Week 2 (21-27 June)

Excavating the Roman rampart in Trench 3, looking towards the back of the rampart. Note the ashy layer (foreground)

Despite another week of unsettled weather the excavation progressed well. There were some 1,100 visitors, bringing the overall total to around 2,000. Several groups of schoolchildren had a great time taking part in special activities including digging, sieving and finds washing.

In Trench 3 the excavation of the second Roman fortress rampart continued. It is becoming clear that the rampart deposits are very mixed. Some were thick and extensive, but others appear to be no bigger than basketloads. These deposits are thought to be mostly derived from human activity. They were quite ashy in places and generally contained large quantities of abraded finds, which suggests they were originally layers of 'rubbish' that had been dug up to be used in the rampart. Finds included more decorated Samian pottery, copper alloy studs with glass inlay decoration, and a startling eye from an unusual Roman head pot.

Excavating the rubbly backfill of a square Victorian excavation pit, apparently within a medieval column foundation pit

Work commenced on re-opening part of Trench 4, in order to expose a previously excavated stretch of the medieval stone drain to public view.

Good progress was made in Trench 5 excavating the fills of 19th and 20th century excavation trenches, revealing a probable medieval column foundation. The significance of this discovery is that the 19th century excavators thought they had located the north-west end of the medieval infirmary at this point, whereas it now seems the infirmary extended further to the north-west. It is therefore possible that the medieval builders used the south side of the Roman Multangular Tower to form the end of the infirmary block, which implies that the Multangular Tower survived into the medieval period. This medieval feature, and its relationship with the Multangular Tower, will be carefully examined over the next few weeks.

The eye from a Roman head pot (maximum dimension 60mm)	A fragment of decorated Samian pottery (maximum dimension 42mm)

Two copper alloy studs with inlay decoration (16mm long/12mm diameter)