Day 27: Tuesday 27th July

Weather: Grey, chilly but luckily the rain held off.

Word of the day: Soil heap.

Find of the day: A clay pipe bowl with a skull on it. (Pictured below)

On friday's blog we posted a picture of this, a makers mark. We have since found the other half. It is not actually a dog and flag but a lion. We will give you some more information on this tomorrow.

In trench 16 they have discovered a large number of Saggars. You can spot them in the photograph above poping out of the soil. (They are a sort of red/brown colour).

Margret was one of the community volunteers from last week and she enjoyed herself so much that she came back for the day to really get stuck in with the digging. She spent her day working with Carrie, Charlie, and Rachel in Trench 15, mattocking and shovelling down to bedrock.

Cherubin has been busy trying to find the rest of the victorian pipe discovered in trench 16 two weeks ago. He has had his work cut out. There is lots of clay in the soil in this particular part of trench 16.

This is the waste pot found in trench 15 that the school children from yesterday were very interested in. It is like a ceramic bin. Lots of pieces of glass were found in the ruins of the pot. Maybe this is an early version of recycling?

Rachel and Charlie matttocking in trench 15.

Like clay pipe, we have found loads of animal teeth. Today we found part of a cow's jaw in trench 18 with teeth still attached.

Charlie's Beard. Still looks patchy. Charlie has now left site for greener pastures (aka a holiday). So to say goodbye we threw him in the soil heap. Charlie's Beard will still be a feature here though.

Introducing...

Name: Eleanor. Has just finished her AS-levels and is planning to apply to study Archaeology at University. She is here to see if she actually likes it.

Likes: Chocolate, romcoms and swimming.

Dislikes: Spiders, snakes and too much exercise.

Favourite films: The Notebook, There's Something About Mary, and The Hangover.

I can't live without: My Mobile Phone

Weird Fact: Eleanor can touch her nose wirh her tongue.

If I could be involved in any Archaeological excavation, I'd like to excavate: The Necropolis underneath the Vatican.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_Necropolis

Day 11: Monday 5th July

Weather: Chilly and windy.

Word of the Day: ceramics

Find of the Day: A large piece of waster pottery. (This means it is mis-shapen due to being mis-fired. Pictured below).

Here is the extra long piece of clay pipe found on friday by C.J.

Mauro using a dumpy level to measure the depth of the original 1970s trench that has been excavated from trench 16. By doing this, we can see how precise the 1970s plans of the site are. What we found yesterday was that actually the 70s trench doesn't match the original site plans.

Charlie's Beard looked a bit wind swept today. In other news, Charlie has been involved in the excavation of trench 15. In the 1970s, the layer of soil that we have reached was recorded as natural bedrock. It isn't. It is actually soil with evidence of burnt material in it.

A selection of pottery. If you look closely at the white fragment on the right you may be able to spy a small 's'. This is the makers mark.

Ceramics found over the course of the last few weeks were spread on large tables to be sorted. At the Manor Lodge Site there is a visitors centre which has lots of information on the history of the site. We are going to be putting a display cabinet in the centre, so are selecting artefacts which tell a story to display in the centre.

Charlotte: Finding pieces and fragments of pottery with interesting designs, patterns and pieces that fit together.

Introducing...

We've got an interview for you with young whipper snappers Ben and Nat, but first we thought we'd introduce them.

Name: Ben. BA Archaeology, Sheffield.

Likes: Mountain biking, fish and guitars.

Dislikes: Loud people and being called a geordie. (Ben is from Sunderland)

Favourite Songs: Maybe Tomorrow- The Stereophonics and Venus in Furs- The Velvet

Underground.

Ideal Dinner Party Guests: John Frusciante, Jimmy Page, Kim Jong II, Keith Richards and Roy Keen.

If I could be involved in any archaeological excavation, I'd like to excavate: The burial ground of the Qin Dynasty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_Dynasty

Name: Nathanael. BA Archaeology Student Sheffield.
Likes: drums, rock climbing and piano.
Dislikes: freshly cut grass due to his hay fever.
If you could be anyone for a day who would you be?: Prince Harry.
Favourite Song: Heart of Gold- Neil Young
If I could be involved in any archaeological excavation, I'd like to excavate: Easter Island.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Island

Victoria: Why did you choose archaeology and what sparked that initial interest?

Ben: I've always liked archaeology, always been interested in finding stuff. I went to Binchester, and Durham university were doing some excavations there and they showed us around. There was part of a road they'd excavated, found some quite cool stuff, but they say it's bigger than stuff they've found at Hadrian's Wall, so if they had excavated that it would be bigger and better.
Nat: I did it at GCSE. Went on a dig in year 10 I think it was in Chirbury and it grew from there really.

Victoria: Indiana Jones or Tony Robinson?

Ben: Tony Robinson

Nat: He's more realistic.

