Day Twenty-Three: Archaeology down the drain

Today, much as yesterday was a day to finish up all those little jobs that needed doing before the mammoth task of recording begins! Success was found in trench two with the crack team of Alex and Andy finishing excavation and leaving only the west and east sections to be drawn on the morrow. Hugh began this recording today by drawing the elevation of three adjoining walls. This was done using the same technique as that employed in drawing the upstanding priory buildings.

Hugh attempts a world record length elevation

After completing their digging mission Rachel and Ian began to fill out context sheets, recording infomation about each layer, cut or structure discovered.

Two down...two hundred to go...

The fun jobs had also been left until the end of the dig, these included removing the caps to a drain and emptying the fill (this may not sound that much fun, but to archaeologists its pretty much as good as it gets!). All the deposits found within the drain were also sieved and kept as samples to be proccessed back in Sheffield.

Susannah digs out the drain...

...And Ann sieves it for goodies

While the team under the direction of Gareth cleaned out the drain Sandy 'volunteered' to produce the final plan for the centre of the trench

Its not even raining Sandy...why the jacket?

The day was coming to an end and we thought we had discovered all the features...but as always with archaeology another suprise was lurking under the soil. Kourosh, trowelling back like a pro began to uncover one stone, then another, then another. Not to keep you in suspense for too long...we found another drain! (Remeber how i said archaeologists love drains...well not so much on the second to last day of excavation!)

The team look down on yet another feature to interprate

The new drain!

Will the team manage to complete the work on time? Will Alex and Sandy be able to plan the trench before Friday? Will the Total Station run out of battery? The answers can only be found here...until next time dear reader...stay vigilant!

Hugh has a funny turn at the thought of all the work left to do
and tries to truely engage with the archaeology