breeze - enough to blow my hat off, twice. We had a visit today of a large group from Castle Primary School in Northampton - unfortunately they were leaving just as I arrived, so I didn't get to photograph them. But I hear they had a good time. Today is national tidy-your-spoil-heap day. Bet you didn't know that! Two methods were tried...
... the hard way, and...
... the easy way. Thanks to Richard on the Matbro (he won!).
Things to do during your tea break - part 1: go down to BH2 and watch the boss troweling. Note the banded headscarf, which will soon be de rigeur this season.
Rick explored the surface at the North end of BH2, just behind the baulk with the floor on it. As Rick said, "pretty colours, but nothing there."
White numbers have appeared on the cap-stones removed from the drain...
... and Steve is on the phone to Dan Brown to see if he can interest him in a new mystery. Looks as though he's doing some hard bargainging.
And this is the bottom level of the North wall of BH room 4 (OK, so we called it room 5 last week, but 5 is the room that was above this one, and this one is room 4. Mm). Ulas (in the photo above) has made it his own project and done a fantastic job with help from several others.
Tony and dave enjoyed a vigorous discussion about soil colours in the surface cleared today in the search for the missing NE wing. They still haven't found it. Yet.
This is the business end of BH2, where Steve was troweling, and where the frontiers of knowledge are being pushed ever further southeastwards. You can see some new pilae, and what looks as though it may be another bit of wall, or may be another drain with cap-stones. Watch this space. |
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Day 9 of 20: Thursday 25 June A day of firsts for the blog - and a major development for BH2!! Firsts 1: "Shock, horror! Outbreak of Ladism at Whitehall" this is first digger portrait I have ever taken by request:
Note how Chris is torn between hiding his bottle of water and adopting the standard "got me beer" pose. James, on the other hand, is all too keen to show us his trowel - nice trowel James. By the way, Chris looks jvery like Zbigniew Cybulski (and not just because he wears sun glasses most of the time) - Cybulski was the Polish answer to Marlon Brando in the 1960s and appeared in movies by Andrzej Wajda as an early type of anti-hero: Google him. Firsts 2: The first ever animation on the blog, showing...
... Firsts 3: At teatime - the continuation of the first ever football game at Whitehall, which had started at lunchtime. Some of the girls joined in later. The common response was "We're obviously not making them work hard enough!" I think the oldsters (including me) were just a bit jealous of all that energy in all that heat and humidity. Now for some archaeology (at last! - I hear you cry).
Nice to see a serried rank of diggers moving swiftly across an area. Just behind them...
Yes, BH2 has, all of a sudden, got (probably) a southern wall.
It has a nice sort of herring boney feature, plus - can it be true? - a pilae or two OUTSIDE it. So is it really the southern wall of BH2 or an internal wall, with another heated room beyond it? Surely not! Much more likely to be those naughty pilae again. And finally...
