So here we are, at the end of a truly memorable 3 weeks, completing the obvious tasks before the site is restored to 'nature'. And - it wouldn't be ADLHS without this - finding some last minute excitement to add another twist to the Barbers Point saga, sending us off into winter dreaming of what the professionals' report will eventually say.

It was a beautiful day; about 26 stalwart volunteers made it to the site at some point, a couple of them suspiciously near to the bbq time. The blitz at the north east corner was completed with no major unexpected features discovered, although true to form Richard Newman dug up an excellent Ipswich ware pot base. In the graves the last skeleton remains were carefully lifted and plotted - the square 'pad' and related shapes in the feet area of the last grave proved to be simply compacted & stained sand, so no second treasures box there.

But at the foot of that treasures box graves we did find real excitement - it's been mentioned before in this blog that Anna was convinced from the start that the area immediately beyond it had 'something going on' and the imaginative volunteers amongst us were sure that the charcoal patch down at the grave foot had to be part of that 'something'. So yesterday we made a brief start exploring the surface before the rain drove us home. Today Anna and Nina undertook a beautifully executed section through the feature, (see below) and bingo! Its a substantial pit, with extensive charcoal remains at the base (tree rings clearly visible in finger tip sized pieces carefully bagged for the lab) and - wait for it - 3 pieces of prehistoric pottery immediately by the burnt area. Of course the experts will have to consider this in great detail, and presumably there will be carbon 14 dating, but the volunteers (and Sam Newton who just couldn't keep away) are convinced we have evidence of Neolithic settlement (as opposed to the passing hunters indicated by the flint arrow heads previously found). Sam offered a compete guess at 3000BC plus the persuasive comment "where there is a pot there must be a cupboard".
And here's another thought - in the Dictionary of English Place Names by A D Mills (OUP 1998) it is suggested that some of the river names we use today may have been in use among the early Neolithic inhabitants. One of these is the Itchen. In the entry for Iken, Mills says this is "possibly an ancient river-name identical with ITCHEN. This would have been the old name of the River Alde...". Another Neolithic connection to our site?

After a site tour, when Jezz asked the relevant volunteers to explain what had been found and how it fitted into the site context as a whole, Sam Newton then gave us a riveting talk at the cake cutting ceremony. He had brought his reconstruction of an Anglo Saxon harp or lyre, and for the final spine-tingling minutes, sang verses (and translations) from Beowulf about burial and the passage to the afterlife - fairly certainly the first time Saxon has been spoken and sung on that spot since about 750AD. No one present will ever forget it.

And now a final piece to this blog concerning the 'treasures box' grave. Because 'George' was the first grave explored in the 2013 dig, some of us named the others - just for ease of reference you understand. This one was called Edward Henry... Various passing comments have been made about the finds in it, but our apparent reticence about such a significant discovery deserves explanation - and a proper account of the find itself. We were obliged to remain silent for some days because the find had to be very painstakingly excavated, and like the 'coin' in the adjacent grave and the 'dagger' in the next, had to be left on site without full security during that time. Now that the dig is complete, and the site covered back over, we can give everyone a description composed by Val, who has had quite a lot of practice telling it to visiting dignitaries, academics - and all our friends the volunteers on site. This is her account:

"We’d just about given up on finding the mortal remains of Edward Henry even though we’d found a good number of coffin nails and the stain from the coffin itself. Our excavation was considerably deeper than nearby graves when I at last found the right leg and arm bones. David began to search for the skull and teeth while I investigated the feet – which turned out to be pretty well preserved. I started to find a number of pieces of wood and metal, about a finger’s length and width, with nails or studs in them, grouped  in the area around the feet. We eventually concluded some days later that this was the remains of a small box. I say ‘some days later’ because everything had to be planned and drawn and measured before it could be lifted, so it was days before we really knew what was there. But by the end we had what we believe to be the contents of a ‘treasure box’ placed on the feet of a girl or woman (age as yet unknown – David didn’t find much of the head but there are teeth which may be used to age the body)
 
