Tag Archives: archives

Four Calling Birds

Four Calling Birds is a slightly complicated find to track down. While Calling Birds could be a type of Songbird in the case of the song it is also thought to be a variation on the original of Colly bird; a blackbird. Unfortunately we have neither of these in the archive, and there are a lot of birds in this song….

Instead we have decided to stick with the idea of calling bird and have selected this little bell.

A small bell

Feature image recreated from Xavier Romero-Frias https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:XRF_12days.jpg under CC license

Three French Hens

French hens were a luxury import in the 16th Century and are therefore said to represent the expensive gifts gold, frankincense and myrrh. Alternatively they are also thought to symbolise faith, hope and charity. As there are no apparent French hens in the archive I have chosen three French minted Roman coins.

3 French Hens (or coins….)

The largest of the three coins is also the earliest. It dates to 307-318 AD and was minted in Lyon during the reign of Constantine I. The two smaller coins were both minted in Arles. One dates to 364-378 AD and shows the Roman Emperor Valens. The other coin dates to 367-383 and depicts Gratian.

Feature image recreated from Xavier Romero-Frias https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:XRF_12days.jpg under CC license

Two turtle doves

The Bible depicts doves as loyal, honest and loving. In Leviticus 12:8, two turtle doves replaced a lamb sacrifice. Mary and Joseph sacrificed two turtle doves in Jerusalem at Christ’s birth. Turtle doves are still associated with the Christmas tradition.

Turtle doves symbolize love and faithfulness

Our turtle doves are represented by this delicate copper alloy and enamel bird brooch excavated from a Roman context off Newport in Lincoln.

Feature image recreated from Xavier Romero-Frias https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:XRF_12days.jpg under CC license

A Partridge in a Pear Tree

Christmas, such a festive time of the year for all to celebrate in their own little ways, making, breaking and faking tradition for gifts and toys. Fee knows it best, getting up on her feet and telling the rest, “shut up with the 12 days of Christmas it’s not yet even December“. In fact a favourite of mine the 12 days of Christmas (you know the one where we get 364 gifts for free) has some special meanings. For me let’s look at the partridge in a pear tree.

In Christian tradition the song begins as follows (sing along in your head, you can’t stop it now ha)
“O the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me, a partridge in a pear tree” in which the true love refers to yours truly, no? Fine, he actually represents God himself, the partridge in the pear tree (who really wants a pear tree? apples are where it’s at) symbolizing the sacrifice of Jesus to protect his followers, just as a mother partridge feigns injury to protect her young, by giving herself up, leaving her young to fend for themselves, grow independent, create an empire, betray one another etc etc (by the way statistically, sacrifice is a poor personal choice).

In truth, the Christian meaning and explanations for the song are a lie, but non the less helpful for those who are actually faithful. More accurately the song and the partridge in a pear tree is a mis-translation of an 18/19th century child’s lyrical game (sing a line wrong and you’re out, similar to adult drinking games where you sing a line incorrectly and you have to drink, dare I say ideas anyone?). Really the partridge in a pear tree is probably just a partidge in a tree with the pear bit translated on at some point.

Renditions of the song and the first gift have also changed through time, for example in Frank Sinatra’s version he substitutes the partridge and tree for a purple tie, and a radio version of the song by Bob Rivers replaces gifts for “annoying things to do during Christmas” in which the partridge in a pear tree is replaced by another, taller slightly piney / pokey tree.

Richard’s archaeological Partridge in a Pear Tree

As an archaeologist, My interpretation of the song is displayed in the picture, *partridge* (well we tried) bones on a high viz jacket that somehow kind of looks like a tree, with an actual steak of wood (probably a little sister or brother of an actual tree) being used as a tree. And one day it will end up in a book with some sort of meaning that I won’t be so sure about.

Honestly people on the first day of Christmas all I want is Alan Partridge and a cup of tea please.

