Professor Nancy Edwards and associates take stock of the western trench at the end of the day's work.
Today offered much better weather, but due to permit trouble very little metal detecting. Instead I've been "cleaning" with the students, which basically means slow removal of soil using a trowel and a brush. I found a large piece of glazed Buckley ware (19th century), a piece of clay-pipe stem, some quartz and not much more. Somebody found a piece of Roman black burnished pottery that had been partly refashioned into a crude spindlewhorl. But we're still on top of the barrow's capping slate-shingle cairn (put in place by the 18th century antiquarians who re-erected the Pillar of Eliseg?), and it is uncertain whether it will be removed at all this year.
In other news, Dear Reader Sandgroper points to some interesting information about a venture capital firm that owns much of Seed Media Group.
[More about archaeology, Wales; arkeologi, Wales.]
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As a person who had dug more than his share of holes a 3 by 6 meter hole 15cm deep doesn't really impress. Okay, yes, it isn't a matter of the amount of dirt moved but of object found, and it is kind of like golf (a job made more difficult by poorly selected tools) but it strikes me as being a very tedious way of ending up with a hole.
Those cars look like they are sneaking up on you. I hate when they do that.
Cool picture, I wondered what was under the grass!
The news is better. 40% of Sb has called off his strike.
For once, I am willing to quote PZM: "People who have been concerned about the financial stability of Scienceblogs should rest easier, too. We talked with the CFO, and Sb has its own organizational structure and is largely independent of other enterprises within Seed Media Group, and we're doing OK."
So you are allowed to dig a deep trench but not to use a metal detector - sounds like here in Sweden if you ask me...
Well, in this case it wasn't the fault of the authorities: the landowner simply said "no". As for the deep trench, there probably won't be one as the monument is scheduled. The project has a permit to locate and empty an 18th century excavation trench in the barrow, draw the sections and take some samples. But when I left the site there was still no clear sign of the early trench.