Within a small area there were several fragments of a necklace with two beads – one of which is blue glass. Nearby, a bronze ring of probable Roman origin (maybe a small terret ring, originally used on a harness) with a loop of iron and a pin attached to it (we don’t know if this is by accident or design) but it may have converted the ring into a piece of jewellery. When I found the spindle
whorl, which every girl and woman would need for spinning wool, we decided this must be Edwina rather than Edward. The other ‘treasures’ in her box included a small piece of blue Saxon glass which Sam Newton thought might be part of a palm cup; a piece of amber about the size of a sugar cube with a coating that made it much the same colour, a stone with a hole in it – like the spindle whorl but possibly a fossil sea urchin, and an egg.  

The latter caused the most excitement so far – this egg, white and the size of a large chicken’s egg is 1300 years old but has somehow survived. There is a hole in the side of it about  the size of a 50p piece and something white inside it – goodness knows what but I don’t think it is broken egg shell. 
Anna managed to lift it in a block of sand and hopefully we will eventually find out just what sort of egg it is and even why it was placed there. 
  
As we lifted the body, the grave gave up its final treasure: the last piece of the box which lay on Edwina’s feet has preserved a fragment of the shroud in which she was buried. The fragment is impressed on the iron and is no more than an inch long. It took Anna to spot it, but as you can imagine, this is an incredibly rare find and may perhaps add to our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon textiles.
 
This is a Christian grave in a Christian cemetery, but in the transition period between paganism and Christianity (maybe 615 – 700 AD) and it looks as though this family were hedging their bets here.
The finds have attracted lots of attention from academics and specialists and we now have to wait, patiently, for the conservation and analysis."

Early dampness cleared away to give us good solid middle part of the day, with the tempo higher still on the penultimate day. So much to finish amongst what we have found, and so much ground to break open to ensure we have reached the true margins – some hope! Then before the tea break the rain set in, a chilly penetrating drizzle that soaked through everything and sent us home early, covered in wet sand and clay. A very frustrating end, and only one day left, when the end-of-dig BBQ will distract some slackers…
 
So there was a massive push in the north east corner of the site with  mattocks, shovels and hoes to find any traces of features, and more of the same on a slightly smaller scale in the west end, where Alison Andrews and Richard Marsen toiled to reveal nothing more than a collection of giant flints. The grave work is nearing conclusion, with burials being cleared and recorded in fine detail. A strange ‘box like’ object has appeared in one of the later graves, approximately where the feet would have been, had they survived. (see below). The surface is very smooth and uniform, but it seems to have some appreciable depth to it. A block that the feet or coffin end rested upon? Tomorrow will have to tell.
 
The same applies to the very distinct charcoal bed found beyond the feet of the ‘treasure box’ skeleton. After an agonising wait whilst all the minute details of the grave were precisely recorded, there was just time to start exploring the dark feature or ‘cut’ beyond the foot of the grave when the rain got too bad. There is undoubtedly something there, starting with a bed of charcoal, but whether it was earlier, and the grave cut into it, or later and narrowly missed the coffin…tomorrow, tomorrow.
 
In the ‘dagger’ grave a spectacular final view of the skeleton, remarkably preserved for most of its length, faded quietly away into the mundane assortment of plastic bags and boxes. Like with ‘Georgie’ a few days ago, one can only hope that lab work on the ‘dagger’ will bring the whole image back to public view for the attention it deserves.
 
Robert’s mead hall completed it’s transition into complete oblivion –  no doubt driven frantic by 3 weeks of hard labour to find just a few teeth he was heard speculating wildly about just what the clay shapes might be – sadly it’s unlikely that Saxon ditch diggers would have had the spare time to create giant models of recumbent, well endowed earth goddesses called Jordan.
 
