Season Two: Day Twenty-Seven

We welcome 28 students from the Stanford Continuing Education programme onto site today. Following a site tour, they've been set to work in Trench 1 to define the intravallum road and some of the related rubble dumps close to the rampart. The weather deteriorated distinctly in the afternoon, although we were able to work most of the day. The most interesting feature being worked on today is the building at the eastern end of Trench 2 in the vicus. We have evidence for a stone strip building with a possible extension to the south, potentially overlying part of the road. One of the interior walls of the extension still retains some of its original wall plaster (undecorated as far as we can see). Within this structure area a series of pitched stones; these may either be an intentionally lined stone 'cist' quite similar to the features within the barrack block in Trench 1, or they may simply be traces of collapse within the building. More generally the interior and walls of the this building are becoming better defined, includng a number of possible entrances, at least one which has been subsequently blocked.