Rainy days

In case you had not heard, England is having it's rainiest summer on record...of course. Although the Brits joke that this is said every year! If you caught any of Wimbledon last week, you'll already know this. Thank goodness for the roof over Centre Court!

When it's wet up at the dig site, a quick walk up the hill behind my guest house, a decision is made by the project managers if a.) the site is unsafe for the excavators and b.) too destructive to the site. On Friday, after a night of rain, it was deemed both of these. We had four good days of digging, though, which is more than can be said for the team before us. They got very little digging in. Typically, you'd take a rainy day to clean and process all the finds, but we hadn't found enough to keep four of us busy for an afternoon. Our supervisor, Nick, decided we would spend the morning touring some of the reconstructed buildings and then, after lunch, travel to the fort at the easternmost end of the wall, Segedunum, at Wallsend.

First off, before the rain started again, we took the requisite team photo. Stephen, my dig partner, was finishing up his time with us and headed off to travel a bit before returning to Australia.

 

Dave, Nick, me, Stephen, Terry (in the back), Maggie and Keith.

 

Next we toured the reconstructed barracks, commanding officer's house, and headquarters. They are quite impressive and give you a good idea of what life was like for all involved.

Reconstructed barracks

 

Costumed re-enactors exploring what would have been home for them.

 

Outside the commanding officer's house

 

 

 

The courtyard

 

 

Dave posing with some of his handiwork. He's a very talented artist!

After lunch we drove inland, stopping just short of Newcastle, to Wallsend (it's obvious where the name comes from!), and toured the fort, Segedunum. It sure makes it interesting when your supervisor and tour guide was one of the primary excavators on the site!

This wonderful observation tower provides an amazing view of the fort's layout and proximity to the Tyne to the south.

 

 

Just like at Arbeia, school children, in their final days before their summer holidays, enjoyed the remains on a class trip.

 

This is the most amazing drain system at the remains of the hospital. Water was channeled off the roof, into the collection basin, and drained away. I wish the drainage system around my foundation was this sturdy! Leave it to the Romans.

 

One of the highlights of Segedunum (meaning strong fort) is the gorgeous reconstructed bath house, which has the ability to be fully functioning.

 

 

Here's a sneak peek at the under-floor heating system.

 

 

Fancy a dip? There are warm, hot and cold baths, in addition to steam rooms. You could get a massage, be scraped to remove dirt from your skin (Boy, does that sound like fun!), and play board games.

The beginning of the wall can be seen to the northwest of the fort.

The wall on the left is a small-scale reconstruction.

 

Next up: The highlights from our trip out to hike stretches of the wall in the countryside.

 

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On the job at Arbeia

 

Before I get into the actual work we are doing, here is a bit of background on the site itself. While experts on the subject are not entirely certain, the Romans may have occupied the site of Arbeia, or the Roman Fort at South Shields, as early as the first century AD. Arbeia itself was built around AD 160, so the site is a multi-period one, a detail that is important to the particular work we are doing. The Tyne River lies within site to the north, and the North Sea is a short walk to the east. The fort played an important role in the frontier system begun by the emperor Hadrian in AD 122, first as a garrison and later as a supply base for the 17 forts along the wall. The wall itself begins in Wallsend, just four miles to the west and continues west for 80 Roman miles.

 

The section we are working in, in the southern corner of the site, is actually outside the fort's wall and is what's known as the vicus, or civilian settlement. Most of the vicus is covered with modern roads or buildings, so there isn't much available to excavate. Much is known about life inside the fort, but not much about outside the fort, so it is very exciting to be involved in such a project.

 

All that said, my first week on the dig has been spent working on a stretch of uncovered Roman road that emerges from below the edge of the modern road. In the photo below, you can see the road in the right hand corner of what we call "the pit."

 

Here is a closeup of the road's surface. You can see lots of different sizes and shapes of stones. Each size or shape represents a different level and time period. The road was repaired again and again over time, so we take it down one level at a time to help them learn about each period. The artifacts we find at each level provide clues. The most common artifacts, or finds, are bits of pottery, block tile, and bones.

