This week's site director, Neil Macnab.

The fourth contingent of 10-day trainees, who started this week, included twelve antipodeans taking part in the excavations as part of a tour of England. The excavations were directed this week by Neil Macnab who directed last year's successful Walmgate excavation, following on from Time Team's work, as well as numerous other sites including Roman and medieval excavations between Little Stonegate and Davygate, York. The ceramic building materials specialist Sandra Garside-Neville attended the site on one day to analyse the brick and tile and to talk to the trainees about this type of find. Over 6,500 visitors have now watched the excavation in progress!

Trenches 1 and 2

The parts of Trenches 1 and 2 beneath the standing remains of the medieval hospital had been left largely untouched until now, to provide a space to dig in times of rain. Naturally, this ensured that it didn't rain significantly at all, and so we have had to move into these areas anyway!

In the uncovered part of Trench 1 work progressed on the medieval drain and the wall foundation (see Week 7). Curiously, only Roman pottery has been found in the wall foundation, but we are still of the opinion that it is a medieval wall!

In Trench 2, the Victorian excavations have proved to be more extensive than thought, but gradually the medieval drain is being exposed.

Trench 3

In this trench there are now no traces of the Victorian garden. The inverted capitals, used to form a garden feature by the Victorians, were removed, revealing a medieval column base. This column base rests on its rubble foundations, and is thought to be part of the original medieval infirmary undercroft. However, before this feature can be investigated further the fill of an adjacent Victorian excavation trench will have to be removed. Towards the north-east end of the trench post-medieval industrial features, including a hearth, are under excavation.

This week's finds

In addition to the usual copious amounts of pottery, tile and animal bone, several notable finds were made this week.

One was a medieval bronze seal ring, the type used to imprint a person's seal into the wax on a document.

The second was an enigmatic fragment of a decorated stone object.

A Roman carved bone die was also found...

...and a jet bead.