Victoria: So you have both completed your first year of BA Archaeology. What aspect of the course have you most enjoyed?

Ben: European Civilizations with Jane Rempel, good lecturer.

Nat: I really enjoyed Origins. We had a lecturer Phil Pettitt, absolute legend, he's a really good lecturer. So I was kind of interested because of the lecturer. I really liked the pre-history and that aspect of it. And we studied world civilizations this semester which was fantastic.

Day 10: Friday 2nd July

Weather: Hot

Word of the Day: Cake, chips and wheel barrow.

Find of the Day: A clay pipe bowl with a small amount of tobacco resin in the bottom.

Quote of the Day:
Charlotte- You're sharp aren't you.
Victoria- As sharp as a trowel.

The clay pipe bowl found by Team Trench 17. During the course of the dig we have found more fragments of clay pipe then worms. Today C.J. found the longest piece of clay pipe thus far. It measured at 10 and half centimetres.

It was Hannah's birthday today so we gave here a cake and a card.

Today we had a teaching session led by Alvaro on Lithics. He called this lesson, 'Monkeys and Rocks'.

Above is an arrow head dated back to the Neolithic period.

These pieces of flint from Europe, are from the Mesolithic period. They are between 12,000 to 9,000 years old.

Alvaro teaching the students.

http://archaeology.about.com/od/lithics/Lithics.htm

A new entry for the Best Hat competition is this woolen panda number, as modelled by Laura.

For the past two weeks the atmosphere on site has been absolutely fantastic. It has been lovely to observe the way that the students and staff are interacting with one another and forming bonds and friendships. Above is a photograph of Hannah and Buttery Jonathan, sharing a joke whilst trowelling.

Charlie's Beard. If you look closely Charlie's beard is growing around the chin area.

10 Buttery Facts. (Above is Buttery Jonathan showing us his lovely t-shirt tan line. We call him Buttery Jonathan because his name is Jonathan Buttery. This is what happens when you have too much sun!)

1. Butter tea is drank in Tibet and is made from yak butter, salt and tea.
2. In Wisconsin, it is illegal to serve butter substitutes in state prisons.
3. Butter sculptures of figures from Tibetan mythology are produced in Buddhist monastries in Sikkim.
4. Butter was used as a cure for the bubonic plague with onion and garlic.
5. In Quebec, margarine must be a different colour to butter. Originally it was coloured dark red, but it is now nearly white.
6. At the annual Big Tex Choice Awards in Texas, deep fried butter won the prize for being most creative.
7. Before the body of a Parsi is removed from the house, their forehead is smeared with butter or ghee, and the dogs of the house are let in. If they lick the butter it is a good omen, if not it is a sign of perdition.
8. The world record for eating butter is seven quarter pound sticks in 5 minutes by Donald Lermon.
9. The word butter is thought to have come from the Sanskirt word Bhutari, which means the enemy of evil spirits.
10. Butter is more yellow in summer than in winter if it comes from grass fed cows.

Sourced by the very brilliant Kate Brown.

Introducing...

Name: Kate. BA Archaeology student.
Likes: Archaeology, industrial and black metal, corsets and platform boots.
Dislikes: the colour pink and liars.

Weird Fact: Kate is double jointed in every joint.
If you could be anyone for a day who would you be: Zoetica Ebb.

If I could be involved in any archaeological excavation, I'd like to excavate: Meso America

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerica

Name: Kanani from Brigham Young University in Utah, USA.
Likes: Josh Grobon, movies and family.
Dislikes: Centipedes and carrots.
Favourite films: Pride and Prejudice (the one with Colin Firth) and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Best Adventure: Driving in an ice storm.
If I could be involved in any archaeological excavation, I'd like to excavate: Bog Bodies.

http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/bog/

Day Two: Tuesday 22nd June

Another great day on site. Lots of interesting finds, beautiful weather and buckets of soil. We have removed much of the topsoil and are now down to the subsoil.

Weather: Hot and sunny

Word of the Day: Subsoil

Find of the day: A mysterious jaw bone was discovered. It is from either a bird or animal but is as of yet un-identified. Check back tomorrow for pictures and hopefully the mystery animal will be identified.

Here are some more finds from the second day of the excavation:

A box of ceramic fragments from trench 17.

Saggar fragments uncovered in trench 15. Saggars are fireclay containers made from tough clay which supported and protected the ware from flames, ashes, smoke and kiln gases during the first firing in the kilns. The term 'Saggar' comes from 'Safeguard, refelecting its function. 18th-19th Century.

Pieces of clay pipe.

Pieces of decorated clay pipe from trench 15. One fragment features the name 'William Wild'.

A round game piece discovered in trench 17.

Fragments of blue and white ceramic. 2 of the fragments fit together. These were found by Charlie Hay who is an Masters Archaeology student .