This is a group from the Lutterworth U3A who spent a couple of hours visiting us. As I type this (on Friday morning), it's pouring outside, just 15 miles South of the dig. I await news from the front. |
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Day 10 of 20: Friday 26 June I didn't get up to the site today as the weather was dodgy. It turned out there was no technical photography for me to do, so I stayed home and worked on Whitehall things here - yesterday's blog, photographing fibula, packing notelets to sell at Open Day, and working on the Introductory Video for Open Day. But we have - another first - a Guest Blogger - no less than my good wife Barbara. I "invited" her to inject some archaeology into my otherwise somewhat flippant blog. Unlike me, Barbara usually gets things right, so sit back and enjoy a real archaeologist's account of what goes down. No photos - though yesterday's will help re BH2. Friday 26 June Blog For those of you who mentioned the lack of archaeology in the blog! Warning for those of a nervous disposition - there are mentions of "apsidal ends" and "east wings" in the following report. Bath house 2 Yesterday evening Fred attempted to put in a drain to the east to clear the water from the east wall of F1020 Room 2 of Feature F1010 (Bath house 2), and found limestone blocks in an alignment running north to south about 0.25m to east of grid peg 2.9. These joined at a slightly higher level to the west with a number of facing stones which started to form a curve going south-west. It was speculated whether this may be an apsidal end of a room. In front of these facing stones, 3 pilae (one of them 2 tiles high) were found which were not in alignment with the pilae stacks (F1013) in F1030 (Room 2). The new facing stones continued to the west after a break in them but on a more linear alignment. This appears to be a south wall possibly of F1030, and was given the feature no. 1542. The drain (?) feature is also being followed by removal of context 936 mixed debris layer. The mixed debris layer abutting and lying over these facing stones F1542 (context 936) is being carefully removed. Context 1202 the box flue tiles found last year lying in sequence (which may have indicated collapsed box flue from a wall) were removed and underneath was a series of small limestones lying in herringbone fashion in the opposite direction to the box flue above. These limestones are possibly the fill of the wall F1542 and are context 1210. A sample of the yellow mortar amongst these stones was taken by Ruth. About 1.5m to the south-west of grid peg 2.9 a set of limestones were found inset in a herringbone fashion with their pointed corners protuding up in triangle-fashion. This was given a feature and context then followed to the east until the sequence broke roughly in alignment with the break in F1542. Interestingly the yellow sandy context 1152 found last year overlay the herringbone limestones, with context 936 above 1152. It was speculated that the break in F1542 (south wall?) was due to plough damage. However, over tea break Steve found 3 facing stones under the c936 debris layer and abutting those on the south break on the the wall F1542 was a double pilae. There was evidence of burning and also some painted plaster found. The burnt stone, ash with inclusions of painted plaster and tile were given a new context number. There is a new speculation that this may be another stoke hole, as feature 1030 is a very large room to be heated by the possible praefurnium to the southeast of grid peg 1.8. Further investigation is required to substantiate this hypothesis. A round brooch with scalloped edging was found in F1030 about 1.5m to the west of grid peg 2.9 by Dave Derby, our metal detectorist. The soil surrounding the find was in the c1190 dark soil possible ditch alignment running south-west to north-east, which we felt had cut through the pilae sequence and removed two of them. This brooch may give some indication of the date of this context. Further excavation will take place on Monday to the south of F1542 to establish the nature of the burnt tile, ash and painted plaster context. Also c936 will continue to be removed from over F1542. At the north end of F1020 (Room 1 of Bath house 2), Rick, Jerry and Adrian sectioned above F1019 the large bunter pebbles to see if they continued toward Bath house 1. They encounted a grey clay which is similar to c964 to the east of the F1080 drain, which may be a clay floor surface. F1019 does continue partially under the grey clay layer to the east of grid peg 1.8. F1019 may be linked with the slightly higher level bunter pebbles at the base of F1060 terraced bank. Jo investigated this area and found that the horizontal plane going Southeast to north west which was devoid of bunters had the same material as c1126 the fill of F779 a possible ditch. Therefore it is not conclusive that the higher area of bunters does join with F1019. It needs to be borne in mind that as well as a possible flooring or courtyard surface, bunter pebbles (both small and large) are also used as foundation layers under limestone walling as in the east end of Bath house 1 and under the east wall of F1020 (Room 1 Bath house 2). Steve also revealed a pilae stack holding up F1014 the remaining piece of floor in situ in F1020 (Room 1). Apologies if some context and feature numbers are omitted in the above as I am doing this from memory! Tony's section has a lovely drain which was bright red when it was uncovered by James, coming from the north into Bath house 1. And Shirley found a really nice piece of pot in the big north-west to south-east ditch going across the courtyard area and some really pretty stones which all joined up to make a nice surface in the ditch. And there are two cuts showing in the sections of a previously cut ditch fill which may be the elusive east wing! _______________________________ And now you know why Barbara enjoyes a glass or two of wine on a Friday evening. After the lager and curry, that is. Back to "normal' on Monday. |
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