Luckily nothing of this was shared with our two eminent academic  visitors. Dr Mary Chester-Kadwell is an Anglo Saxon specialist with the McDonald Institute of Archaeological Research 
at Cambridge, and she came with Dr David Barrowclough, director of Archaeological Studies at
Wolfson College, Cambridge. They had a full site tour, and another of Val’s impromptu seminars, examining all the finds from the  ‘treasure box’ grave. Before leaving they also spent some time with the group of students that we’ve so enjoyed having on the dig – and we all hope that they have found it useful and fun.

 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.

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.

Into the 3rd week, and suddenly there are worryingly few days left. A very cold stiff breeze saw most people deep in their trenches  trying to keep warm. After lunch Saxmundham Primary year 5 swept on to the site,
and had a couple of hours digging, sieving and washing before a stinging shower drove everyone into shelter. Radio  Suffolk came to catch up on  progress, and interviewed some children. The arch deacon of  Sudbury also  visited and was given a tour of the dig.
 
In the burials area good progress was made, with a lot of plotting on site plans, lifting of small finds, and cleaning for photos. Human remains were found in several more graves. Robert was somewhat upset that monumental  labouring in a large and stony area – which undoubtedly was a grave - eventually produced only a few fragmentary teeth. He compensated for this by finding one or
possibly 2 post holes to the south of the grave, which he immediately deduced  was the end of a Saxon mead hall. No doubt alternative views will emerge. 
  
We have 3 of the team featured today - Kelly Davies, Victoria Cozens  and Val Rea, all seen below  looming over Jezz's paperwork. Kelly is a community archaeologist with Suffolk Archaeology, on a 12 month contract  sponsored by the Council for British Archaeology which runs until next April. On  this dig she is responsible for schools liaison work. She graduated from Cardiff  Uni last December with an MA in archaeology, specialising in British  pre-history. Before joining Suffolk  she was a commercial digger with Archaeology Solutions, a private sector  competitor which Jezz refuses to have mentioned on site, so we keep quiet about that. Kelly’s most exciting ‘find’ when digging with Archaeology Solutions was a Bronze Age comb in a gravel pit at Soham in Cambridgeshire.
 
This is Victoria’s second  dig at Barbers Point. She enjoyed it in 2010, but feels really pleased with how  things are going this time. Knowing something of the background gave her a good start, and it’s been getting better every day, particularly now she has  graduated from heavy mattock work to the more delicate excavation of remains in  a grave. It looks like there is a large piece of iron, slightly curved, with ‘a knobbly bit’ on the end, in the centre of the skeleton, so perhaps things are going to get really exciting.
 
Val was captivated by the experience of short stints in the 2006 and  2010 digs, and was determined to keep her diary clear for all 3 weeks this time. In 2010 she worked on the last grave right at the edge of the excavation area, and shared the frustration at seeing the dark outline of the grave ‘cut’ in the area beyond the boundary. Now she is deep in that very grave, and has had an intricate task unravelling, measuring, plotting and lifting small finds and delicate foot bones at the end of the coffin. There is also clear evidence that  ‘something is going on’ in the area beyond the grave – have we time to get there  before Friday afternoon?

Today our site was open to the public as part of the national Heritage Open Days Programme.  The weather forecast had been dire but the morning started off sunny but a bit breezy so sensibly the Suffolk Wildlife Trust decided not to erect a gazebo. They did have a stall however with a game for the young and not so young - "Guess the Skeleton" with a selection of animal skeletons to choose from. Not ancient though! Visitors included Anglia TV and a number of schoolchildren who, having visited last week, wanted to show their parents what we were up to.

17 volunteers came to help entertain the over 150 visitors who made the trek from the car park iup by the first gates.  They saw work going on including finds washing, sieving, digging and some excavations of a skeleton.  Jezz and Alison explained the complexities of the ditches whilst others particularly Nina, Lynette and Martha explained what we had determined from the remains of our Saxon bodies.


The weather turned wet and even more windy about 2:30pm so somewhat reluctantly we decided to pack up and save our remaining energy for the week to come.

