The end is near and we still have a bit of excavation to do, luckily the mosaics are cropping up again just when we thought they had ended.
Amy uncovering the new section of mosaic
We finally removed the last of Sir Ian Richmond’s representation of the earlier villa walls, his pink concrete! Behind this was the real roman wall and a line of mosaic still in place balanced on the edge.
The burnt, earlier villa wall with a line of tesserae still in place
Max, Steve, and Stephanie carried on the big clean up in the relenting heat. Jill and Amy each had an area of mosaic to uncover and Fay was banished to a small trench up next to the bathhouse. Guy and William took on the challenge to keep going down through the roman rubble layer in the buttress trench near the museum, where they found lots of painted wall plaster and some intriguing stonework (more about it tomorrow)
Steve and Max cleaning the corridor mosaic
William and Guy in the buttress trench
Now to our feathered friends, during this dry spell we have been providing a small buffet for the birds, here are our clever friends who have taken advantage of the insects and worms we have disturbed. The star is Bob the Pheasant 🙂
Lovely pair of Pied wagtails foraging on the spoil heap
The scruffy Robin is very brave finding food right next to us as we dig
Bob with Amy at lunch time, sharing a biscuit
A portrait of Bob
Archaeology National Trust SW 
We met Bob, too, on Friday, when we had a look how it’s going. It was great to see you. It’s hard work especially in this hot weather. Thumbs up!
Please update this blog and let us know where we can see this final 3D image.
It is a crazy thing to dig in such weather but needs must as they say 🙂 Glad you enjoyed your visit, we will be posting the scan after they guys have processed the data. It may be a link to another media as the files will be very big!