Pula is a fascinating place with lots of history and has the 6th largest Roman amphitheatre in the world and the most complete outer walls. There's also lots of Medieval history too.
The day before I flew out to Pula I received a text from one of our landowners to say that he'd drilled the newly ploughed fields with peas.
Returning to the UK saw the cases unpacked and the Déus on charge.
We visited a field we hadn't seen since December 2015 and one that had produced 174 pieces of Roman pottery and several coins on that occasion.
The 40-acre field was flat and only showing the drill lines as there was no sight of the crop yet.
Within 5 minutes the first three Roman coins and a quern stone fragment were recovered. These were found by the same machine and the now expected and overused phrase was uttered "is your machine switched on?".
Thankfully the situation was resolved and a total of 87 roman coins were recovered with one being a nice denarius of Septimius Severus.
Oddly enough, only ONE metallic artefact was found in the form of a tiny Roman slider ring. No fibulae or the usual Roman items came to light.
Several pottery fragments lay on the field surface including Samian Ware.
Nice fragments of grey ware rim sherds were recovered showing some nice features.
Normally fibulae, or parts thereof, are found when a large amounts of coinage are recovered but this is the second time here with the same result.
The machines were setup using V4, GMP, Manual GB and the 13" x 11" coils. The finds came from the surface and to a maximum depth of 4 inches.
No large iron items were dug but the green waste recovery was very high.
Lots of small ferrous targets were detected indicating habitation along with 3 to 4 bars on the mineralisation chart to support this.
The MI-6 probes glitched a couple of times by not connecting to the Déus straight away. There doesn't appear to be any explanation as to why this fault should occur.
However, the 99% of the time that they were working perfectly showed just how great they are. The pitch mode is superb at homing in on those shy targets.
During what must have been the wettest part of the day the landowners came over for a chat and a catch-up accompanied by their two dogs.