Villa Magna

On Seiving and Sections

There are a number of common archaeological practices that I find silly and spurious, like registering how many rims bases handles there are in the coarseware sherds, before any further cataloguing has been done. What possible use is it? Perhaps after we are down to 47 sherds Hayes 91 it will be good to make a minimum number of vessels but not until then. So on discovering that the initial cataloguing of sherds has been including this information it seems to be a good moment to kill it, and transform the figures into totals. This will also stop sad pot people coming in to ask what do do with a flange, or the top of a lid. But although consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds I decided to be consistent about my claim that we sieved middens. This has not been necessary in that middens in imperial villas are rare to say the least, but the drain running down the corridor in the ‘barracks’ was so full of pottery it seemed criminal not to treat it properly. So a sieve was made and sieving started and coin recovery went from 2 a day to 15 an hour. Not to mention vast numbers of small finds (including most unbarracks –like hairpins) and surprisingly a more consistent recovery of amphorae, which presumably disguise themselves as clods of dirt more successfully than Hayes 91’s.

Sections are of course about bella figura, and thus shouldn’t really matter. But section cleaning in Granary III actually produced fully 2 new walls, which was a striking confirmation that Wheeler didn’t get it all wrong.

We have, as usual, bitten off more than we can chew and I am working hard on a bobcat.

— Lisa Fentress· Jul 18, 07:14