A cloudy start to the day but that didn’t put off the visitors, we had lots of children with many wonderful questions. Sue runs the finds washing section for us, this involves real excavated finds from the digs and all ages can help wash them and discover animal bone, pottery and get hands on with the tesserae.
Sue waiting for the next wave of youngsters to wash some finds from the dig
One very interested and enthusiastic girl called Trinity, was lucky to visit us when we had time and space to let her help us excavate a bit of the mosaic, Fay was having a late lunch with friends so we asked if Trinity could take her place for a while, Fay was very happy that she would have some help. Thank you Trinity you did a great job 🙂
Trinity finding the corridor mosaic
Trinity was joined by her mum
Meanwhile in the reception room, Jenni, Sarah, Carol, Nick, Emma, Martin and Pete were all in a line removing first the back fill from the mosaic condition survey in the year 2000, and then the next new area. As with all the trenches from the survey in 2000 they covered the mosaic with orange sand. This is horrid to remove but Pete and Jenni were not to be defeated and did a fantastic job and after a good sponge the potential staining was gone!
Jenni and Pete removing the orange sand
the contrast between the sponged area and the still sandy area
Rob has been working away in a corner of the site for a few days, removing back fill from a previous trench and then extending it. As often happens just near the end of the day and on a Friday, a lovely small find popped out. A coin, and this time it was roman!
Rob has a good eye for spotting the finds and we were able to get an instant identification for him as Prof Simon Esmonde Cleary a specialist in Roman archaeology who also knows his coins had been visiting the excavations. He was just about to leave when it made its appearance. It is a Constantinus I gloria exercitus – Glory of the Army from AD 339/340, but it is a contemporary copy made in the local area,
Rob in his trench just after his coin find
The coin
Oh and it rained, not a lot but enough to make the birds sing and to bring out food for them.
Pied wagtail with something juicy in its bill from our spoil heap
Archaeology National Trust SW 
Just catching up on your blog updates, all very exciting, lovely looking mosaic’s & a coin too so well done all especially in such hot conditions – Jackie
Great to see young ones joining in.
Its always a joy and very rewarding to be able to give such an experience to young people, they are after all the future of our past 🙂 Their excitement in finding the smallest thing helps to renew our own excitement especially when digging in 29 degrees sun for three weeks!:-)