Yet again the forecast was wrong, but this time not in our favour, as wet weather drifted across the site during the afternoon, but it did absolutely nothing to dampen spirits as remarkable progress kept everyone excited. Coldfair Primary came in the morning, together with the Rev Celia Cook who addressed the group and said modern and Anglo Saxon prayers for those buried at Barbers Point. With a strange mixture of ancient and modern things, the day was also marked by a very low level fly past by a WW2 Spitfire.
After lunch Sam Newton, the academic and TV presenter probably best known for his work on Saxon history and Sutton Hoo, came to see the latest finds - as he did in 2010. Today he re-emphasised how significant our site has become for the study of early Christian Saxon burials, and closely examined the child's grave where the bronze 'coin' was found.

At the end of the day Jezz Meredith took everyone for a site tour, reviewing the progress and outlook for each section, and threading together the whole project ready for the open day on Sunday. Weather permitting, all should be in place for a great experience for members of the public willing to walk from the car park!

We end the week with a tribute to Colin Fletcher (left) and Tim Haxwell (with the rucksack) who have together made such a magnificent job of setting up the schools visits. Colin is a retired teacher, and has organised the visits for all 3 digs at Barbers Point. He's not sure whether mattocking open the hard ground is more or less straining on the constitution, but is well pleased with how things have turned out this year. All the schools have been positive, and two in particular have been outstanding with their preparatory work. Tim is a retired head teacher, helping Colin for the first time, and has never been involved with archaeology before. He is particularly impressed with the collaboration between professionals and volunteers on this project, and the free sharing of ideas or information. For the school visits he is delighted with the children being given real archaeology to do, and commends the open, direct and honest answers given to all their questions.

Today the weather was better than forecast, and we enjoyed an excellent visit by Benhall Primary. As with all the other school parties, the children were first given a careful explanation of the site and the work, before splitting into groups to undertake real archaeological work on designated parts of the site.
A photographer from the East Anglian Daily Times came to catch up with progress, and we were featured on local radio (see link on the video page for today). Exciting new discoveries continue to appear, and there are now 6 confirmed graves being excavated. Others seem to be foreshadowed by discolouration in the soil, and a lot more ground will have to be cleared as the push is 'on' to identify the exact extent of the burials. The traces left deep underground by the three(?) or 4 (?) enclosure ditches are giving Jezz and his professional team more headaches.

Today's featured team members are Phil Flint (left, demonstrating his skill at projectile sieving) and Megan Fletcher-Cutts. Phil worked for Suffolk Archaeology briefly in 1986 when they were excavating at Snape, but moved on and didn't return until 1999. In the 14 years since then he's been on a lot of digs, both community projects like ours and contract but the Anglo Saxon cemetery under the car park at Sutton Hoo stands out. His most memorable find was a Bronze Age pin, about 6 inches long, with crystal end piece, found in an ditch excavation at Haverhill.

Megan is a local girl who went to Snape Primary, with the same head teacher who helped arrange for the children to come to our site on Tuesday. Now she is a 3rd year undergrad at Sheffield Uni doing a BA in archaeology and has been on half a dozen digs. Her outstanding experiences were in Magdeburg, Germany where she worked on early Bronze Age sites, including the amazing chance to excavate one of the famous beaker burials. Even more memorable was coming face to face with a human skull in the middle of a domestic midden!

Today marked the half way stage of the dig, and a very busy one too. Pupils from Middleton and Peasenhall primary schools came for the morning, and took part in the now normal range of activities helped by both volunteers and professionals, whilst the rest of the crew carried on with the main dig. We had 26 volunteers on site. Radio Suffolk came to interview key people, and Natasha also took the chance to question some of the children about their experiences.

