Vindolanda Day 4: Give me a spade and I'll give you a hole

Posted on April 25, 2024  •  3 minutes  • 457 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.

We finally finished flossing rocks today around lunchtime. This was a great relief to the knees! The pile of rubble was photographed and 3D scanned before some drone footage will be taken next week. We can then lift it up and see what’s underneath.

In the mean time, three of us were given this rectangle to demolish: This was considered much harder labour, but all three of us were eager for something that had actual results we could easily see so by the end of the day it looked like this: At this point we could start using trowels to define the layer (much like to the bottom left of the above photo).

We have something interesting going on here archaeologically. What we’d thought was a barracks is actually a much larger building (3rd century). We aren’t sure what it is yet, so we are hoping to find some clues from any small finds. There were some excellent bits of pottery here and there that were found today, as well as a brooch and a shot from a balista! The trench I am working on goes from the wall of the building (if we extrapolate: I haven’t yet defined it properly) all the way in about 3 meters.

Its quite hard work, keeping an eye out for small things, but also having a view of the bigger picture. For example, we found another item the previous period of diggers had missed: right in the middle of one of their faced stones was the carved tail of a dolphin or other marine animal! Sometimes you can’t see the fish for the rocks!

For dinner we went to the Milecastle Inn , a typical British pub near the wall, about ten minutes West of Vindolanda. Its a lovely place with excellent fish and pies and a couple of fireplaces to keep it warm. Milecastles were, as the name suggests, small forts placed every mile along Hadrian’s Wall. I’m hoping to go see one over the weekend.

A few days ago the entire dig crew went to the Twice Brewed Inn , also just up the road from Vindolanda. It is also an excellent pub. Like most places in the UK, near the wall you can’t go far without hitting a pub or inn.

Tomorrow we’ll continue to excavate the interior of the building that we’d be spading up. Others have found some lovely things in this building so I’m hopeful I’ll finally find something of my own…