Binchester 2013: Day Seventeen

Good day on site although we had our first real rain of the season, but that didn't stop our dauntless team of diggers. Starting in Trench 1 from my perspective the most interesting development was the emergence of a west-east wall underlying the northern end of the barrack. It appears that it may extend eastwards beyond the main east wall of the current barrack building. It clearly doesn't relate to any part of the current building we are excavating, so may indicate and earlier phase of activity on the site. It might be linked with the short stretch of wall or gully just visible in the base of the large gulley we have incorporating the northern gable wall of the barrack. As elsewhere on site, we are starting to have a real sense of phasing across this part of the site. Nearby, one of our US team found a rather nice jet ring - one of the nicest jet pieces we've had to date. Meanwhile, Karen and Jonathan continued bravely in the big pit; they've got a group of articulated cattle bone, which will be a prime candidate for C14 dating. In Trench 2, we finished cleanig up the interior of the post-pad building and got it photographed; we can start removing stone in this area tomorrow. We've also been cracking along to the west of this building with some interesting surfaces starting to emerge. In the main building, we're in the same old routine of stones and dumps in the big room. Meanwhile in the smaller room, we're taking the trench edge back in one corner for practical reasons and to make sure the area remains safe when we excavate. My favourite development in this area was in the southern compartment of the corridor where we appear to have the abutment and one or two footers of an arch way that appears to have framed an area within the porch forming a large niche and tentatively another feature in a similar position the other side. This makes it pretty certain that the floor surface here must match that in the northern part of the corridor. We have serious structural remains!!