Thursday 20th June 2013

Day 17- Accessories and Warfare?

Today has been a day of beautiful and unique finds across site, adding to the overall archaeological story and helping to build the picture of what life was actually like on site. One of the house terraces in particular has been producing extraordinary finds, from coloured and decorated glass to blue beads. In this feature, volunteer and third year Leicester University student Graham McKean recovered a Roman leaf headed bone pin, as pictured below.

Leaf headed bone pin, recovered by volunteer and third year Leicester University student Graham McKean. Courtesy of Bournemouth University.

This has been the first bone pin of its kind found on site and it is very interesting to note that it was recovered in a feature that has been producing such high status objects! The bones pins recovered on the Durotriges Project so far all have an extremely similar head, as pictured below.

So far, these are the style of bone pins that have been recovered on site. Courtesy of Bournemouth University.

There were not just worked bone pins recovered today as BSc Archaeology student Tilly Cammegh recovered worked bone in the shape of some kind of scoop or spoon, as pictured below. It has been contemplated that the spoon may have once been longer and been used to dip into narrow and long glass vessels.

In complete contrast to these delicate finds, BSc Archaeology student Jack Powell recovered a long iron object with a spear like tip from a feature, which may be a collapsed in house terrace. The shape of the iron object, as pictured below, is indicative of a pilum point , which is a type of Roman javelin, and this would have been inserted into a timber spear shaft. However closer analysis and comparison with other pilum points showed that the iron rod is longer than the one found. This lead to the contemplation that the iron object may be a type of drill, perhaps for using on roof tiles.

Long iron object, which may be variant of the classic pilum point or a type of drill, recovered by Jack Powell. Courtesy of Bournemouth University.