Under the brown there be a big tile!

Elliot would like to begin with his daily dose of Lufton excavation humour…

I used to work in a clock factory. The job was great but after a couple of months I was fired. I never found out why, but it might have had something to do with all the extra hours I was putting in…

Today on site, we were joined by James’s family, who helped James to do some levels and some drawings of the site while the rest of the team were occupied with a large section of the trench on the north side.

At the start of the day, Elliot was tasked with supervising Charlotte and Imogen in trying to define the deposit of collapsed rooftiles on the western side of the trench. They were partially successful in this mission but things got a bit complicated. Charlotte even found a neolithic flint

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Henry was occupied during the morning with the important task of creating a route for wheelbarrows to be pushed onto the top of the spoil heap.

We were also joined by Ski in the morning who was able to turn up some more interesting finds for us, including a few more coins! James G did, however, manage to find a coin without Ski’s aid. Dig team 2; Ski c.26.

Meanwhile, Hayley supervised Dan, Chris, Henry and James S in removing a thick brown deposit. This is basically (115) but seems much thicker  in the northern end of the trench. Under it are elusive, yellow mortary deposits.

It was touch and go for a while, yet thankfully back up arrived in the form of James I, who joined us after lunch, as well as Elliot’s team who joined in after they had finished with their rooftile related activities.

Antonia meanwhile was trained in how to draw plans and helped by Pete from SSARG went about the task of drawing the demolition rubble to the west of the building.

With only minutes before the end of the day, however, Hayley made a huge discovery, in the form of a what appears to be a giant tile (or possibly tiles). Quite what this will be remains to be seen but James G thinks it’s probably part of one of the buildings walls.

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The day ended with the team returning to camp to enjoy fajitas prepared by Holly-Ann and Kevin.

Tomorrow the team is looking forward to cleaning up the features on site, in preparation for Historic England visiting on Thursday, as the end of the first two week session approaches rapidly.

I’ve got a brand new combine harvester…

Elliot (who is writing this blog with James G) has received a request to make the blog funnier, so he wants to begin with an anecdote from his childhood:

When I was a young lad, I had a pet snail.  I wanted to make it go faster, so I took its shell off, but it only made it more sluggish.

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Elliot (aka Spannerman) at the rear of this photo. He writes blogs, researches late Roman and symmetrical archaeology and occasionally wins open mic competitions.

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After a few deliberations over the weekend James G decided that the day should kick off with the removal of the remnants of the mixed rubble / backfill deposit that fills the building. We started by numbering this deposit (115) and proceeded with the whole team to mattock it off of the interior of Room 4.

One of the aims of this task was to reveal a partition or cross wall excavated by Hayward. Holly and Pete (newly joining us from SSARG) found the line of this wall, although there is far less of it than Hayward’s report suggests. We also found what might be the late ‘squatter’ partition wall in Room 4. If our interpretation is correct then this feature is further south than we might have thought.

There was good news on the finds front. For the first time we’ve discovered large, fresh sherds of BB1 pottery. One impressive chunk comes from a jar and other finds were made by hawkeye Hayley who spotted a coin! We also showed these finds to Carol, the landowner, who visited us today.

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Due to our pre-emptive sun dancing, the sun was kind enough to stay behind clouds for the majority of the day.  Unfortunately for our team, however, the fields in which we are working were being harvested, and although everyone was excited to see a combine harvester in action, the dust and pollen kicked up by the machine caused intense break-outs of sneezing across the trench.

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Meanwhile, Elliot picked up where Hayley left off in the South-Eastern corner of the trench, searching for the corn dryer mentioned in Hayward’s original report.  Despite his best efforts, Elliot was unsuccessful in his quest, ultimately concluding that the corn dryer is either outside of the trench, or had been removed entirely by Hayward’s team.

All the while, Hayley supervised Dan, Chris, James I, Charlotte, Antonia, Imogen and Kevin in the big mattocking exercise.

The end of the day saw James G’s family join him for the week from Newcastle.

The team returned home to spaghetti Bolognese, expertly prepared by James S and Henry. This could only be topped by our TV interview being broadcast on BBC Points West!

Leonard Hayward’s excavations

Leonard (Polly) Hayward BA BSc FSA excavated the villa between 1946 and 1952 and again between 1960 and 1963 with the boys of Yeovil School. He produced two reports on his excavations and deposited his finds in what was Yeovil Museum (they’re now held by the CHAC).

Leonard Hayward FSA

The Yeovil Archaeological and Local History Society (who have generously contributed to the current excavations) have their origins in the Yeovil School Archaeological Society established by Leonard Hayward.

The Yeovil Archaeological and Local History Society have two accounts by pupils of the excavations published on their website.

