LAARC VIP – Week 2
October 10, 2008 Blogroll, General Finds Project, LAARC VIP Staff, Metal Store Project, Specialist Workshops, UncategorizedLAARC VIP Project – Week 2, (By Glynn Davis)
The second week of the LAARC’s VIP project has really started to make an impact on the Archive – with new volunteers on board, new shelving space acquired and a study of Milk Street’s archaeology by Museum of London specialists.
General Finds:
Having started repackaging pottery from the 1972 Milk Street excavation (MIL72) last week, this week we have really achieved a lot! All Ceramic Pottery has been repackaged and ordered as well as all the Animal Bone, and we have made a start on the site’s Building Material. Along the way we have discovered some interesting animal scenes on Roman Samian Ware and the remains of a few moggies amongst the large collections of Animal Bone. Already our work shows the vast improvement that can be made to the storage and packaging of material as well as the extra shelf space – in addition we’re discovering artefacts that have been completely forgotten about!
Metal Store:
Although focus has been on the general finds this week, Adam and volunteers have still made great headway in the metal store. All site codes to 1975 have been segregated and some fantastic artefacts have been brought to light. A metal plaque belonging to an antique knife cleaner (researched by Andy) will certainly be entered for our object of the month. In addition a database has started to be complied to make sure we know where all this material is being moved to!
Roman Cemetery Sites
For more info, take a look at http://laarcvipu3a.wetpaint.com/
Museum Specialists:
This week we started our workshops with the Museum of London specialists. Jacqui Pearce examined some of the reconstructed pots from MIL72 – some great examples of Kingston Ware (London) and Surrey/Hampshire border Ware. The Glass & Ceramics store was a great resource for seeing how the site’s examples fit into the history of London’s ceramics.
Alan Pipe took us through some of MIL72s huge amount of animal bone, pointing out the subtle zoological differences between Cow, Sheep, Pig, Horse, Cat…and Duck!
  