Wednesday 16 October 2013

What's sitting beneath our feet?

Weren't we lucky with the weather! A forecast of a very wet day, given out by the BBC, was, fortunately enough for us, wrong! It wasn't blazing sunshine but apart from being overcast with the hint of sun, it was really rather warm.

Northampton Archaeology Unit were our tutors for the day, Mark, Carol and Gemma, accompanied by Tony from AOC.

The morning was spent learning how to set up the grids we would need in the afternoon in order to do the geo-phys. I wasn't there for this bit, but the feedback I got was very positive.

In the afternoon we were let loose on the machines!

We worked with the CADAS resistivity meter and 4 of the magnetometers from NA Unit.


Each of the magnetometers has to be calibrated to the person handling the machine. The absolute minimum of metal infested clothing needs to be worn and I can’t tell you how difficult that is, trying to find glasses, trousers, shoes and bras (!) not containing any metal.

Having donned the equipment, the ritual of calibration is somewhat Masonic and all that was missing were the funny handshakes! The bearer has to stand in a hastily built contraption pointing out the 4 compass points. They press start and simply follow the instructions. However, to the anybody watching with not an inkling of what’s going on, they must wonder to themselves the sanity of the person wielding a strange H-shaped contraption, head bowed, and apparently following some bizarre dance moves, before offering the contraption up to the gods!!! To the initiated, this is calibrating the machine to the person, using the 4 compass points, the final calibration being to point the machine skyward. 


It was a great day, although everyone was getting a bit tired towards the end. The machines, both res and mag, are not heavy in themselves, but when manipulated, need to be held just away from the body. The mag has a counterbalance in the form of a rucksack, containing water, to which it is attached, but the res has no such luxury and the constant lifting and swinging forward soon meant that by the end of the day, volunteers were slow to answer Carol’s call to finish the grid! Personally, I love doing res. I find it very therapeutic and once you get in the swing, even better.

The day ended with a quick download of data from the res, but due to problems, we didn’t get to see the results. Can’t wait for the interpretation workshop. 

Tuesday 1 October 2013

Finds processing part deux

And so onto finds processing part 2 where it was more of the same from last week, except with less pinnies!

Unfortunately I wasn't there, but I believe Olwen and Dave were ably assisted by Cat. I was in London with Hubble to view the Pompeii exhibition. It was B R I L L I A N T !!!!!!

If you didn't get a chance to see it......sort of tough, 'cos it's finished now.

However, watch this blog for more details of the recently publicized British Museum touring exhibition "Roman Empire: Power and People". At the moment it is in Bristol, and is due to grace the hallowed floors of the Herbert galleries in May 2014. Although the main exhibition consists of over 150 artifacts from the BM, when it reaches The Herbert it will be joined by museum artifacts from the Lunt, as well as some from Rugby, Leicester and Alcester, who as you know (or indeed may not know) have strong Roman connections.

I can now reveal, that our prolific site at Broadwell (in terms of pottery), is also to be included in the exhibition! Watch this space for more info.