28 volunteers poured onto the site today, no doubt encouraged by the endless sunshine and the promise of a visit from BBC Look East. A huge amount of scraping, watering and spoil moving must have greatly impressed the film crew, but the highlight of the day came later, after they had gone. Cameron the human mole was turned loose on the spot where 3 years ago at the end of our last dig Richard Newman was obliged to leave a grave containing 'George' only half excavated. By the close of play Cameron, matched every inch of the way by Maggie, had got George exposed from hips to toes. Tomorrow will show how much of the torso is still intact, and perhaps answer the intriguing late suggestion that the body may have been buried in the prone position - face down.
The dolphin find at the start of the dig has produced some interesting information. Dolphins feature widely in ancient mythology; for the Romans they were often depicted as the messengers of Neptune, and in many situations as helping humans in distress. However, it also seems that some Roman fishermen may have used trained dolphins to 'herd' fish into nets, a practice that still happens today off the coast of Brazil. Perhaps the long boring hours of boiling salt water at the Barbers Point salt pans were relieved by a little dolphin training.
The dolphin find at the start of the dig has produced some interesting information. Dolphins feature widely in ancient mythology; for the Romans they were often depicted as the messengers of Neptune, and in many situations as helping humans in distress. However, it also seems that some Roman fishermen may have used trained dolphins to 'herd' fish into nets, a practice that still happens today off the coast of Brazil. Perhaps the long boring hours of boiling salt water at the Barbers Point salt pans were relieved by a little dolphin training.
Today's two featured volunteers are Lynette Parkinson and Miles Macallister, seen here playing on the swing sieve. Lynette hails from Blackpool, and heard about the dig (it's her second) through Cambridge Uni, where she is a second year undergrad at St John's reading archaeology & anthropology. Miles is a local lad from Knodishall, currently recovering from taking a BSc in Government & History at the LSE by doing an MPhil in Early Modern History at Wolfson College, Cambridge. Sensitive to modern media demands, he recently appeared as an elbow in the East Anglian Daily Times photo of our first day dig, and may have a walk-on part today with Look East.
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