Dig99
St Marys Headland,
Seaham,Co.Durham, UK
Archaeological
Dig - August 1999
Day 5 - Friday
20th August 1999
09:00. Well we're back to normal Seaham Harbour weather for
August - its a beautiful morning everyone. A few clouds in the sky
and ideal for archaeological excavation. Today the emphasis is to
be on further exposing the skeletons in Trench A and to exhume all of them
before the end of the day. Trevor will work in Trench D and cut a
trench transversely across the feature which was found there.
12:45 The metal object found yesterday near to skeleton C1 has
been lifted and another metal object found in the same vicinity was also
removed. It is not clear what the objects are and they will need
to be cleaned up and examined in the laboratory. They are clearly
isolated finds at this stage as there is a noticable absence of any other
artifacts.
Trench A. The two metal objects which were
removed.
Any ideas?
It is noticeable that the volunteer members of the
team are growing in confidence and are being given the opportunity to be
involved in every procedure and technique which is being used. Jim
is an excellent tutor and mixes advice and guidance with the encouragement
for the volunteers to "have a go". They have now had a taste of the
hard graft of moving mountains of earth at one end of the spectrum to the
delicate work of exposing and lifting skeletons and recording every essential
detail about them at the other end.
Trench A. Liz, Lyn and Claire recording details
of skeleton C1 before exhuming it. The arrows
indicate
where the two metal objects were found. Their
positions
are marked on site by tags held down by pegs
pushed
into the ground.
Trench A. Lyn and Liz remove the skull of
skeleton C1 with a little help from Jim. The rest they did themselves.
Note that the skeleton is buried
stomach-down. Most (though not all) were buried
in similar fashion. |
Trench A. Boxing the skull in protective packaging
for transport back to the lab. |
We'll be back on Monday folks but the "diggers" will have a well-earned
rest over the weekend. We look forward to more discoveries
next week. Let us have your feedback.
|