Plastered

The cleaning of the mosaics continued and a chequered pattern gradually appeared from under the turf. The mosaic under the tarmac is just white with red stripes, but we have only uncovered the border of the main mosaic under the tarmac this time. Once the mosaics are cleaned its time to record them. We draw a scale plan of the design and also record were gaps are, burning, colours, hollows and holes.

Now the mosaics are clean and sparkling its time to draw them

Harriet sponging the mosaic to clean the last of the soil of them and bring out the colours.

Turning away from the cubes of loveliness we get back to the main trench, were roman layers are being peeled back, down onto other roman layers. Where Sir Ian Richmond left sections of roman layers we have found many floor levels all with in a narrow depth of soil.

Layers of mortar floors

The layers can be seen in the section, from grass down to a darker layer

Within one of the areas Richmond left, against a wall, we uncovered quite a few fragments of wall plaster. They are all different colours but sadly no patterns other than stripes. The dark green/blue colour is unusual, only two other fragments have been found  (from the  old collections) on the site. It would be great to find some still attached to the wall!

The painted plaster from the excavations, fresh from the roman layer!