Feature image recreated from Xavier Romero-Frias https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:XRF_12days.jpg under CC license

Pottery training

Learning to recognise fabrics and forms

I’ve always had a ‘thing’ for pottery, stemming from my first experience of archaeological fieldwalking and finding a pile of greyware (I won’t mention the arrowhead I also found that day). Through volunteering on excavations and at the local museum I discovered there was an awful lot more to pottery than I expected. This year I have been undertaking some intensive training learning how to accurately identify, date, record and quantify pottery.

This process has involved numerous hours using a microscope and identifying minerals within the pottery fabric and comparing them to known local, national and even international fabrics. Each kiln has its own recipe of ingredients that gets mixed into the clay so if the kiln has been excavated a specific production site can be listed. The style/form of the pottery also gives indications of date. By cross referencing this information with previously identified examples a date range and hopefully a production site is revealed. As I don’t have the experience of the fabrics I have to check every sherd against a written description or an example piece and research every form with named examples from other sites. My progress is slow and occasionally frustrating but there are multiple ways to aid this process aside from 10 years of experience.

Archaeological text books can be challenging, they have huge amounts of text with pages of finds illustrated in the back. They are very difficult to read unless you are looking for something specific. To make the information more accessible I find writing the details and similar examples from other sites next to the illustration saves a lot of time flipping back and forth looking for dates and form names. I also have pages and pages of notes with sketches of rim types as a cheat sheet. Eventually I’ll be able to do this without having to look in a book every time.

It isn’t an easy thing to learn all this information and apply it with confidence to an assemblage but it has been enjoyable. The next step is going to be creating my own reference collection and building on my notes to help ease the process of remembering hundreds of fabrics and forms.

Best site hut biscuit with Yvonne

Archives Supervisor Yvonne Rose

What is your job role?
Project Supervisor (Archives)

How long have you worked for Allen Archaeology?
Nearly 5 months

How would describe your excavation technique?
A distant memory!

How long have you been working in archaeology?
24 years

How did you get into archaeology?
Quite by accident! I’d been working as a wood machinist for a few years, and when I lost that job my partner (fellow archaeologist)’s boss took pity on me and took me on as a site assistant for a month. I obviously impressed them so much they kept me on for over 20 years!

What is the best thing about your job?
Getting to deal with all the artefacts, the variety of tasks, and working with a great bunch of people.

Specialist skills?
Archiving (of course!), getting lost, knitting.

Best site hut biscuit?
The dear departed McVities Jaspers (R.I.P.)

Find of the month: September

October’s find of the month was found just this week; during works around the forthcoming Chadwick Centre, at the International Bomber Command Memorial Site. Several large pieces of waster pots were found in a pit near to where three kilns had already been excavated back in 2014. Hopefully we could find another one!

Find of the month: large pieces of waster pots

We started work at the site in 2014. During an excavation in 2014, the three kilns were uncovered and have all been dated to the Romano-British period: probably towards mid to late 3rd Century. They are all fairly small, indicating that they were more likely to have been small subsistence kiln’s filling the needs of the local area, rather than a business. Earlier work has shown that the area has generally been in agricultural use; with multiple corn dryers, which would link into the local use of the kilns in a rural area.

One of the kilns excavated this week

A pottery kiln normally consists of a dome shaped superstructure which keeps the heat in, and around, the pottery being fired. A long triangular or oval shaped stokehole pit lies in front of the circular oven , which was where the fire was originally started and also where the ashes would be pulled out of the kiln into. Stokeholes are often very distinguishable due to their black, charcoaly appearance.

Base of a pot which didn’t make the grade because of the small depression that weakens the pot

Throughout the kiln structure you can find wasters. Wasters are piece of pottery that have not made the grade for whatever reason; be it a deformity such as a crack, a poor firing reducing the integrity of the structure, or an air bubble within the clay. You are less likely to find a complete rim of a vessel, which is why the one seen here is particularly exciting You can see on the picture of the little base, a small depression which would have been an air bubble that was trapped in the clay but burst during the firing. This not only creates a poor finish but it weakens the pottery.

One kiln found during the excavation had very little pottery wasters near, or in it, which suggests that it might have been used for something other than pottery. It could have been a bread oven, or as the more imaginative of us like to think; a pizza oven!

