We went on a tour of Durham, seeing all the beautiful sites in this gorgeous city. Pam Graves, a faculty member at Durham University, led the tour. She made it very interesting with her impressively extensive knowledge of the town. My favorite part was learning about St. Oswald, whose head was cut off and placed in the coffin of St. Cuthbert. But the most exciting part of the tour was going to Durham Cathedral and seeing the courtyard, where scenes from the Harry Potter movie took place. I took a bazillion pictures! I was annoyed with myself when I saw how many pictures I had to upload. Here is one below, and the rest will be up on FB.
I feel so bad, since Pam had to put up with our intense picture taking. But I couldn't help myself. I wanted to capture every part of Durham. She was amazing, being patient with our questions and camera moments. Then we went to lunch with Beth, who is working really hard to make sure we get the best out of our time here. We also met Rebecca from Fulbright, who really made it possible for us to be here, safe, sound, and happy. Fiona, such a sweet person, joined us too! We had such a great time, with the wonderful conversations and food. We went to an Italian restaurant called Zizzi and the food was really great :)
We finally got our ID cards with Beth afterwards and explored the more modern part of the university! We took even more pictures when she took us to the terrace of what I believe is the science building, giving us a breathtaking view of the city.
The next day, we woke up feeling a lot better than we did in the last two days. The possible jet lag was wearing off. Kelsey, Erin, and I went to work on the Vicus, which is the civilian settlement area of Binchester. Three of us used mattocks to expose another layer of section near an already dug up road called Dere Street. The previous site was already recorded, and the site directors wanted to know more about what may be under this surface. The mattocks were really fun to use, though I think my palms may never recover. After we some cobbles were exposed, we decided to use the trowels to clean up the excess the dirt around them. We're not finished yet, but I'm really looking forward to continuing our work tomorrow.
The most exciting part of today was Erin finding a coin! At first we couldn't tell what it was but then, Jamie, our supervisor showed us an faint impression of a face. For this particular section, if we found anything like an iron nail or a coin, we had to record it in a small finds book and bag it with the appropriate excavation, context, and item number. Though small finds are not exactly rare at the site, we become very excited when we do find one because it doesn't happen often. Funnily enough, it is a running joke among all of us to call something a small find if we see or do something that is relatively rare, such as Kelsey saying something kind to Adam ;) Hence, the title of my post!
The day become very strange after we returned from the site. At dinner, we sat next to two students from Texas Tech. They are very, um, unique individuals, but very entertaining! When we finished dinner, they took our plates up for us! They even poured me water, because apparently "Ladies shouldn't pour the drinks." I was so touched by their chivalry that I almost started crying! What a small find :) I wasn't sure whether or not this was unique to all Texan males. However, Erin, who grew up in Dallas, told me that it was strange for even people from Texas!
We then attended a lecture given by David Petts on Roman Britain. I frantically took notes and I'm sure his helpful information will help us better understand Binchester as an archaeological site. After this, the six of us decided to celebrate the Fourth of July by going the pub called the Shakespeare. We had heard this place sticks to the old fashioned style of pubs.
But before we could go into the pub, we noticed that something was going on at the market place. There was a group of people dancing! We later found out that it was Morris dancing. The dancers encouraged us to join them. And we did! I was a little self conscious at first, especially since I don't dance very well. But, once the music started going, it was a very hard to pull away. Luckily, Adam and another Texas Tech person called Will who had joined us on the way, recorded it. I will put up a video soon when I am able to get it from Erin.
Happy, excited, and maybe a tiny bit proud of ourselves, the six of us made our to the pub. The rest of night was fun as were joined by other students from the field school. It was wonderful getting to know them in such a relaxed setting. We had good drinks, great music, and excellent company! I am happy to say we ended Independence Day very successfully :)
No comments:
Post a Comment