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.