Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Vindolanda 2012 day three

Marvelous sunny weather all day.  The deeper trench with all the interesting stuff in it filled in by groundwater seepage and on our arrival looked like this:
Certainly out of reach for the time being, so we spent all day digging an approach trench that will allow a more comprehensive look.  Hopefully before I depart at the end of next week, but one can never tell.

Not much for finds, although my trench mate Jeff found another version of the interesting phallic lead mold featured in Monday's post.  I apologize for my picture of it not turning out.  You see, it was rather, er, small so I could not get close enough for good focus.  If these were being cast into bronze and sold commercially I doubt this was one of their better sellers.

A few other items from around the site:

A delicate glass perfume vial.  Given the network of ditches and drains, and the lack of any identifiable public toilets in the vicus, one would image we should find far more of them than we do!

A lead seal.  Supposedly these were placed over the cork of a large vessel such as an amphora.  Often melted down they are infrequent finds.
Pete, one of the diggers in the adjacent trench, bailing water while singing bawdy songs about the sinking of the Titanic.  A deluge is predicted tomorrow and we were all getting in the mood.

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