Danielle Walton
Before starting the field school, I was quite nervous as I didn’t know what to expect or who I would be meeting. But now as the field school is coming to an end, I can say I was worried for nothing as this experience has taught me so much.
I was very lucky to be part of the group referred to as the Foxes, inspired by the fox we saw in the first week of field school. We got very lucky with the plot OA11 on the site BcGn-15 as there was a wall already visible before we even began excavating, this was believed to be part of the basement which we learned more about as we continued to dig. Near the beginning of the course, we had to extend our plot east as it did not cover the entirety of the wall. When we began digging it was quite slow as we were constantly worried that we had hit another context. This is particularly hard as there were many patches of ash and burnt nails, but as we learned more about the context these patches were just part of a backfill. Learning more of the context at OA11 led to us being able to move more quickly through the layers as we revealed the basement.
The majority of finds in OA11 were rusty nails with many being burnt, but there were also a lot of cool ceramics shards that we found. One of my favourite finds was when we found multiple parts of the same teacup with this very pretty decalcomania floral design, meaning that the design was printed on top of the glaze. With it being printed on top means it can be rubbed off and leave these ghost designs. The cup is of fluted design with gold colouring on the rim. As for the material we believed it was bone china, I was able to confirm this after Kate’s suggestion of shining a light through the cup shard. Other than the general design name and material I was not able to find any other information about it.
I am so thankful to the awesome group I was a part of as they made this field school a lot more fun and enjoyable. Thank you, Kate and James, for running this field school. It was so much fun and I learned a lot of what to expect when I continue my career as an archaeologist.
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