Photos from Caerleon!

Room 2:  where the armour (lorica) was found. 

 Star broach found in Room 3 (guard room)

The start of long and very low payed career !

Our trench half way through the dig marking where walls where before robbers nicked them

Hello people,  my name is Chris and i am a student of Archaeology at Cardiff who has decided to keep some sort of account of his career by making some sort of poorly written blog that most people will probably never read. Well that's what i thought,  after my first major excavation at Caerleon (09/2010) a was kinda shocked at the amount of people who showed strong interest in what we were doing on the open days and tours.  I have got a feeling its all thanks to time team despite how much most professional archaeologists groan about them.

But yes... Caerleon, in my experience this will always be the big one.   For me it started on the 21st of August 2010 i was part of the second working group from both Cardiff and UCL on a dig run by two directors  Cardiff's Dr Peter Guest and UCL's Prof Andrew Gardner and it was funded and overseen by CADW.  The excavation took place in priory field Caerleon which is right next to the amazingly well preserved amphitheatre 'which is pretty hard to miss'  and was the final part of a 10 year project completing the map of the Roman Fortress Isca Silurium.  In this excavation we uncovered a Roman store house which we already suspected it to be because of the area of the fortress it was in, was the nearest to the port, makes more sense that the Romans would store there material in the first place they drag the carts into, rather than trundle them though the middle of the busy fortress. 

Me ''nakerd'' digging metal strips.... hmm could it be armour?

The finds... wow where do i start.   We try not to seem like treasure hunters, but with some of the things we found it is very hard not to get a little bit exited.  Firstly it was mostly coins, silver and copper some of which where interesting such as a coin of Constantine which had both sides tooled off (Maybe an anti christian thing?)  after the masses of poetry and bone the really interesting stuff started to pop up,  'might be easier if i list'.... 
we found a ...
small copper alloy bust of a Roman goddess Minerva
some copper fish broaches with fine scale engravings 
a lion head casket handle
a finely decorated star broach (looked like a sheriffs badge) 
a sculpture of a what looked like a slave (maybe from a shrine)
a copper alloy dolphin
and a lot more but most of it relating to my big find, something which i could not believe my luck not only to find it but to continue working on it.... at least one set of Lorica segmengata aka Roman armour!  But oh no this was no ordinary armour this was decorative, there was even a patch of preserved leather with small copper sequin studs lined together to make a fish scale armour. Now that is not fighting armour, that's ceremonial (a world first discovery)  personally i thing the news under sold it!  

The armour after me and some students from UCL  had fully excavated it, fell into the care of the professional conservators from the national museum of Wales.  One tent with four PHD's in it!  well it was very delicate work and there was a lot to do.   In a nutshell, to lift the metal they excavated around them and raped the clumps of earth and rust in clingfilm and then applied plaster bandage.  The clumps will be excavated in the national museum after being stored in a big freezer and then undergo the conservation magic.  This is going to take at least two years and £10000.

How about a little insight to what the actual experience was like...   some may think it would be a pretty rubbish life working in archaeology, spending long days digging soil in blistering sun ''haha''  or RAIN more likely then spending your nights in a smelly tent (unless you own a caravan which despite my love for top gear, i may do soon)  the finds make it good but its the bits in between that make it awesome!  we spend our evenings boosting the income of the local pubs mostly through the juke box, meeting locals and occasional Morris dancers and (always a laugh) and going on crazy ACDC fueled buss tours of the area (impossible to explain) and just having a good laugh around the campsite without upsetting the neighbors.    Cant wait to graduate as long as all my digs are going to be like Caerleon!   Oh and special thanks to the Drovers Pub,   they really liked us.

 


Find out more from our dig, have a look at this site 
http://www.caerleon.net/history/dig/2008/index.html  2008 dig
http://www.caerleon.net/history/dig/2010/index.html  2010 dig