Another bright, fresh start today with the cold wind whipping across the river. Roman salt panners and Saxon ditch diggers must have had thick clothing and strong constitutions to succeed on such an exposed location. Much sailing gear was visible amongst the 26 volunteers who turned up. All the skeletons are now being intensively plotted, and some are being lifted – ‘Georgie’ has been transferred to special boxes for the trip to the laboratory, so his/her time in the limelight is now over. With the school visits, Heritage Day and sundry visiting dignitaries, this skeleton has been ‘shown’ to a very wide audience over the last 2 weeks; lets hope the eventual report from the lab has something significant to say, giving ‘Georgie’ a last farewell for his/her fan club. Elsewhere on the site the enormous ditch tracing trenches are nearly complete; the post holes area to the south of the graves is looking impressive (the closely grouped holes are packed solid with clay or flint and chalk, seemingly quite different from those on the west side); and the work to find all the graves in the row is nearly finished.
Before the rain drove us to an early close we were visited again by Sam Newton, resplendent on an ancient motorbike, who claimed he couldn’t sleep last night thinking about the finds at Barbers Point. Taking pictures of the final stages of the grave excavations and discussing the symbolism of wetland birds in Saxon images, he was joined by Edward Martin, past chairman of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology & History, and Rik Hoggett, an archaeology officer with Suffolk County Council and a leading expert on the transitional period in East Anglia. These two kindly gave an impromptu seminar over tea and cakes, telling us something about the regional pattern to which Barbers Point belongs. In particular, the grave goods now found in 3 adjacent burials are seen to fit into that transition from pagan to Christian society, and have been found elsewhere in early to mid 7th century Saxon graves. Edward also reminded us that trade was extensive, and suggested a site such as ours could have been a staging post where, for example, items like the glass fragments could have been gathered on their journey towards recycling.
Today we feature two women who, besides digging heroically, are stalwarts in the engine room of the ADLHS. Alison Andrews, seen below holding one of those precious yellow glass fragments, is Secretary of the Society, having first kept notes of meetings in the early days when her husband Derek was chairman. For her, the unfolding story of Barbers Point over the 4 digs has been fascinating, as Roman was supplanted by Saxon, and then the emergence of multiple post holes identifying buildings, followed by more and more graves. She treasures the memory of finding a perfect Neolithic arrow head on the 1st dig, and in 2010 the rows of school children standing in those post holes to replicate the building shape. Alison believes the school visits have been particularly well organised and integrated this year – like the Heritage Day they have shown what a high level of interest there is amongst the public, with alert and enthusiastic questions. This degree of organisation is key to the success of ADLHS, which she characterises as a participative society with a participative committee – everyone has a task and is expected play an active part.
Lynda Simonds seen below in a tight corner of the grave being excavated with Victoria and Caren, is the membership secretary of ADLHS, and she too has worked on all 4 digs. In 2010 she was delighted to be allowed to do delicate excavation on human remains and honoured at the trust placed in the volunteers by the professionals. 2013 for Lynda is better than ever, and she particularly likes having the young archaeologists on site – energetic, hard working and knowledgeable, they are a welcome addition. As for the discoveries this time, the ‘treasure box’ in Val’s grave gets Lynda’s top vote. Membership of the ADLHS is currently just over 200, largely as a result of the dig publicity. Lynda sees a small ‘churn’ in the numbers each year, as some fail to
renew and then the attractive events programme draws in new members. For the last few years the core number has been about 170.
Before the rain drove us to an early close we were visited again by Sam Newton, resplendent on an ancient motorbike, who claimed he couldn’t sleep last night thinking about the finds at Barbers Point. Taking pictures of the final stages of the grave excavations and discussing the symbolism of wetland birds in Saxon images, he was joined by Edward Martin, past chairman of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology & History, and Rik Hoggett, an archaeology officer with Suffolk County Council and a leading expert on the transitional period in East Anglia. These two kindly gave an impromptu seminar over tea and cakes, telling us something about the regional pattern to which Barbers Point belongs. In particular, the grave goods now found in 3 adjacent burials are seen to fit into that transition from pagan to Christian society, and have been found elsewhere in early to mid 7th century Saxon graves. Edward also reminded us that trade was extensive, and suggested a site such as ours could have been a staging post where, for example, items like the glass fragments could have been gathered on their journey towards recycling.
Today we feature two women who, besides digging heroically, are stalwarts in the engine room of the ADLHS. Alison Andrews, seen below holding one of those precious yellow glass fragments, is Secretary of the Society, having first kept notes of meetings in the early days when her husband Derek was chairman. For her, the unfolding story of Barbers Point over the 4 digs has been fascinating, as Roman was supplanted by Saxon, and then the emergence of multiple post holes identifying buildings, followed by more and more graves. She treasures the memory of finding a perfect Neolithic arrow head on the 1st dig, and in 2010 the rows of school children standing in those post holes to replicate the building shape. Alison believes the school visits have been particularly well organised and integrated this year – like the Heritage Day they have shown what a high level of interest there is amongst the public, with alert and enthusiastic questions. This degree of organisation is key to the success of ADLHS, which she characterises as a participative society with a participative committee – everyone has a task and is expected play an active part.
Lynda Simonds seen below in a tight corner of the grave being excavated with Victoria and Caren, is the membership secretary of ADLHS, and she too has worked on all 4 digs. In 2010 she was delighted to be allowed to do delicate excavation on human remains and honoured at the trust placed in the volunteers by the professionals. 2013 for Lynda is better than ever, and she particularly likes having the young archaeologists on site – energetic, hard working and knowledgeable, they are a welcome addition. As for the discoveries this time, the ‘treasure box’ in Val’s grave gets Lynda’s top vote. Membership of the ADLHS is currently just over 200, largely as a result of the dig publicity. Lynda sees a small ‘churn’ in the numbers each year, as some fail to
renew and then the attractive events programme draws in new members. For the last few years the core number has been about 170.