To clear away the stones, mud, etc, you use a trowel (more like a mason's trowel than a gardening one) and gently scrape. This is called cleaning. Whatever is worthless, gets pushed into a small hand shovel with your trowel and dumped into your bucket. If it's something of interest, it goes into your finds tray. In this picture, Laura, a local young woman who studied archeology in college, but just qualified to be a preschool teacher, and Maggie, an Earthwatch teammate, clean a section of the road.

 

As soon as your bucket is relatively full, you carry it to the wheelbarrow and empty it. If the wheelbarrow is full, you wheel it up the ramp and to a dumping site not far from the pit. This entire process is a nice break from all the kneeling that is involved. It gives your knees a rest, and stretches out your back. Here is Dave, another local voluteer, emptying the wheelbarrow. Dave studied pre-history in college, but is a trained artist. He originally came to Arbeia to draw the finds for the project, but he got hooked on the archaeology itself! He is now one of our supervisors and teaching us how to speak Geordie. He's one of the funniest people I've ever met. His humor in the pit makes the time go by quickly.

 

On day two, I was lucky enough to find what they believe is a scrap of lead. You can see it touching the right edge of the trowel. This is highly unusual and is considered a "small find," because the Romans normally wouldn't have thrown away such a thing. Before I could remove it from the area, we had to stop work and mark the exact location where it was found. That is why the trowel was stuck in the ground.

 

The exact level, or depth, of any significant find must be measured. One person goes to the side of the building and finds the above sea level mark.

A measuring staff is placed in the exact spot where the artifact was found. (Keith, a fellow Earthwatcher is holding one in the picture below.) An optical line measure (what you commonly see surveyors using on a tripod), which has been synched up with the above sea level marker, is used to read the measuring staff, and the depth is then calculated.

 

 

The exact spot within the area being excavated where the artifact was found also has to be recorded on a site plan. The grid, or frame, has been placed on the surface so that I can record the exact location.

 

The find is carefully placed into a small ziplock bag with airholes, to prevent further decay, and all of the location information we calculated is recorded on the bag. The finder (me in this case!) gets to record all of this into the official register book, so my name is now in the book as the official finder of the object. This whole process took the better part of an hour.

 

 

On day four, Keith found a piece of iron, and we went through the entire process again. It rained Thursday evening, so the site was deemed too slippery to work in on Friday morning. We were very lucky to have four straight days without rain, as the team before us only got 1 1/2 days worth of work in before the rain came pelting down and flooded the site. We spent part of our first day cleaning up the mud that accumulated from that rain. Looks like we'll have to do that again tomorrow!

 

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Welcome to Arbeia, or The Roman Fort at South Shields

I think I've worked out the kinks with the technology, so thanks for hanging in there. I have a bit of catching up to do with posts, but we'll get there.

On Sunday, several of us Earthwatchers, as we are called, went up to the fort for our orientation. Earthwatch, and in turn the dig project, has been hit hard by the state of the economy. Teams have typically been made up of 10-20 members, but this week's group has only four. Earthwatch volunteers provide the labor on this dig project, and without us here, the digging all but ceases. Hearing that was a grim start, but it also made us feel like the work we were about to start is very important. This week's team is made up of myself, Stephen (a 61-year old middle school principal from Perth, Australia), Keith (my age and a HS Biology teacher in Massachusetts), and Maggie (a junior at Worcester State). Stephen was here last year for two weeks and enjoyed it so much, he came back for another week this year.

The fort, which supplied Hadrian's Wall, is located at the top of the lawe (hill) looking down over the River Tyne to the north and the North Sea to the east. Victorian townhouses now surround the fort's perimeter, but at one point, they actually covered a large part of the grounds. When they were built, a small "Roman Ruins Park" was left in the center for all to enjoy. We've seen wonderful photographs of people strolling around with the men wearing top hats and the ladies with their parasols.

Directly across from the fort's main entrance is Hadrian's Primary School. Imagine growing up with a Roman fort reconstruction across the street from your school? That would have thrilled me to no end!

 

 

The fort, and it's museum, is a popular field trip destination. Buses of students arrive daily.