Find of the month: July

This post is the first of a new series of blogs detailing an exciting find that the Archives department have uncovered over the course of each month.

A Roman hygiene implement found during excavations in Navenby

The first artefact to feature is a copper alloy Roman nail-cleaner found on a community archaeological excavation in 2013. The archive team chose this artefact as it will be leaving Allen Archaeology to be archived at The Collection Museum in Lincoln. This is the final part of the community excavation undertaken in Navenby (which is 13km south of central Lincoln). The excavation was set up and excavated with the help of Volunteers from The Navenby Archaeological Group to investigate an area of the Roman town of Navenby. The artefact was found during these investigations.

The artefact (which can be seen in the picture below) is a Roman hygiene implement, specifically a nail cleaner. This is a toiletry set, in this case sitting on a metal ring; similar to a modern day key ring, with a square sectioned, well preserved decorated shaft and bifurcated terminal. This is a significant find due to the preservation of the decorations on the rectangular shaft and the bifurcated end. Similar nail-cleaners have been found in Colchester (Crummy 1983) but not including decorations extending down the length of the object, the decorations are usually limited to the upper portion of the object.

This nail cleaner would have been in use in Roman Navenby in the 3rd Century occupation of the town. For another example click here. Finds like these give us a personal insight into the everyday lives of the people of Roman Britain and are wonderful to find in such good condition.

Crummy, N, 1983, Colchester Archaeological Report 2: The Roman small finds from excavations in Colchester 1971-9 Colchester Archaeological Trust Ltd

Excavating cremations

Warning: Images of human remains feature in this post

Several of Allen Archaeology’s recent site excavations have revealed a particularly interesting aspect of ancient mortuary practice: human cremation burial urns.

Some of the pots we have retrieved date from the Bronze Age, Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon periods, and are known to have been used as early as the Mesolithic in Britain (c.5500 BC), although this method began to fall out of favour following the widespread adoption of Christianity in Western Europe.

Early Anglo-Saxon (5th–6th Century AD) stamped cremation urn found near Fakenham, Norfolk

Unlike modern cremations practices that produce ‘ash’, archaeological cremation burials consist of pieces of bone of varying size, often being quite large and identifiable. The reason for this difference is down to the processing method. Whilst modern crematoriums use industrial furnaces (that burn at temperatures of 870-980 °C) and a machine to pulverize the dry bone fragments into a fine powder, cremations in the past would have been performed much differently. The deceased would have been placed on a wooden pyre and required constant attention to keep the fire burning, particularly when the weather would not cooperate (surely not?!). The result is a lot of small chunks of cracked and discoloured bone which are then placed (in part or altogether) into a pre-made urn, and buried.

Due to the fragility of the urns and their importance as a burial, they are carefully removed on site and sent back to the office to be excavated – this happens exactly the same way as on site, but at a much smaller scale! The contents of the urn are removed in levels or ‘spits’, and records including photographs and drawings are taken before and after the removal of each cross-section and full layer. Due to having to work in a pot with a diameter of roughly 13cm compared to a pit or ditch of 1 to 2m, a completely different set of tools is needed. Lay down the shovel and trowel, and pick up your clay art tools and tweezers! Once the bone is removed it is passed through several sieves (10mm, 5mm & 2mm), with the remains of varying sizes weighed rather than counted. These are then bagged according to their size, with any recognisable elements bagged separately.

Excavating a cremation burial

So now the bones have been excavated, what can we tell from them? More than you think. The colouring of the remains, the amount the bones have warped from their original shape and their completeness can reveal information about the temperature of the fire, if there were any problems during burning (such as weather or incomplete incineration), how the body might have been placed on the pyre and whether the body was clothed or burned as dry bone. Duplicate elements of bone will also alert you as to whether more than one individual is present within the urn, as can the cumulative weight of the fragments.

Also, other remains such as macrobotanical or charcoal fragments can aid in the interpretation of the pyre construction, whilst ‘grave goods’ given to the cremated individual might also survive.

Fragments from a Romano-British cremation urn burial found at North Killingholme, Lincolnshire