Good day sunshine

A prayer to the sun god brought rewards at last!

I’m not begging but please can we have a day with no rain

Our prayers were answered and we had a very productive day all round. We  now have similar looking structures emerging in both trenches, proving yet again that thanks to Giles’s unerring measuring skills we have placed the trenches in the correct locations.

The highlight of Barbara’s day was the very lovely piece of slag that turned up in one of the trenches. The lowlight of her day was when she discovered that her lunch had frozen in the cool bag, presumably owing to over liberal use of freezer pack/s. Just to cheer her up here is a photograph of that lovely piece of slag.

 

 

 

Raindrops keep falling on my head

Another day curtailed by the weather but the prospects for the remaining dig days look much rosier. At least that’s if the forecasters are to be believed.

As promised below is a quick shot of the very nice decorated samian that was found yesterday. I realised from looking for similar designs in my samian book that the lettering that you can see is NAMI but it’s upside down and back to front. The image in the book was a depiction of the work of a potter called  Cinnamus of Lezoux. I emailed the image to Gwladys at Nottingham University and she has confirmed that we have indeed got an example of his work. She states that this particular pot “is probably AD 150 – 180 as he used the ovolo towards the end of his career” (the u-shaped repeating pattern).

 

 

 

Good Day Sunshine

A large crew of 20+ returned to the site chastened but undeterred by the recent inclement weather. Work began in earnest in both trenches as we seek further evidence of the extensive metal working witnessed last summer in Trench 5. To date the possible furnace intimated by the very promising geophysics results is proving somewhat elusive.

What we are producing, once again, is notable quantities of pottery with mortaria and nicely decorated samian to the fore. The samian, in particular, is in very good condition retaining its lustre and with very clean edges, suggesting that it has been subjected to little if any post-depositional disturbance. Photographs to follow once its been given a clean up. In the meantime the images below are by way of tribute and thanks to our intrepid sievers.

 

 

 

 

Weather 2 – CRP 1

A large group of very willing volunteers braved the challenging conditions to soldier on until the early afternoon. By this time sieving had become impossible and conditions in the trenches were not conducive to effective working, particular given the fragile nature of the top of the feature exposed in Trench 7 and the appearance of a second similar looking feature in Trench 8.

With conditions forecast to be even worse for Monday the decision was taken to re-convene on Tuesday in the hope that the weather will have relented sufficiently to enable work start again.

I don’t imagine William Wordsworth did much wandering in the sort of conditions we’ve experienced so far!! Image courtesy of Sue and don’t the daffs look lovely!!

 

 

Weather 1 – 0 CRP

Today witnessed an extremely rare event in the life of the Caistor Roman Project i.e weather stopped play. In the ten years we have been excavating in and around Caistor I don’t recall us ever having lost a whole day to the vagaries of the English weather. We are nothing if not intrepid and tomorrow should see the trenches protected by a cover to enable work to commence provided they have dried out sufficiently to allow excavations to get underway.

In spite of the disappointed there is a great deal of anticipation in the air, as well as the rain, since de-turfing and machining the topsoil off Trench 7 brought us down on to the first signs of archaeology. From the small amount that has so far been revealed it has the appearance of a kiln-like structure? but the picture will hopefully become much clearer once the excavation proper gets underway.

Trench 7 looking promising

 

Caistor Roman Project 2018

 

Spring Excavation Imminent

After the excitement of last summer’s excavations to the north of Venta we are returning to the same site to explore what we hope to be the source of all the metal working debris that we encountered, particularly in Trench 5. Dr. Dave Bescoby has conducted a further geophysical survey to pinpoint the precise location of what we hope to be the furnace. Two trenches are planned but on a much smaller scale than last summer. The image below is a typical example of the metal working evidence produced from Trench 5.

 

Piece of Furnace Lining