 |
|
|||||
|
|
AN OCCASIONAL PROGRESS REPORT Day 11 of 20, Monday 10th, July Drizzly start to the third week. Still warm though, so not too bad. There are now 11 test pits moving towards the crop line - still lots of archaeology coming up! Some good finds today. More of the window glass from the same spot, and...
... a complete, if fractured, tegula (roof tile) from nearby in the new bath house. Now this is an interesting development. At the North end of the North-South drain widened and deepened this year - you know, the one half way down the courtyard - they have been finding some new "structures"...
... I'm standing (carefully!) on the East end of the paved pathway leading from the villa to the bath house (or the other way if you've just bathed). The pathway is cut off by the North-South drainage ditch. Off the end of the path and deeper down is a patch of reddish (when wet) stones which are still concreted together.
And beyond them, East of the ditch is a patch of quite large stones (being brushed in the top photo) which look as though they may have been... more tomorrow when I've found out! Finally, a really nice small find...
It's a bronze pin, fresh from it's resting place of 1,800 years or so. Cleaned up it'll look right lovely! Day 12 of 20, Tuesday 11th, July Cracking day - dry, not absolutely swelteringly hot (less humid perhaps), and gorgeous blue skies (for those of us who have time to notice!). Now I think it's all been getting a bit vague or confusing in terms of the layout of the site, so today I'm going to put that right. Here's the view looking sort of Eastish...
If that's not completely clear, click here to have a look at a rough panorama I cobbled together. Here's the site record photo of that interesting area where the path meets the North-South drain (see yesterday)...
Maybe we could invent a sort of bingo game using context numbers. Mmmm. Any ideas? I heard that today a whole lot of context numbers in the new bath house are going to be merged in a new super-context-number. Does this mean they are ganging up on us and forming a union? I think we should be told! Day 13 of 20, Wednesday 12th, July Short blog today, but one with momentous news!What is the answer to life the universe and everything? You thought it was 42 didn't you? Sorry! The answer - the meta-context to it all - is...
... no, not Fred himself (!?) but the t-shirt. Fred's certainly been there and done that, and the answer is LS936. Seriously though - Steve has decided that the multiple contexts in the new bath house (which for labelling purposes is part of the Lower Slope) are really just contaminations by a variety of materials of one significant context - so many of the context numbers have now been merged into LS936. Speak it slowly, with awe! Meanwhile, Martin has conserved the bronze pin - well, actually it turns out to be a bronze stylus (our third, I think)...
... note the pointed end for writing, and the blunt end for rubbing out. I'll take a better photo at home after end of the dig. AND... (fanfare please) Barbara has found her first small find in 6 years of digging at Whitehall! Of course she spent a lot of that time supervising other people finding finds. Here it is...
OK. So it's metal and, presumably, a hook - or maybe just a bent nail. In the finds area it became known as an ooh-eer. But I am, quite naturally, struck by the fact that my better half has found something shaped like a J. Day 14 of 20, Thursday 13th, July Not much to report today - no Colin, I'm not going to list all of Barbara's finds, not even the bit of clay pipe that was (for a while - and through no claim of hers) said to be an ivory bead! But I've added some photos to the column on the right. We've decided to add a Whitehall Villa Trivia page to the website (thanks for the inspiration, Colin). Here's some of what will be on it to begin with: To the start of this year's dig we had:
More to be added as we go along! I'll add the separate web page next week. Speaking of the proto-villa, and just in case you remember it with tears in your eyes, here's how it looks now:
Dave noticed that over the years the rain has washed down the soil and smaller gravel to reveal some interesting alignments of larger stones... End of week three tomorrow! So soon, so soon. Day 15 of 20, Friday 14th, July Today the action spread back to the top end of the villa range where Barbara and Jo - plus Pete G in the morning - opened up a small section just next to one of the remaining bits of villa foundation.
The aim is to see if this bit of ditch pre-dates the wall. No conclusive evidence, yet, but Jo uncovered a nice bit of 1st or 2nd century greyware pot..
... and on her last day at the dig! Made taking two weeks' leave to join us even more worthwhile!
The Friday site tour covered the upper villa range area...
...and Barbara told us about the section and pot, and about two more upper villa range and round house 2 areas to be opened up next week - chasing up hunches that have been niggling Dave for years! Steve told us about the possible droveway through the South end of the Lower Slope...
... and introduced us to the probably post-Roman East-West drain under the courtyard...
This would have helped keep the timber building dry. In the new bath house area Martin told us about all sorts of possibilities ('constructing scenarios', Steve called it), and about the uncovering of the North-East corner of the building...
... It's clear that very different building techniques were used in the two walls. Next week will see a few answers, but undoubtedly leave many questions open for next and future years. Absent friends: Good luck to Malcolm with his operation! He'll be missed. Envoi: I held the gate for people leaving the site, and one driver was gentleman enough to give me a sweetie for my troubles - gor blimey guv (tugs forelock) what a toff! Best treat I've 'ad since Brian's cake! Meanwhile, my fantasies (see week 1) take shape...
Have a good weekend! |
|
||||
| ||||||
