Hello!
Sorry this is a day late, but went to see the man himself last night. Best quote of the film (this isn't a spolier) 'If you want to be a good archaeologist, kid, stay out of the library' or somesuch. Too right. So here is a gratuitous pic of the man himself.
Indy and Mutt come on site to take a look at Trench 1 - 'yep - definetely some early Medieval walls in there.' Yes!
Now. Moving on. Well, this was quite a sad day in that it was the last day of digging, Friday being the 'clear up and backfill' day. In Trench 1, we did a preliminary clean of the trench for the photos, exposing the possible two phases of walling (a tower and a curtain wall?) - Masterman was clearly wall chasing and we are grateful he left them in.
The final Trench 1 photo - possibly two phases of an east/west (left/right) tower wall - is the square area below that a buttress?
The west-facing section of Trench 1
Trench 2 was in much the same position, although the final 1m extra slot was being taken out and a small pebbled surface was exposed in the north side and then a few dressed stones were found.
The pebbled surface to the north of the extension to Trench 2.
The final Trench 2 shot.
The EDM was taken out so that Hazel and I could plot the exact position of the trenches to the Ordnance Survey grid and exact heights above sea level. Simon from Archaeological Investigations had already given us two temporary benchmarks with his GPS last week.
EDM Survey - got to know where your trenches are!
We were also treated today by some lollies courtesy of Clare's Mum, a truly wonderful woman. We enjoyed them throuoghly and was just the thing we needed after some hard graft.
Nommmmmmmm
So, the end of the excavation is nigh. This week has gone so quickly and 'Day 11' will be a complete day of clearing up and getting everything cleared, bagged up, and put in the right place. And Valerie, the president of the Society, is coming to site tomorrow. Valerie and Rod have been the main driving forces behind getting this dig to happen for the Society and it has taken almost 2 years of paperwork, form filling, meetings and launch meetings and even more paperwork to make it happen and all the team are indebted to the pair of them for making this happen, making it such a great experience and getting to the bottom of the Olivers Mound story.
Last daily blog post tomorrow, although I will be doing a round-up after that to answer some of the burning questions (with a little help from my Dad and Rollo!).
See you tomorrow x