Later on we were delighted to welcome back Aline & David Black, members of Colchester Archaeology Group, who had made the original magnetometer survey of Barbers Point in 2005 which first identified the ditch enclosure pattern - and so lead directly to the various digs. They were fascinated to see how the story of the site has moved on with each successive excavation - often their 'geophys' surveys simply rest on file, adding to public knowledge, but not opened up for detailed examination. Then in the afternoon Mary Wyllie, a local retired dentist, came to the site to give us an informal appraisal of the teeth now visible in several of the skeletons being excavated. The apparent ages of the bodies startled some - the largest 'Georgie' (gender has gone back to uncertain) may only have been 17 to 21 years old at death; the child buried with the metal disk about 7 to 8; and the one found nearest (so far) to 'Georgie' perhaps just over 12. A tooth found in the fourth grave was similarly young, maybe about 10 at death, but with no associated skull yet found we cannot assume anything about that skeleton.

All across the site major excavation continued on the trench features, and in some new areas where the professionals judged there was evidence of 'something going on'. Another fragment of the yellow glass has appeared, plus an array of nails and iron objects, and the spoil heaps are becoming impressive; the second half looks likely to be just as interesting as the first.

Our two stars today are Anna West (seen here showing an appreciative Simon how to fill a bucket) and John Bradley. Anna has worked for Suffolk Archaeology for 9 years, and was a volunteer on the Barbers Point 2006 dig. She did her degree dissertation on this site, and of course was a key part of the team in 2010. However, her best 'find' so far was in a pit in Ipswich - a late Saxon ice skate, made out of an animal bone shaped as the runner, with 4 holes drilled in it for tying to a shoe.

John Bradley lives in Aldeburgh and is on his 1st dig. He missed the 2010 event with a bad back, and is delighted to have had this second chance. He's a retired solicitor, having worked in places like Gray's Inn, and his red 2CV is the most distinctive vehicle on site. John is enjoying every bit of this novel experience, but has been particularly pleased with the reaction of the school children, whose thirst for knowledge shows in their 'lit up' faces

After a bitingly cold day, laced with some rain, we can now reveal what has kept most volunteers' hearts warm - last Friday afternoon a round metal object appeared amongst the bone fragments near the skull in the 'child's grave'. Too intricately positioned for removal, it had to be left in situ over the weekend, and for another day and a half Anna has been painstakingly clearing around the skull and associated bones before it could be lifted and placed in safe keeping. It appears to be bronze, the size and shape of a coin, but quite thin and covered in green corrosion. What it actually is, and whether any inscription or images can be detected, will have to wait for laboratory investigation - until then, speculation can run free amongst the crew.

Speculation and argument continue too about the 2 holes in the associated skull - trepanation has lost ground because of the small size and shape of the holes; alternatives have not convinced those who have looked closely on site. Maybe there will be more to see when Anna gets nearer to lifting the skull - and in the end the laboratory will have the final say.

Across the rest of the site we welcomed pupils from Snape Primary, gaining much from sharp young eyes and willing hands. Their prize discovery was another piece of the thin yellow glass that we believe may be  part of a Saxon claw beaker. After the children had gone an ornately decorated piece of pottery was recovered near where they had been working, showing a dolphin or whale figure. Along with the metal dolphin found during site preparation, we must surely have got our motif for the eventual project report. 

Tomorrow another school is due, and probably Radio Suffolk, so we hope for less wind to drive the sand around, and pray that Jezz has had enough rain.

Our two heroes  today are Diana Biddlecombe and Sylvia Taylor, find washers extraordinaire. Having dabbled happily in cool water during the chocolate biscuit melting heat of the first week, they now brave the same cold water in an icy blast. Diana, seen in the cool shades, is a top veteran, having made a brief appearance in the 2006 dig, followed by the full monty in 2010, plus a visit later that year to Ipswich to help Anna with detailed examination of the soil samples, looking for grain and seeds with magnifying glasses. This year she is again in charge of finds washing - and is delighted to be learning all the time. She gets a unique over-view of all the material being generated, and the occasional thrill of finding pottery parts that fit together. Sylvia is on her 1st dig, and also loves the learning experience, finding the easy relationship between amateurs and professionals on site very rewarding. She used to be a teacher, and has enjoyed having the school children on washing duties. One boy remarked how he never knew a brick could be so interesting, and another claimed to now understood how his mother felt everyday, washing up.