LAARC VIP9: Week 7
November 18, 2011 Archaeology, Blogs, LAARC, LAARC VIP, VolunteersSkin & Bones
For week 7 we concentrated our work on two main materials: leather & animal bone.
With Glynn’s return, he got the volunteers involved in improving assemblages of animal bone from Seal House (links to online catalogue) which meant a big sorting exercise. Similar bones were bagged up together creating bags full of such things as femurs, ribs and mandibles. As long as the bones all come from the same ‘context’, that’s to say the same feature or layer in the ground, they can go together. Overall we try to find a balance between good storage and good access to these collections.
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Over on the other side of the project, Adam turned his attention to leather collections. Lots of sites were checked and sorted this week including leather from Bull Wharf (links to online catalogue) which produced this star object:
Roman decorative "caliga" shoe rosette
The leather from the site next door to Bull Wharf was tackled on Tuesday and among the fine artefacts was this cool scabbard fragment:
And Friday’s team completed lots of little sites including excavations at Bishopsgate, Great Tower Street and Cheapside as well as one of two big investigations at Vintry. Their star find was this studded strap:
Wednesday’s family group checked the other Vintry excavation which produced phenomenal finds such as this drawstring purse:
Inspired by the medieval shoes the children went on to make their own miniature shoes from pieces of felt. The results were cool (but small) as seen in this week’s photo of the week.
The University of the Third Age returned to animal bone as they packed their last finds of the project. Next week they’ll be starting to put together their creative projects based on their experience so far.
Finally, we had the pleasure of MOLA specialist, Jacqui Pearce, who led this week’s workshop, which focused on clay tobacco pipes.
The working life of Museum of London » Blog Archive » Object of LAARC VIP9 – Round 2 :
Date: December 7, 2011 @ 12:18 pm
[...] Third up is a well preserved example of a medieval purse. The ‘medieval’ style of wearing a purse was for it to be hung from the waist, attaching to a belt or girdle. Later types would thread through the belt as an anti-bandit mechanism. This one was excavated from the medieval waterfront at Vintry, hence its fantastic survival condition. It was found alongside dress fittings, trade seals, metalworking waste and coins…but none were found in the actual purse! It was audited by Wednesday volunteer Hannah during week 7 [...]
The working life of Museum of London » Blog Archive » Object of LAARC VIP9 – Round 4 :
Date: December 8, 2011 @ 12:12 pm
[...] Third up are these rare examples of Roman sandal rosettes from 1990’s Bull Wharf investigations. The Y-shaped sandal strap would be secured between the toes with a leather peg holding the functional rosette piece – hence the two slits. The additional rosette piece would have been appliquéd to the top and is purely decorative. It is interesting that such detail has been applied to such a small piece of leather. This footwear fashion was popular across the empire (especially Egypt) with examples having been found at military sites including Vindolanda (Hadrian’s Wall), Germany and Switzerland. They were audited by Monday volunteer John O C during week 7. [...]