 

 

I am certain you can guess that the most popular item in the gift shop is...

 

...a sword!

Having the school nearby and lots of groups still coming through, has been a bonus for me. There are two weeks of school left before their summer holidays begin, so we haven't seen the last of them. The dig site is on a very public, high-traffic corner, so we get lots of people looking through the fence and curious children yelling, "Have you found any treasure today?"

 

 

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I'm here!

After a modest odyssey, I am finally here. I'm happy to say the journey was uneventful and almost seamless. Both planes were on time and my bag was successfully transferred from one flight to the other at Heathrow. I confess to feeling anxious about whether my bag would be there to greet me in Newcastle, but it was one of the first onto the carousel with a Geordie welcome! My only other anxious moment was when I realized one of my seat mates on the longest flight was a two year old, but he was positively adorable and slept almost the entire way. He was switching in London for a flight to India, and I'm glad to not be joining him. Not sure how long his adorableness would last on that lengthy flight, nor mine, for that matter. South Shields is a bustling seaside community, with lots of holiday makers, as they call them. I've never been to the Jersey Shore, but from what I've seen in pictures, it's a bit similar, with a constant carnival-like atmosphere. The main street, or "High Street," as they refer to it, runs from the city center right down to the amusement park and the beach. Ocean Road is store after store for several blocks and then switches to Victorian townhouses which are all guest houses on one side of the street with Indian restaurants, Fish and Chips shops, and pubs on the other side. The fort where I am digging is a short, but vigorous calf and hamstring-stretching walk up the hill. I have settled into my guesthouse, Seaways, and I'll report on the cast of characters next. I'm having a bit of difficulty inserting images into posts at the moment, but hopefully I'll work that out sooner rather than later.

Almost Time

I am in disbelief that today I leave for my great adventure. Since school got out last Monday, there has been a flurry of activity -- cleaning out my classroom, attending a workshop, attending to many neglected tasks in the garden and in the house, and of course making sure everything is in order for the trip.

Packing has been the least exciting task, I must admit. The process was a bit like "American Idol," deciding who the contestants (clothing articles) would be, who would make the cut, and what was the criteria for moving them on to the next round (does everything go with at least 3-4 other things). 

My brother-in-law played a lovely little joke on me a few weeks ago, presenting me with "the perfect suitcase" for a trip of 30+ days.

He works for a shoe company and brought over the most enormous suitcase that carries shoe samples. This gargantuan piece of luggage was twice the size of my rolling duffle and I was horrified at the sight of it.

There was no way I'd be able to maneuver this behemoth myself through Logan and Heathrow. Of course he was presenting it to me as a gift at a family party and I was desperately trying to smile and be polite, when in fact I was sweating bullets, stressed out of my mind, and near tears. My sister saw the panic-stricken look on my face and immediately called an end to the joke. Thank goodness! Everyone had a good laugh and I proceeded to play the same joke on my traveling companion, Jennie, last week. She was speechless and admitted to having unpleasant thoughts in her head until I, too, called off the joke to save her from having a heart attack.

If all goes to plan, and the WIFI at Heathrow works, I'll let you all know when I've arrived on Saturday. I'm thrilled to have a few hours layover before catching my flight up to Newcastle, which will give me time to get my bearings.

Until then, Cheerio!

Three Weeks to Go

Four years ago I began daydreaming about applying for the Schoen Teacher Travelship. I can hardly believe that three weeks from now I will be settling into a bed and breakfast in South Shields, Northumberland, in the north of England, ready for the adventure of a lifetime. Planning has been nothing short of a roller coaster ride. There was the high of learning I had been selected as this years' winner in February, the exciting, but tedious work of booking everything imaginable from tickets to reservations to passes in March/April, and then the painful lows of learning that a hip replacement in April and slower-than-expected recovery  in May/June would sideline my husband and keep him from sharing the adventure with me. This is still painful for both of us, but we are happy that our friend, and fellow educator, Jennie, will be stepping in to accompany me for the second half of the trip. 

We have one more week of school to go, so it won't be long before I'll be able to focus 100% on the trip. Stay tuned, and I hope you will travel along with me.