The small nudge of receiving some photos from Mike in Finds has reminded me that we have a busy finds unit as well as an excavation trench (whoops). Hundreds of tesserae, plus some samian bowl sherds, fibula brooches and coins have made their usual appearance, although as we delve deeper and away from the finds rich layer that covered the trench (28,000 sherds of pot in 2018-19) the finds do seem to be a little less abundant.
To make up for this we have been kindly supplying the team with buckets of slag and boxes of iron stone to wash, as we diggers understand these are their 'favorites' as cleaning brooches, coins and decorated samian can become a bit of a chore!!
However, everyone is delighted to have a new permanent finds unit for both processing and storage as well as doubling up as a lecture hall. A great improvement on the various tents, derilict farm buildings and stables that have been home in recent years. We took over the lease in April this year and quickly lined and kitted out the lecture hall/finds unit for the start of the training courses but still have another room behind the end wall that will become an office/records and special finds store after some more building works this autumn/winter. A new range of shelving for both processing and storage will enable our finds coordinators to get everything together in one place in chronological order and easily accessible.
