A beautiful, good-to-be-alive day saw 20 diggers at Barbers Point busy with the full range of archaeological activities, from the minute detail of grave plans and brushing tiny particles of sand out from between individual vertebrae, to heavy breaking open of new sub-soil areas. The atmosphere is now dominated by the end date, and the urgent need to complete every task, including exploring new features that are still emerging. It was delightful to see Derek Andrews making his way carefully right to the far end of the site. No outside visitors today, so no time off for impromptu lectures, but we may be getting BBC Look East tomorrow.
The ‘mead hall’ post holes are disappearing in a welter of clay, but the team in that area working with the swing sieve was rewarded with the find of a beautiful small bronze brooch – it’s Roman, and might it be small enough perhaps to be a child’s? The area where it was found is where all the school children dug and sieved last week – now we know how near to a fabulous discovery they all were.
The ‘treasure box’ so painstakingly lifted by Val & Anna from the feet of a skeleton had one last remarkable surprise – a flat piece of heavily rusted iron with a stud sticking through the middle showed unmistakeable impressions of fabric on the underside (see below). Could this have been traces of the shroud that the body was wrapped in? Apparently we shall eventually get expert opinion on this from a top analyst in York.
The ‘mead hall’ post holes are disappearing in a welter of clay, but the team in that area working with the swing sieve was rewarded with the find of a beautiful small bronze brooch – it’s Roman, and might it be small enough perhaps to be a child’s? The area where it was found is where all the school children dug and sieved last week – now we know how near to a fabulous discovery they all were.
The ‘treasure box’ so painstakingly lifted by Val & Anna from the feet of a skeleton had one last remarkable surprise – a flat piece of heavily rusted iron with a stud sticking through the middle showed unmistakeable impressions of fabric on the underside (see below). Could this have been traces of the shroud that the body was wrapped in? Apparently we shall eventually get expert opinion on this from a top analyst in York.
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