| Entry: | U14239 (pitgraveburrow) is now dead (thankfully) and the underlying area has merged with neighbouring U14213. Today I was mattocking there and encountered a hard clayish layer, kind of brown with white flecks, and dentable but not easily removed. So dug it down to that. It wasn't really clear what the extent of that layer was. I was east of the section edge, and more towards the section edge, so west of me, Ros found a similar layer but not quite the same as mine, and as I remember a little higher too.
OK, photos:
U14241, the skeleton which is in the grave on the east edge of the trench which I photographed yesterday as well (Fill: U14238 cut: U14237). Eva was describing this as I came to photograph it as probably very late and very disturbed back-filled grave, and the word charnel came up too.
U15100, trench 7 again, now with a unit number, and scales. It's a tough one to photo well, due to the sun not shining from every angle, so something is always shaded. I had an interesting experience photographing it: I asked if there was anything in particular I should note and was shown the pot-sherds in the north-west corner, and the skulls once more. Then as I was taking photos, Peter said
"Put the board under the left hand skull and come over here," from the opposite bank where he was sat with Eva. I did so, and walked over. Eva then asked
"What do you see under the skull"
I saw nothing. I carried on looking, beige lines then leapt out at me.
"Ah, there's a stratigraphy." I said, and photographed it from where we sat, and noted there seemed to be an air of amusement. I then went closer to get a shot, and had a think. "Or is it mud bricks? It's a bit too regular for stratigraphy"
"And there are vertical lines in it" Eva pointed out
"Oh yeah" I said. Hmmm... need to get my eye in, as they say.
Linguistic aside> (Next page in my notebook seems to feature lots of German. So dative prepositions are: aus, auser, bei, mit, nach, seit, von, zu. Accusative are: durch, für, gegen, ohne, um. Many thanks to Ben and Katy for that information, and the accompanying song.)
OK, very exciting, next: big grave. Alex showed me it, and I did the best 5cm squared free hand sketch known to man, which I'm rather tempted to photograph and include too I'm that proud of it. Ah, meant to say, I'm sketching stuff now to check that people know what I plan to photograph. It helps avoid confusion. So, the grave is F2416. Following are other numbers that go with it:
U14244 - orange deposit on top of grave fill
U14245 - grave fill 1 (higher level, directly under orange deposit)
U14246 - grave fill 2 (beneath both orange deposit and grave fill 1)
U14247 - bricks encircling grave
U14248 - mortar between bricks
U14249 - grave cut north; two parallel lines on the edge of bricks
U14250 - grave cut south; also two parallel lines on the edge of bricks, but the other side.
At this point in time the grave cuts are not completely exposed, but Alex expected we'd find more later.
Despite all this careful explanation, I still managed to not include some essential parts in the photograph I took from the opposite side, so note to self, do full circuit tour before photographing stuff next time. I did eventually get all the important stuff in though, so the story has a happy ending.
OK, last photo: U13725, F2403: elevation, which I learnt today means a wall, rather than the section of a wall. Anyway, vertical. At the end of the grave that I did a sub-standard sketch of the other day. 10/10 to Thomas Birch for being the best communicator on site, not only did he explain exactly what we needed in the photograph, what was to be seen, and check with Eva when he wasn't sure, but he also understood my end-of day gibberish when asking for things like
Me: I need the er... that in the
Tom: I'll go and get the scale, small one, yeah?
Me: Thanks, and could the board be
Tom: Propped up with the trowel, no worries.
Me: (Slightly spooked) Cheers. (I then look somewhat despairingly at the shaft of bright sunlight hitting the southern edge of the area I plan to photograph)
Tom: Shall I stand over here and make shade where the sun is just creeping in there.
(Lord, he is a mind reader too!)
Cool. Photo explanations done. Issue: how many photos should feature a board? How long should I take over photographs? I'll have a think on these and offer my views later, when I'm less tired of typing.Entered By: N. Christie |
