Thursday 27th June 2013

Day 22-Construction and Unicorns

Today the ritual nature of the Iron Age population had to be taken into consideration as student James Osborne recovered a strange deposit in the terminus end of the boundary ditch. The strange deposit in question was a horse skull, which is actually considered normal ritual behaviour in the Iron Age period. When the skull was cleaned back before lifting, it became apparent that something else had been added to the skull. On the ‘forehead’ of the skull, beside one of the eye orbitals, a small horn was protruding, as pictured below.

Ritual deposit consisting of a horse skull with a sheep or goat horn attached, recovered by student James Osborne. Courtesy of Bournemouth University.

The Southern quadrant of the Roman tiled feature has now been lifted by student Afifa Khan! Unfortunately removal of the tiles did not reveal any datable evidence underneath to help with when the feature was constructed in relation to the other Roman buildings nearby. The removal did show how the feature was constructed however. The shape of the structure was shallowly cut into the natural chalk and a thick layer of mortar was added to seal the tiles above in. It is also being contemplated again that the tiles were re-used from nearby Roman buildings!

The southern quadrant lifted by student Afifa Khan. Courtesy of Bournemouth University.