There is nothing more irritating than a swarm of midges. These tiny insects are enough to reduce diggers made of stronger stuff than myself to a gibbering wreck, their bites producing a red welt and an itch far beyond any normal expectation. Diggers have even been known to exit the trench in a panic simply to escape their clutches, never to be seen again.
The morning session began in humid, cool and windless conditions – perfect for Culicoides impunctatus to wreak havoc. As someone who seems to be particularly attractive to the Highland midge, I spent a good portion of the pre-lunch session cursing their presence and attempting to rid my forehead, ears and arms of the annoying beasties.
The first order of business was to confirm where exactly we were digging. My memory was indeed faulty; Marta patiently reminded Gary and I we were exploring a structure that had been dug and subsequently back-filled by Eric Birley (Andrew’s grandfather) in 1930 and described by him as Theodosian in date (late 4th century). This evening I was able to find his report of this work and discovered that he had been investigating whether there was any evidence for an additional East gate, north of the one first described by Hedley. Below are a pair of images that I believe are matching; at left is part of a drone image posted by The Trust yesterday on their Facebook page, at right is what looks to be the same location in Eric Birley’s drawing from 1930. The yellow circled area is our remaining sliver of backfill, as it was at the end of period 5, the blue is what I think is roughly the same spot in the 1930 drawing.
By around 1:30 our rectangle of backfill was gone, revealing a more compacted, gray layer beneath, level with eastern side of the trench. However, with no clear feature appearing within, Marta suggested we turn to the rather forlorn-looking wall just to its south and trace that northward into our sliver; does it continue into/under it?
The immediate answer seems to be yes, although all that remains appear to be the foundation stones, including a rubble base layer containing some reused Antonine period, yellow sandstone, as well as some substantial, flat stones on the western side of the wall that look somewhat like the capping stones for a drain. So, what structure was this wall part of? Possibly supporting the rampart of the immediately adjacent fort wall? However the story can’t be that simple, because we uncovered a wider array of packed stone extending beyond the “wall” on the eastern side. Hopefully we’ll be able to sort this out tomorrow. A little pottery and a lot of animal bone filled our finds bag to the brim – almost all from within the backfill – thanks in no small part to good luck with the weather and a full day of digging.
Digging Vindolanda 