Yeovil historian Jack Sweet recounts that “occasionally  when Mr Hayward and the seniors were absent for a short time we juniors enjoyed re-enacting the Western Front in the trenches and on the spoil heaps!!” So it wasn’t all hard digging!

 

 

 

 

 

 

A day off

After a Saturday night where some of the team sampled the hospitality of the Mason’s Arms in Odcombe, others stayed at camp to consume the odd cup of Pimms from a large metal pan. This level of sophistication has never been reached by the project before…

Sunday has given us all a well-deserved day off. Most of the team caught up on some sleep and have spent the day relaxing and doing laundry. Tonight we’re looking forward to a tasty barbeque. What more could anyone ask for?

The first week has seen us set up camp and the site. After two days of machining we have defined the various deposits within the building and located exactly where we are in relation to Hayward’s published plan of the site. We’ve also been able to identify areas that Hayward trenched, found over twenty Roman coins (largely due to Ski’s metal detecting), lots of stone roof tiles and ceramic building materials (bricks and tiles). A couple fragments of window glass, wall plaster and a few tesserae point to the high status of the building.

We’ve found relatively little pottery so far. That said, we have sherds of BB1, Oxfordshire and New Forest Colour Coated wares and also a fragment from a thin walled Baetican amphora. This last vessel probably carried Spanish olive oil and, along with some oyster shells, points to the rich and varied diet of the inhabitants of the site.

Tomorrow we should start getting into the occupation deposits within the building. We all hope this will reveal further insights into this fascinating structure.

The end of Week 1

Today was the end of the first week of excavation at Lufton Roman Villa.

The team struggled with the heat today, but despite the weather they managed to be incredibly productive throughout the whole day.

The team was also joined on site today by Sue from SSARG.

Andy spent the day surveying the trench using the GPS and Total Station equipment (below) to set up the site grid.

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James G spent most of the day directing the action and trying to wrestle with all of the exposed contexts, he did find tie to start recording the building (below).

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Elliot led James I, Henry and Sue in exploring some difficult archaeology in the North-Eastern Corner of the trench. This mainly seems to be backfill from Hayward’s excavation overlying earlier Roman deposits.

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Meanwhile, Hayley was in charge of Dan and Kevin as they searched the South-Eastern corner for the villa’s corn dryer. We didn’t find the corn dryer (the trench may just be a little too far north) but did determine the edges of some of the trenches from the earlier excavation.

Situated between those two teams, Holly-Ann directed Charlotte and Chris in attempting to resolve the stratigraphy of the newly christened wall 111. They added about 4m of length to the wall by removing the fill of a robber cut (identified yesterday) to expose the wall’s lower courses. An important discovery was what is almost certainly the line of the waterpipe discovered in the earlier excavation. This is further evidence that the trench has been located in the right place to answer our questions.

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Although the day yielded little in way of finds, at the end of the day the entire team was proud of how much work they had achieved across their first week.

We returned to camp to enjoy cheesy pasta prepared by Imogen and Antonia.

Everyone is looking forward to a day off tomorrow that should hopefully start with a nice lie in!

Cleaning Dirt

Today on site the team were tasked with the huge task of cleaning up around 2/3 of the trench so that we could see what features and contexts were visible and so that we could photograph them before excavation.

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.Imogen and Hayley identify a robber cut for a robbed out wall (above)

At the start of the day, Antonia, Imogen, James I, Henry, Kevin and Charlie (Charlotte) were led by Hayley and Elliot in trowelling back through the trench, starting in the South-Eastern corner of the trench, and working in line with the building’s walls.

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James watching the team trowelling (above)

Meanwhile, Holly-Ann finished off chasing her wall further to the west of the trowel line.

Luckily, however, we were joined on site today by Sue from the South Somerset Archaeological Research Group (SSARG) and Hollie, a sixth-form student who wants to study archaeology after her A-levels.

Before long, Ski also arrived on site and located many targets with his metal detector. Where we could excavate these they were almost all iron nails.

Elliot then bagged up Ski’s finds before recording them in the Register, so that Andy could take their GPS location.

After this, James oversaw the whole group’s mammoth task of cleaning up a huge portion of the trench, ready for Andy to take some photos (below).

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After a hard day’s work, the team returned home to a delicious meal of Chilli, prepared by Dan and Chris.

Overall, this was a slow day with a huge amount of work undertaken by the whole team. With this necessary exercise complete we’ll be able to get on with digging the building.

Onwards and Downwards

As the team finally settle into a regular routine on site, we all enjoyed a day of discovery. With the last of the machine work done yesterday, the team now set about working out how best to continue.

