Friday 26 September 2014

Report: Excavation blog, Week 3 (17-21 September)

The continued good weather has meant we have made further good progress this week. A wide range of Roman pottery has been recovered, and slag has been found in bulk this week.
Finds drying with Janice & Alison

In Trench 1, ashy deposits were revealed within the building, but whether they were the result of domestic or industrial will depend on the evidence from the environmental sampling. Further rubble dumps to the rear of the building were encountered – no clear signs of a ground surface outside the building yet. More frustratingly, it became evident that there was a post-medieval trackway between the Roman road and the building, obscuring the relationship between the two features. Hopefully the trackway will be removed swiftly at the beginning of next week!

In Trench 2, the focus was on the low-lying, north end. The sondage at the very north end encountered a narrow channel was succeeded by a timber-lined drain, although none of the timber lining survived, pointing to water management. 

Excavating with Richard

At least two layers of well-constructed cobble surface overlaid the stream deposits to the north and the series of burnt deposits and cobble surfaces to the south, perhaps providing access to the stream from the industrial area to the south.
Burnt deposits

In Trench 3, within the building excavation of the base of an oven full of charcoal was completed and the clay floors were investigated.
Planning, mattocking and trowelling

To the rear of the building, various deposits and cobble layers were excavated, showing that there had been considerable activity inside and outside the building.
 Excavating in Trench 3

Kurt Hunter-Mann, York Archaeological Trust
Project Site Director

Event: Come along to our end of project celebration day tomorrow: Saturday 27 September

It has been a busy few weeks at Ravenglass and tomorrow marks the end of Season’s 2’s dig.  Come along to our end of project celebration day to celebrate the end of the project. You can:

• Find out what has been dug up at Ravenglass


• Meet a Roman

• Join a tour of the excavation site, on the hour at 11am, 12pm, 1pm and 2pm.

• See displays and handle real Roman artefacts

• Have a go at digging!

• Bring your finds along to be identified by the Portable Antiquities Scheme


 

Tuesday 23 September 2014

Report: Romans in Ravenglass Outreach Programme - Update


It’s been a busy couple of weeks for the Romans in Ravenglass outreach team!


What have we been up to?


SCHOOL VISITS

We have welcomed over 100 school children from four local schools – Haverigg Primary, Ennerdale and Kinniside, Black Combe and Seascale primaries - to the site. Not only did the schools get to see and handle Roman artefacts but they also got to do a bit of digging!

Jon Kenny, Community Archaeologist from the York Archaeological Trust supervises the budding archaeologists in Trench 4.


Project volunteer Finds Assistant Rosalie McAndrew watches over the finds washing!

We’ve already had some feedback from one of the teachers: ‘Thank you to you and your enthusiastic team for the excellent day…. The children learned a lot, were inspired, and it was a great start to our Roman topic - hands on history’.


YOUNG PEOPLE GROUPS            
We’ve run two special open days for young people this year. The first was with the Lake District National Park’s Young Rangers and Young Champions from the MOSAIC project.


MOSAIC Young Champions learning the art of ‘levelling’.
 
And last weekend we ran a session with Young Archaeologists’ Club, Kendal Branch. A huge amount of fun (and a lot of learning!) was had by all.

Young Archaeologists getting their hands-on.

OPEN DAYS
We hosted our first Saturday open day to coincide with the national Heritage Open Days festival. We had nearly 200 visitors to the site who either took part in a site tour, handled Roman finds, searched for buried treasure or got down on their knees to do a bit of digging. Some did all four!
  

Searching for ‘buried treasure’ in the sands of time!


I know I left a field drain down here somewhere!


Don’t forget to come and visit us this Saturday 27 September for our final project open day... Find out what else we have found and meet a real-life Roman ;)

Lisa Keys, Minerva Heritage Ltd
Romans in Ravenglass Outreach Coordinator