Day 14
Today was Father’s Day and I spent the morning proudly watching one of my daughter’s, (Holly) taking part in a 5K run in Graves Park, Sheffield for Cancer Research. She and her friends from Sheffield College did really well and all finished together.
After the run we drove home and I changed and set off for the dig. I arrived at 1.30pm and as I was unloading the gear from my car, a couple who were out power walking drew level with me and after the usual greetings of “Afternoon!” were exchanged. The lady, said to me, “are you doing something interesting?” I’m not one to miss an opportunity to drag someone in to look at the archaeology, so I replied, “Well, we’re doing an archaeological dig.” “REALLY?” came the reply. “Have you found anything interesting?” “Why don’t you come and have a look” I said. “CAN WE?” came an excited reply. “Of course, follow me.”
They both signed in and Liz, from Wessex Archaeology was already set up again with her microscope and slides and she began to show them some interesting bits and pieces. The couple, Steve and Tina were really interested and Steve said that he was a retired metallurgist so he had a good working knowledge of microscopes etc. His wife told me that they had visited the archaeological sites along Hadrian’s Wall and loved their visit to Vindolanda. “So you’re interested in history and archaeology then?” I said. “Oh yes!” came the reply.
So I took them to see our bank and ditch and our wall. By the time we got to the wall, there was a crowd of visitors already there watching and helping Mili hack through the undergrowth to extend the trench even further to uncover our feature. Our wall, which began life as ‘a something’ is now definitely something! However, until more of it is revealed we won’t be able to say with any certainty exactly what it is or from which period it is from.
I left the workers whilst I showed Steve and Tina around the rest of our site. They said that they would like to come back again during the week to see how we’ve got on and to help out.
Whilst I was showing Steve and Tina around, John Cusack from Qubic Aerial Services and his wife Jo, and their daughters came to help again. John brought his drone with him to map the wood for us. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get permission to map the adjacent fields, so John has surveyed just the woodland. His software can analyse crops for improving a farmer’s yield but his software can also remove the trees and show the terrain underneath the trees. Hopefully it might highlight other archaeological ‘lumps and bumps’ or other areas of interest that we can look at in the future.
A full archaeological report about our dig will be produced by Wessex Archaeology should anyone in the future be interested in what we did. Plans and scale drawings of all of the trenches will be included plus details of our finds. By the the time that the report is completed, our wall, that started out as nothing, then ‘a something’, then a wall, will officially have a title, once the rest of the other WA archaeologists get to work on it on Monday.
Today, we have had 3 WA archaeologist’s on site and 17 local visitors and 2 visitors from Stoke who came to look around who are close friends of our volunteer Si (who uncovered the wall) and his wife, Dawn. Everyone who has visited has been really interested in what we are doing.
Several people have even asked me if we will be starting an archaeological group in Harthill after the dig. My reply has been, If their is enough interest why not? Please contact me if you are interested in being part of an archaeological club and we’ll see. Hopefully, if we do start a club, then I’d love to include people like our 6 yr old visitor Alex, who was clearly interested in history.
I must admit that the level of interest so far has really surprised me. I had thought that I was a lone local historian and card-carrying anorak for stuff like this but it appears, there are more of us than I thought!!!
Yesterday, I told you that I would let you know the weight of the iron slag that was found in trench 7 but only after I had informed 6yr old Alex who visited us yesterday with his mum and younger brother and asked a very inciteful question for such a young man. I have now emailed Alex's mum, so I can tell you that the piece of iron slag weighs 768gms (1lb 11.1oz).