At the start of the day, Elliot oversaw Antonia, James S and Henry as they cleaned up the section in the North-Eastern corner of the trench before trowelling back the loose and trying to locate more features.

Meanwhile, James led Chris and Charlotte (joining us from the University of Trinity St David) in analysing what was have been a robbed out (or previosuly excavated) wall on the Eastern side of the trench, and managed to pull out an impressive Roman tile.

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On the other side of the trench, Hayley was in charge while Dan and Imogen worked hard to locate what could be a very interesting context.

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Holly-Ann continued in her wall hunting endeavours and was able to follow the base course of another of the villa’s walls.

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We were visited by the Western Gazette and made the BBC news website – fame at last.

The major success of the day was establishing exactly where the trench was in relation to Leonard Hayward’s plan of the villa. We know where we are! Onwards and downwards!

After a long day’s work, the team enjoyed fajitas for tea, prepared by James I and Kevin. Alas, we made a mistake with quantities and pizza needed to be ordered to make up the shortfall.

Diggers, basins and PR

On our third day at site the team were visited by a media team from BBC Points West who caught us in our element during excavation. We’re not sure when the interview will be broadcast. This week with a bit of luck!

The day began with James and Andy overseeing the machine work whilst Elliot and Hayley supervised Dan, James I, Kevin, Imogen, Antonia and Chris as they worked on tidying up our sections.

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After that the team set about trowelling back across the trench to try and reveal some of the more interesting colour changes in the soil, allowing us to get a better idea of the archaeology of the villa.

Holly-Ann spent most of the day excavating more of the villa walls that we were able to uncover.

Meanwhile, Ski returned to site and was assisted in his metal detecting by Charlotte.

We managed to discover some interesting finds throughout the day, with Ski locating several more coins and some more small finds for our team to wrap their heads around.

One of our more baffling finds is what James has identified as a possible stone basin.

A basin, perhaps?

The team enjoyed corned beef hash prepared by James S and Henry for tea after a hard day’s work.

Last night, James dug deep and worked hard with the University Press Office.  However, the resulting headline wasn’t quite what he expected. C’est la vie

All in all the team had an incredibly productive day, and are looking forward to getting properly stuck into digging tomorrow..

Special mention goes to Dan, who came home with the most impressive burns in the shortest amount of time!

Day 2: Fences & Walls

The team had another hard day’s work on site today but managed to be incredibly productive, getting their teeth sunk into the archaeology.

Our first job today was to transport the fencing to site, which was a considerable task. With some help from James Pullen (the land owner), Elliot, Holly, Kevin, James S, James I, Chris and Henry were able to move a huge amount of fencing to site, where the rest of the team unloaded it. (below)

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Meanwhile, James and Andy got on with the important task of machine watching while our digger lifted the topsoil off of Trench A.

Ski also returned to site today and was able to uncover no less than 8 copper-alloy coins in a morning! All of these coins appear to be of fourth century date: we have a Soli Invicto Comiti of the early fourth century and a coin of the usurper Magnentius (AD350-353)

Another interesting find from site was a Roman roof tile (below).

Luf16 Roof Tile

Before we broke for lunch, we were also able to locate what we believe to be one of the villa’s walls, leading Holly, Charlotte, Kevin, Hayley and Henry to try and find where it leads us (below).

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While part of the team was occupied by the trench, the rest of us set about constructing the fencing to surround the site and putting up our on-site tent, which we use as a site office.

At the end of the day we all enjoyed spaghetti bolognese for tea and looked forward to a day of discovery tomorrow!

The rain that raineth

The first day on site was characterised by our intrepid team of diggers struggling against the elements.

Before anything started James G was interviewed by Claire Carter of BBC Radio Somerset. This was picked up people far and wide including a colleague who teaches at the University of Florida!

After arriving on site, Andy and James laid out Trench A, in preparation for the topsoil to be machined off tomorrow.

The team was joined today by our friendly neighbourhood metal detectorist, Ski (acting under a Section 42 license) who scanned the top of Trench A.

It didn’t take long for Ski to unearth a Constantinian coin from the early to mid 4th Century – a promising start to the excavation!

While Ski scanned the trench, the rest of the team were split up and dug out some test pits.

Unfortunately, the weather had conspired to make our first day of work slightly harder by unleashing more rain during our working day than in the entire month of July! We also had trouble with a delivery, which couldn’t make it to us because of a gas leak.

We soldiered on, despite the difficult conditions and got a good day’s work done.

The team arrived home with muddy boots (see below) and a hearty meal of cheesy pasta prepared by Dan and Chris.

We’re all looking forward to opening our first trench tomorrow and getting to grips with a Roman Villa!

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