Gambling soldiers?

Today, John declared, was better than sliced bread because... We found four dice which appear to be made from bone, each just 7mm across, AND an Elizabeth I copper halfpenny, minted 1601!

The 4 dice found when sieving (by Dermot, Emily, Sean and John S)

 

 

The Elizabethan halfpenny with a harp and crown and a shield on the reverse (the 2nd of two coins from the site - both found by Sean)

 

Not only did we find these five fabulous objects we also found a very small tobacco pipe bowl - the smallest any of us on the site have ever come across - and possibly 16th century in date.

 

 

We are now below the burials which we have provisionally dated to the 17th-century based on the finds and stratigraphy. The discovery of the 1601 coin and early pipe bowl below these would allow us to suggest that we are potentially in the earliest phase of English settlement and conquest of the town under Henry Docwra. We know he set up camp around the ruins of the monastery. Perhaps the discovery of these finds along with the dice could be from gambling soldiers stationed in the fort..??

And just to round off the day, we found part of a wall - could it be part of the remains of the Augustinian monastery....??

Stuart excavating the remains of the wall

 

Three classes from the Long Tower Primary School visited us today as did Mark Patterson along with the newly appointed bishop, The Rev. Pat Storey. Mark recorded a couple of interviews to go out on air tomorrow and for his FaceBook page (follow the link for the footage).

The start of Week 3

A glorious sunny day to the start of our third week. We weren't long on site before the thermals were discarded and the bottles of sun lotion that have been sitting on our window sill didn't seem quite so misplaced.. It was also a day of fabulous home-baking; apple and loganberry tart from Hazel and brownies from Sean! A diet-dig this ain't...

Today we were visited by three classes from the Model Primary School along with a coachload of mostly American tourists who had an added stop on their Derry City tour. People called by throughout the day including Canon Howe and his wife who used to live in the Rectory formerly on this site. They were amazed with the excavation and amused that their Rhode Island hens used to run about in the garden above all this (it would be great to get a photo if it exists..).

We lifted the last two of the five burials we had planned to excavate. One of these, one of the pair in the double burial, displayed an unusual anomaly. When Grace and Darbhina (volunteer) lifted the lower arm bones of the right arm, the radius and ulna, they discovered an elongated depression or hollow running across  the vertebrae underneath where the arm had rested. This is a post-mortem anomaly but suggests that the vertebrae must have been unusually soft or week.

Grace and Darbhina excavating one of the skeletons which displayed an elongated depression in the vertebrae - close-up below.

The excavated grave cuts

 

We also completed the recording of the grave cuts (context sheets and profiles) and planned the site. Greg visited us again and metal detected the spoil discovering another musket shot, smaller than the two we had previously found (possibly a pistol shot?).

We also found a worked piece of stone that has a circular cut, through which it has been broken - possibly a door pivot stone?

A pivot stone?