Day 17: Tuesday the 5th of July

Bloggers: Kate S. and Rachael.

It was a dark and stormy summer night and Kate tossed and turned in her bed, beset by a terrible nightmare that left her cold to the bone.

"Kate!" Said Vicky in a sagely voice, "you have been chosen from many to write the blog of tomorrow. Come," she boomed, turning to the basement, "we have much to do."

Kate woke with a shout, her hands clutched the duvet in terror as she glanced about the room.
"What a terrible dream..." She mumbled, rolling over and falling back to sweet, undisturbed sleep...

The next day ...

"Noooooooo!"

Update on Trench 22 - the extension that was pictured yesterday is in the process of being planned. Progress is quick and there is plenty of troweling going on in Trench 21 beside it, revealing a lovely piece of worked scapula:

 
 Which is rivalling a find from Trench 20 as the find of the day...

This piece of pottery shows part of a small man holding what looks like a little lantern. It's very sweet and is drawing a lot of attention, especially from Vicky who suggested it might be a man holding a model house.

Trench 20 has also provided a brilliant example of Tudor tin-glazed pottery believed to be from the 16th Century. This kind of ceramic is identifiable by its very thin, flakey glaze that is almost duck egg blue in colour. The fabric is also a distinct yellow.

Today we also continued the interviews! (Which have become markedly more feared in Huw's absence).

We started with Kaitlin...

Kaitlin is a fourth year anthropology student from Southern California, which is considerably hotter than England (allegedly).

So Kaitlin, why did you chose to come to England and Sheffield Manor Lodge?

I heard about the dig on a website and was drawn in by the history of the site, particularly its connection with Mary Queen of Scots. I'm very interested in European history and this trip also allowed me to visit England for the first time!

What inspired you to become an archaeologist?

I was origionally inspired by Indiana Jones but as I grew older my motivations became more academic.

Shame, really!

Our next target was Rosalind, a second year archaeology student from Cambridge!

Hey Rosalind! What made you want to come to Manor Lodge?

It allowed me to take part in an archaeological excavation as well as attending a short osteoarchaeology course at Sheffield University, which was great!

What sort of things did you learn on your course?

We went through all the bones of the adult and juvenile skeletons and learnt about ageing juveniles and sexing and ageing adults, as well as the different pathologies that you can see on bones.

Did this cater to your particular interests?

I really love the medieval period but detest the Romans, which is terrible because I work in a Roman Villa!

Lastly, the flotation samples collected by Michael earlier on in the day were hung from the ceiling of the basement to dry.


Starting a trend for archaeological Christmas decorations

 Thus ended Kate's afternoon on the blog, which was all together less terrifiying than she dreamt!