The working life of Museum of London

A fall in numbers this week, but still whole sites completed and the second round of specialist workshops

Monday’s team were all present and divided themselves into two teams to tackle the registered finds from the Ludgate Hill site excavated in 1974 (LH74). An abundance of stone hones were found on the site and prior to Monday had all been assigned individual registered finds numbers but had been bundled altogether in large bags making it extremely time consuming to find any particular one. So the volunteers very patiently separated them out and ordered them, before repacking them into more managable, accessible bags, with the hones laid out in order. In addition ceramic, bone and glass finds were checked off, included paw print tiles, glass vessels and even some hair and food samples!

Tuesday’s volunteers made a triumphant return after illnesses reduced numbers last week. In contrast to Monday, the whole team worked on general finds, mainly animal bone and pottery  from Harp Lane (HL74) All the animal bone from the site was processed and relabeled and several boxes of pottery were tackled also.

No action on Wednesday as the U3A/Mossbourne Academy team of 13 stopped for half term break. Adam and Glynn took the opportunity to rebox and update the digital records for the sites worked on so far during VIP4. The “Wednesday’s” return next week to start the general finds from Shoreditch Park (NNR05)

Only 1 volunteer this week from Thursday’s team and he worked on a registered finds from Baynards House (MM74) in the morning, continuing with general finds from Harp Lane (HL74) after lunch.

The three workshops this week started with Jackie Keily’s Leather talk on Monday, followed by Geoff Egan’s metal finds handling session on Tuesday and were completed by Jacqui Pearce’s Clay Tobacco Pipe workshop on Thursday.

 So far so good as we’re on track to complete our targets as we reach next week’s half way point! To view other photos from week 4 and previous weeks visit our Flickr site