Vindolanda Day 3: Rock flossing

Posted on April 24, 2024  •  2 minutes  • 325 words

This is 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.

Unfortunately today’s archaeology is not very interesting. I’m working on what we think is a collapsed wall: there is a clearly defined road (the extension of the via principia) and well defined walls on two sides. The heap of rubble in the middle might be the result of some demolition work done on the structure.

It’s certainly a pain, as I’ve mentioned before . We are removing a lot of dirt stuck between rocks: a process we’ve called “rock flossing”. This helps “define” the rocks and when we are done we’ll take aerial photographs before removing the rubble. Our neighbours to the left have found some magnificent flagstones which might be a floor of the building which we hope to find beneath the big pile o’ rocks.

The problem comes with what we keep and what we throw away. Any stone we can see the bottom of that wiggles we chuck into the spoil heap. The result is that you can spend half an hour working around a stone, only for it to wiggle. Its then removed and the whole process starts over again.

As a result it doesn’t feel like any work has been done during the day which is why the before and after photos are so important. It also helps that the afternoon sun throws longer shadows…

One thing I’ve been amazed by is the durability of archaeological trowels. My trowel which I bought specially for the dig (pictured top) has been through some very rough treatment. It’s been scraping a lot of soil, stones and rocks through the days and hasn’t changed its shape or been blunted at all. You can definitely tell that I am right handed though!