Tuesday 2nd July: it takes a while for the excavation to ‘bed down’…..on site the new people have to be taught the Silchester systems; off site the mechanics of the dig have to be dusted down and tried and tested for the new season. It can take a while!
Today we hosted a school visit, and my Visitor Manager Ross came into his own with his Visitor Team. Meet Joe, the Visitor Trainee, and Emily the 2nd year student on a Placement! Come and visit us and Joe or Emily may take you around the site!
Today’s school was the Geoffrey Field School: 67 Year 3 children who were beautifully behaved and loved the experience. Ross has devised a number of activities, including a site tour, digging in our Childrens’ sand pit, working with artefacts and learning how to draw an archaeological plan. A great deal of enthusiasm was on show!
The ‘Planning pit’ for children to learn how to draw an archaeological plan
First thing in the morning I ran a session in St. Mary’s Church for some of the newcomers, teaching them via PowerPoint about the Silchester recording system – how we write about, draw, photograph and excavate the tens of thousands of archaeological layers in our trench. I also included an introduction to our archaeological database, the Integrated Archaeological Database (IADB). This was also a chance for me to get to know some of the newcomers…I like to pride myself on learning names quite quickly……but with 113 new people, I have my work cut out for me! I also like to find out the ‘back stories’ of those who are not Reading students…..we have so many people of all ages and backgrounds who join us, from civil engineers to architects to managers to teachers. The prospect of archaeology attracts them all.
The evening’s entertainment was a Quiz put on by the Reading University Archaeology Society; the staff team did not win but I was assured it was a ‘fix’. But much fun was had by all.
Tuesday night’s Quiz