A quiet rather than a spectacular day Everything has been humming along nicely. Work on the road has revealed a number of features cut into it (in addition to the various layers of metalling and patching). At least one substantial gulley has been sectioned; this appears to be on an entirely different alignment to anything else we've found so far, so its cleary not a roadside ditch or a drainage channel. It is just possible it is related to a new surface of large-ish stones we are revealing just the other side of the baulk (though that remains very very speculative). Elsewhere, planning has continued at the northern end of the barrack, and further definition of the features cut into the floor level. More has been taken out of the big post-med and/or late Roman feature. We still can't see where we've missed the cut, though the area being excavated still continues to reveal nothing but late Roman material. Further cleaning to the west of the main barrack wall has revealed a series of poorly defined rubble features at regular intervals along the line of the barrack. We've not really tried to define these in detail yet and their function is unclear. It is possible they are post-pads for a later building (although if it takes just two stones in a row to be a wall, it takes just one stone to be a post-pad!).
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
Binchester Day Twenty-three
A quiet rather than a spectacular day Everything has been humming along nicely. Work on the road has revealed a number of features cut into it (in addition to the various layers of metalling and patching). At least one substantial gulley has been sectioned; this appears to be on an entirely different alignment to anything else we've found so far, so its cleary not a roadside ditch or a drainage channel. It is just possible it is related to a new surface of large-ish stones we are revealing just the other side of the baulk (though that remains very very speculative). Elsewhere, planning has continued at the northern end of the barrack, and further definition of the features cut into the floor level. More has been taken out of the big post-med and/or late Roman feature. We still can't see where we've missed the cut, though the area being excavated still continues to reveal nothing but late Roman material. Further cleaning to the west of the main barrack wall has revealed a series of poorly defined rubble features at regular intervals along the line of the barrack. We've not really tried to define these in detail yet and their function is unclear. It is possible they are post-pads for a later building (although if it takes just two stones in a row to be a wall, it takes just one stone to be a post-pad!).
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What a brilliant Web site! I run a digger's Web site for Vindolanda volunteers. It's more of an open forum, along with a "Digger's Guide" which tries to help get new volunteers oriented. One of our members pointed out your blog the other day, and I've spent the past couple of evenings catching up. If only Vindolanda had someone on-site who could write up a similar daily/weekly story of the unfolding digs! Really an excellent idea, and I'm psyched to have found it (and linked to it from my site: www.wedigvindolanda.com).
ReplyDeleteI visited Escomb on my first trip to Vindolanda back in '03, so had heard about nearby Binchester, and obviously seen some of its impressive stonework in the church. But still haven't visited the Roman site in person. Now I at least feel like I can get an armchair perspective on what's going on. I'm especially interested in seeing the parallels there with the Anglo-Saxon artefacts/buildings coming up at Vindolanda. Vindolanda is proving to have had a long-standing post-Roman community of some vibrancy, always wondered just how much of that survived into the final transition to Anglian rule.
I'm sure you've got plenty on your plate already. But we'd love to have your company at WeDigVindolanda any time. In the meantime, I'm excited to see what the rest of your dig turns up. Thanks for providing such a neat resource.
- Harry
Hi Harry, Thanks for reading and for linking us to your site (which I've just looked at- its excellent). There is obviously much less to see at Binchester than at Vindolanda (though we've got a few years to catch up!).
ReplyDeletebest
David