Wednesday 12th June 2013

Day 11- Tools and stone robbers

Rain can have both beneficial and detrimental effects during an excavation season. The rain can soften the soil therefore making it easier to trowel back and define the less obvious features. However it can also soften the soil to such an extent that the feature edges can begin to crumble, which can blur the line between the feature edges and its natural surroundings. Despite the weather causing these set backs, the Durotriges Project team is still powering away!

Today Masters student Gethyn Phillips was excavating through a section of the Banjo Enclosure ditch and recovered a Roman socketed  iron object, as pictured below.

Socketed iron object recovered by masters student Gethyn Phillips within a section of the Banjo Enclosure ditch, Courtesy of Bournemouth University.

The hole visible in the picture above was probably where a nail was inserted through to pin the tool to a handle, most properly made from wood. After cleaning, the timber impressions from the handle are still visible!

The mystery surrounding the purpose of the Roman tiled feature is also clearing up a little more. The damage to the middle of the floor is now being hypothesized as being caused by “stone robbers”.  Often beneath tiled floors, a hypocaust (Roman underground heating system) can be recovered and underneath this can be even more tiles. It is thought the stone robbers may have lifted a few of the tiles to see if this system was in place, thus when discovering there wasn’t a hypocaust, concluded it wasn’t worth taking the rest. The whole excavated roman floor, with the damage area evident is pictured below.

Entire Roman floor with the damaged area evident, courtesy of Bournemouth University.