Today was the second visit this season to one of our oldest permissions; TS1 and with even less daylight than last week we had 7hrs and 57mins to complete today's survey. The weather was great when we arrived just as dawn was breaking.
With only Rob and myself to carry out the survey, we switched on as soon as we could. We invited one of the MDF forum members (Scott T) along but he couldn't make it as he was working late and decided to have a lie-in and power wash the drive instead.
We located the point at which we finished last week and made our way down the newly seeded wheat lines.
It wasn't long before the first of the Roman coins were recovered with the Déus' set at GMP with the 13" x 11" coils. It just goes to show how sensitive the large coils are retrieving minims that were several times smaller than the denarii we'd found here. The brooches were just blowing the headphones off and for a change, some of the finds were coming in at 5 and 6 inches deep. Not bad for a Roman site that has been used for over 350 years. Mind you, the nail count was pretty high and the mineralisation was high too with lots of burning going on.
This was backed up by the recovery of several pieces of molten bronze scattered over the site.
My next line was to search along the 24 metre tractor lines and in the tyre track I got a small signal that sounded "good" but bounced from 34 to 45, a typical "foil" signal. The thing is... this field is in the middle of nowhere so not much chance of foil being there. Sure enough, it was a tiny Celtic silver unit.
The finds came in dribs and drabs with; 55 bronze Roman coins, a denarius of Julia Domna, a siliqua of Magnus Maximus, an Iron Age toggle fastener (dumbbell style), a superb Roman intaglio ring completely undamaged, a beautiful gold Roman intaglio ring insert, three Roman brooches, Roman pottery in the form of Samian Ware, Grey Ware and Grit Ware with a lovely piece of Bronze Age pottery being recovered too. Four knapped flint pieces were also recovered with one in the form of a nice opaque leaf blade.
In all there were 29 pieces of pottery.
The impression from the gold piece looks like a depiction of the Lighthouse at Alexandria in Egypt whilst the other intaglio appears to be an altar and cross above it?
The full set of High Definition images can be seen here.
With only Rob and myself to carry out the survey, we switched on as soon as we could. We invited one of the MDF forum members (Scott T) along but he couldn't make it as he was working late and decided to have a lie-in and power wash the drive instead.
We located the point at which we finished last week and made our way down the newly seeded wheat lines.
It wasn't long before the first of the Roman coins were recovered with the Déus' set at GMP with the 13" x 11" coils. It just goes to show how sensitive the large coils are retrieving minims that were several times smaller than the denarii we'd found here. The brooches were just blowing the headphones off and for a change, some of the finds were coming in at 5 and 6 inches deep. Not bad for a Roman site that has been used for over 350 years. Mind you, the nail count was pretty high and the mineralisation was high too with lots of burning going on.
This was backed up by the recovery of several pieces of molten bronze scattered over the site.
My next line was to search along the 24 metre tractor lines and in the tyre track I got a small signal that sounded "good" but bounced from 34 to 45, a typical "foil" signal. The thing is... this field is in the middle of nowhere so not much chance of foil being there. Sure enough, it was a tiny Celtic silver unit.
The finds came in dribs and drabs with; 55 bronze Roman coins, a denarius of Julia Domna, a siliqua of Magnus Maximus, an Iron Age toggle fastener (dumbbell style), a superb Roman intaglio ring completely undamaged, a beautiful gold Roman intaglio ring insert, three Roman brooches, Roman pottery in the form of Samian Ware, Grey Ware and Grit Ware with a lovely piece of Bronze Age pottery being recovered too. Four knapped flint pieces were also recovered with one in the form of a nice opaque leaf blade.
In all there were 29 pieces of pottery.
The impression from the gold piece looks like a depiction of the Lighthouse at Alexandria in Egypt whilst the other intaglio appears to be an altar and cross above it?
The full set of High Definition images can be seen here.
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