Vindolanda Day 12: That's a Wrap

Posted on May 3, 2024  •  3 minutes  • 557 words

This is the last part of a series where I document my time volunteering at an archaeological dig in North England in April 2024. Have a look at some of the other posts to see some of the cool things I got up to.

Today was the final day of the dig, but that did not mean that it was without excitement.

My latest disappearing wall turned into something far more interesting today. By defining some of the rocks leading up to it, I confirmed my theory that it wasn’t actually part of the rest of the wall! The “thunk” was justified. In fact, the stones that I was working on was on a different course to the rest of the wall. They also jutted out 20cm which could have meant a few things.

One feasible hypothesis was that this was a corner and I’d found the internal separating wall in the barracks room. Roman barracks were long buildings split into eleven sections each, apart from the last which housed a centurion, housing eight men: a contubernium. Each contubernium’s section was split in half to form a front room and a rear room. Perhaps I’d found the internal wall separating the rooms.

Hoping to test this theory I delved outwards from the main wall and quickly found a tile. This isn’t uncommon: the ground is saturated with bits of tile and pottery, often fleck sized and you trowel through orange material frequently. However, this piece was particularly large (around 15cm on a side) and clearly worked so as to abut the wall cleanly.

After excavating around the tile for a while, I managed to remove it only to find another tile below! Below that was a worked stone.

Unfortunately the day ended before I could work out the meaning of this. Was it part of a hypocaust ? Why would the barracks be heated? Was it a re-use of tiles in a later century and a later use of the building? We will have to wait for a few more excavation periods before these can be answered.

Elsewhere in the dig, the large pile of rubble was cleared to reveal an amazing apse with a fire pit (possibly again to heat the floor using a hypocaust?) as well as some beautiful walls. Its the nature of these things that you find the best material just as you are packing up to go home.

We ended off with a tour of the trench by the head of excavations. It was great to see what everyone else had been working on, and hear the latest theories about what we’d discovered. Here he is showing off a wonderfully excavated roof-water ditch that had been defined on the East side of the trench:

After that, it was time to head home. My return journey was the inverse of my journey in : a 30 minute walk to Bardon Mill (its downhill so took slightly less time than the hike in) followed by trains to Newcastle and then South. Thankfully they all ran on time and I was able to settle in to my own bed by 23:00 in the evening.

This was the last day of my trip to Vindolanda to excavate in 2024.

I’ve put a summary of this trip on the Vindolanda landing page if you want a TL;DR!