{"id":51,"date":"2011-06-06T23:11:57","date_gmt":"2011-06-06T23:11:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk\/the-big-dig\/?p=51"},"modified":"2014-06-12T14:48:04","modified_gmt":"2014-06-12T14:48:04","slug":"day-2-the-mystery-of-the-disappearing-banjo-ditch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/big-dig\/2011\/06\/06\/day-2-the-mystery-of-the-disappearing-banjo-ditch\/","title":{"rendered":"The Big Dig &#8211; Day 2: The mystery of the disappearing \u2018banjo\u2019 ditch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today we continued to clean back the concealing layers of soil that were obscuring the archaeological features that lay beneath. This revealed that the position of part the \u2018banjo\u2019 enclosure ditch was possibly not as\u00a0expected.<\/p>\n<p>The day began with the workforce being divided into year groups. The first years had a challenging day, having to repeatedly trowel back\u00a0a problematic clay soil to try to define the ditch that ran along the back of the banjo enclosure. Towards the end of the day their spirits were lifted with the discovery of the ditch edge, which came as a reward for their efforts.<\/p>\n<p>The task for the second years was to clean up the edges of the trench. After a day of teamwork, straightening edges, shovelling and wheelbarrowing, the site looked more aesthetically pleasing.<\/p>\n<p>The third years began a gruelling job of shifting the ever-growing spoil heap in order to extend the trench slightly to incorporate\u00a0the full extent\u00a0of the \u2018banjo\u2019 ditch. Much to their dismay, the ditch seemed to be disappearing further under the spoil heap more\u00a0than expected.<\/p>\n<p>In terms of today\u2019s finds, there was a gaming counter, a copper alloy brooch pin, animal bone and teeth, as well as a variety of pottery, including bright orange decorated &#8216;Samian&#8217; ware, which could suggest that this site may in fact been inhabited at some point by higher status settlement. Other more vital discoveries of the day included the need for a cushioned kneeling mat when trowelling!<\/p>\n<p>Finally, the solution provided by Harry Manley\u2019s expert advice on locating the disappearing \u2018banjo\u2019 ditch was \u201cnot to speculate, but excavate\u201c.<\/p>\n<p><em>Lauren and Zoe<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_53\" style=\"width: 514px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/big-dig\/files\/2011\/06\/finds.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-53\" class=\"size-full wp-image-53\" src=\"http:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/big-dig\/files\/2011\/06\/finds.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"504\" height=\"342\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-53\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Day 2: Decorated pottery, a gaming counter, and animal bone, all discovered during the cleaning of the site.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today we continued to clean back the concealing layers of soil that were obscuring the archaeological features that lay beneath. This revealed that the position of part the \u2018banjo\u2019 enclosure ditch was possibly not as\u00a0expected. The day began with the workforce being divided into year groups. The first years had a challenging day, having to&#8230;  <a class=\"excerpt-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/big-dig\/2011\/06\/06\/day-2-the-mystery-of-the-disappearing-banjo-ditch\/\">Read more &raquo;<span class=\"sr-only\"> about The Big Dig &#8211; Day 2: The mystery of the disappearing \u2018banjo\u2019 ditch<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":272,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-5","category-diary"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/big-dig\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/big-dig\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/big-dig\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/big-dig\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/big-dig\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/big-dig\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":411,"href":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/big-dig\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions\/411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/big-dig\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/big-dig\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk\/big-dig\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}