Washed Out

Area B under water
The wall trench in Area A under water

Day two of Katie and I's week has been rained out. I took a couple of pictures to show how bad the trenches have filled up. Both Justin and Andy were amazed at the amount of water. I guess the trenches have never filled up so much in just a day. The area Katie and I are excavating is under at least 8 inches of water. Some sections from each excavation area have four feet of water which will be difficult to drain and keep drained as it continues to rain the rest of today and tomorrow.

We did find a few interesting things on our first day of digging. We found a ceramic gaming counter and a large fragment of a DEA NUTRIX statuette but no shoes, yet. The statue is a goddess mother figure that is seated in a wicker chair and has a basket of produce or a child in her arms. The statuette is most likely part of a house shrine instead of a temple. The full height would probably be around ten inches. I hope we find more of it and are able to see the whole thing.
Dea Nutrix statuette fragment

And now for Katie's blog comments!
So, yesterday was my first day of digging, and it was warm and sunny for the most part (it rained while we had lunch). Matt introduced me to all of the archaeologists he has been working with these last two months and I got to see some of the areas I had only been seeing here in photos on the blog. What Matt did not mention about the ceramic statuette fragment is that he identified it immediately when we pulled it out of the trench. I was holding a muddy piece of what looked like pottery and noticed that it was a funky shape, and Matt said, oh that is at Dea Nutrix statuette! He has got this archeology thing figured out!

Today after going to Vindolanda and checking out the entire fort underwater we went into Hexham and found me some waterproof hiking boots and wellies, as my sneakers were already soaked through just from walking around the site. The amount of rain we have gotten is amazing, but it seems to be slacking off now, so hopefully the rest of the week will be dry and we can get back to digging. Stay tuned!
Katie