Today's survey was a visit to two fields that are side-by-side, one was 'worked' and the other ploughed.
The worked field has produced several denarii, a few fibulae and pottery including Samian Ware. An area where a denarii hoard was located was chosen to see if the working had disturbed any more denarii there.
A Roman trumpet fibula dating to the C2nd was recovered then the first denarius from the original hoard spot was detected. The emperor on the coin was Vespasian (69 - 79 AD) and had a copper green deposit adhered to its surface. The same deposit was also evident on a majority of the hoard coins too.
A second denarius of Vespasian in the same area of the first coin was recovered and again, this had the copper deposit upon it.
Quite a few small sherds of Samian Ware were collected near to the denarii.
Nothing else was found in the large area searched surrounding the hoard site so we decided to move over to the ploughed field.
The second field was drilled with wheat and the shoots were about 3 inches long so the view of the surface was fairly good. This helped in the recovery of several sherds of Roman pottery with some very large pieces of rim sherd being found. Oyster shell and a Devils Toenail were also found on the field surface.
Part-way through the survey we saw footprints coming from the side of the field and back again. These were at 90 degree's to the field edge and looked as though whoever it was were using a wild bird crop cover to hide in if disturbed. Quite a few holes had been dug and some still had the greenwaste left in the holes.
Whoever the nighthawker was, he did a very amateurish job at searching the field as we found lots of Roman grots near to their footprints as well as a Roman brooch complete with its pin! He'd also missed a bronze numus of Allectus which was in fairly good condition. A siliqua of Valens and another denarius, this time it was that of Trajan,were also recovered in this area.
Our thoughts are that the nighthawker has been coming for years as they knew that this area was a particular "hot-spot". Imagine what must have stolen over the years!
Now for the technical bit.
Two machines were used, both running V5.2 and standard GMP mode with one machine fitted with the 9" HF coil and the other, the 13" X35 coil.
Last week the 9" HF coil didn't find any of the 9 hammered Medieval coins compared to the 13" X35 machines which found all of them. The X35 machines also found the majority of the artefacts too.
This week it was the other way around where the 9" HF set-up found far more than the 13" X35..... again, this shows that you've got to walk over it and, as we use parallel lines, side-by-side, the soil conditions are the same so we can't use that excuse either. We also swapped lines regularly so the two of us were never on the same return leg of the field.
We are extremely comfortable with the end result of a survey as umpteen times now, one may find lots and the other two not as much or two will find lots and the third member nothing! Again, it proves that you have to walk over it!
A perfect example of this was that the X35 machine found the first 5 Roman bronze coins then, all of a sudden, the HF machine started to find coins and tripled the amount of Roman bronzes. The HF machine also recovered both Roman fibulae!
HD images of the finds on the day can be seen here.
The worked field has produced several denarii, a few fibulae and pottery including Samian Ware. An area where a denarii hoard was located was chosen to see if the working had disturbed any more denarii there.
A Roman trumpet fibula dating to the C2nd was recovered then the first denarius from the original hoard spot was detected. The emperor on the coin was Vespasian (69 - 79 AD) and had a copper green deposit adhered to its surface. The same deposit was also evident on a majority of the hoard coins too.
A second denarius of Vespasian in the same area of the first coin was recovered and again, this had the copper deposit upon it.
Quite a few small sherds of Samian Ware were collected near to the denarii.
Nothing else was found in the large area searched surrounding the hoard site so we decided to move over to the ploughed field.
The second field was drilled with wheat and the shoots were about 3 inches long so the view of the surface was fairly good. This helped in the recovery of several sherds of Roman pottery with some very large pieces of rim sherd being found. Oyster shell and a Devils Toenail were also found on the field surface.
Part-way through the survey we saw footprints coming from the side of the field and back again. These were at 90 degree's to the field edge and looked as though whoever it was were using a wild bird crop cover to hide in if disturbed. Quite a few holes had been dug and some still had the greenwaste left in the holes.
Whoever the nighthawker was, he did a very amateurish job at searching the field as we found lots of Roman grots near to their footprints as well as a Roman brooch complete with its pin! He'd also missed a bronze numus of Allectus which was in fairly good condition. A siliqua of Valens and another denarius, this time it was that of Trajan,were also recovered in this area.
Our thoughts are that the nighthawker has been coming for years as they knew that this area was a particular "hot-spot". Imagine what must have stolen over the years!
Now for the technical bit.
Two machines were used, both running V5.2 and standard GMP mode with one machine fitted with the 9" HF coil and the other, the 13" X35 coil.
Last week the 9" HF coil didn't find any of the 9 hammered Medieval coins compared to the 13" X35 machines which found all of them. The X35 machines also found the majority of the artefacts too.
This week it was the other way around where the 9" HF set-up found far more than the 13" X35..... again, this shows that you've got to walk over it and, as we use parallel lines, side-by-side, the soil conditions are the same so we can't use that excuse either. We also swapped lines regularly so the two of us were never on the same return leg of the field.
We are extremely comfortable with the end result of a survey as umpteen times now, one may find lots and the other two not as much or two will find lots and the third member nothing! Again, it proves that you have to walk over it!
A perfect example of this was that the X35 machine found the first 5 Roman bronze coins then, all of a sudden, the HF machine started to find coins and tripled the amount of Roman bronzes. The HF machine also recovered both Roman fibulae!
HD images of the finds on the day can be seen here.
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