Day 2 of the autumn excavation was always going to be up against it in terms of expectation levels. Day 1 had brought us complete ceramic vessels and, of course, a complete bread oven. How was day 2 ever going to match up to that? Well, it certainly did its best to impress.
While a complete bread oven was a staggering piece of archaeology, site supervisor Claire was clearly in the mood to impress, when she unearthed roughly two thirds of a millstone. Now I’ve seen a lot of millstones in my time, and have heard of plenty being excavated, but from a personal perspective, this was the very first one that I’ve seen come out of the ground. Two days, two archaeological treats.
The millstone was particularly distinctive, with the clear stone dressing associated with such features. The most eye catching element though was a series of numbers on the surface of the stone, which denote the weight value of the stone. Another first, as no one on site had seen a millstone with such features, which resulted in the hurried establishment of an ‘off-site’ team, otherwise manifest as text message exchanges with Rebecca from the summer team, who was quickly sent to the archives to ‘radio in’ information about our find. This find came up during the morning session, and it was a pretty special way to start the day. Rarely on an excavation do you get a ‘down tools’ moment, where everyone hurries over to see the latest big discovery. We have been fortunate to have two such moments in two days – this is the site that keeps on giving.
Elsewhere, the site continues to grow at either end. At the eastern end of the site, close to where the bread oven was found, even more wall features were (eventually) revealed. It seems likely that we now have the full extent of the structure, with corners clearly defined at both western and eastern extents of the structure, though we need to measure the site again in the morning to report on the official length. The eastern end though proved most challenging to excavate, with a huge amount of stone rubble obscuring the features, with section edges frequently caving in, making excavation a generally precarious pursuit. The stone fill here though appears similar in size and style to that which creates the bread oven domed ceiling. This might yet indicate that a second, but collapsed, oven would have been positioned to the rear of the building. This theory will be a major line of research going into day 3.
Beyond the millstone, this was probably a slightly quieter day in terms of artefacts. However in the mix of ceramics to be recovered, more seventeenth century wares were identified, and one sherd, while we are not entirely certain yet, might prove to be even earlier. There is a heck of a lot of stone to shift tomorrow to fully understand the relationship between the oven(s) and the rest of the building, but a big effort tomorrow might help resolve that. The key thing though, is if more of these earlier ceramic fabrics continue to appear, it might just be the case that instead of looking at a seventeenth century building, we might just be able to take things back to the sixteenth century. Considering that when we opened this site in the summer we thought that we were looking at a nineteenth century animal enclosure, this would be a pretty impressive series of developments.
While a complete bread oven was a staggering piece of archaeology, site supervisor Claire was clearly in the mood to impress, when she unearthed roughly two thirds of a millstone. Now I’ve seen a lot of millstones in my time, and have heard of plenty being excavated, but from a personal perspective, this was the very first one that I’ve seen come out of the ground. Two days, two archaeological treats.
The millstone was particularly distinctive, with the clear stone dressing associated with such features. The most eye catching element though was a series of numbers on the surface of the stone, which denote the weight value of the stone. Another first, as no one on site had seen a millstone with such features, which resulted in the hurried establishment of an ‘off-site’ team, otherwise manifest as text message exchanges with Rebecca from the summer team, who was quickly sent to the archives to ‘radio in’ information about our find. This find came up during the morning session, and it was a pretty special way to start the day. Rarely on an excavation do you get a ‘down tools’ moment, where everyone hurries over to see the latest big discovery. We have been fortunate to have two such moments in two days – this is the site that keeps on giving.
Elsewhere, the site continues to grow at either end. At the eastern end of the site, close to where the bread oven was found, even more wall features were (eventually) revealed. It seems likely that we now have the full extent of the structure, with corners clearly defined at both western and eastern extents of the structure, though we need to measure the site again in the morning to report on the official length. The eastern end though proved most challenging to excavate, with a huge amount of stone rubble obscuring the features, with section edges frequently caving in, making excavation a generally precarious pursuit. The stone fill here though appears similar in size and style to that which creates the bread oven domed ceiling. This might yet indicate that a second, but collapsed, oven would have been positioned to the rear of the building. This theory will be a major line of research going into day 3.
Beyond the millstone, this was probably a slightly quieter day in terms of artefacts. However in the mix of ceramics to be recovered, more seventeenth century wares were identified, and one sherd, while we are not entirely certain yet, might prove to be even earlier. There is a heck of a lot of stone to shift tomorrow to fully understand the relationship between the oven(s) and the rest of the building, but a big effort tomorrow might help resolve that. The key thing though, is if more of these earlier ceramic fabrics continue to appear, it might just be the case that instead of looking at a seventeenth century building, we might just be able to take things back to the sixteenth century. Considering that when we opened this site in the summer we thought that we were looking at a nineteenth century animal enclosure, this would be a pretty impressive series of developments.