Category Archives: VM_365 Project

VM_365 Day 26 – Middle Bronze Age Cremation Urn from Ramsgate

25th July 2014Archaeology, Bronze Age, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Projecteditor

VM 26 — Middle Bronze Age cremation vessel, its location in a shallow pit with two other vessels is shown on the right

A small ring ditch cut into geological deposits was exposed in an excavation on the Westcliff at Ramsgate, carried out in 2002 on the site of a new housing development. Irregular flint nodules spread over the area of the ditch and retained in the soil that filled it suggested it may have been covered by a cairn.

Pieces of a coarse flint tempered vessel found at the base of the ditch, linked the date of the ring ditch with that of a group of five truncated pits that were nearby. Each pit contained between one and three coarse flint tempered ‘Deverel-Rimbury’ style pottery vessels, all but one inverted so that they stood with their rims on the base of the pit. The bases of the vessels, which had been uppermost in the pits, had been disturbed and destroyed at some later time.

Fragments of burnt human bone were distributed irregularly within the soil that filled each vessel. The burnt bone seems to represent material that had been collected from cremation pyres and placed in the vessels, rather than all that remained of the cremation of a single individual.

Today’s picture shows one of the pits (Pit A) being excavated, alongside a photograph of the best preserved Vessel 4, a straight sided, narrow mouthed bucket urn in a coarse flint tempered fabric, decorated down each side with two rows of finger tip impressions. The urn is inverted and stands on its rim as it did in the cremation pit.

All three vessels from Pit A contained cremated bone fragments, two with identifiable bone elements representing two individuals, a child around 10 years of age and an adult. Radiocarbon dating of a fragment of bone from one of the individuals gave a date between 1520-1310 BC, within the Middle Bronze Age.

There’s more about the Middle Bronze Age in Thanet in the Virtual Museum’s Bronze Age gallery.

You can find out more about this site in the published report:
Moody, G., Macpherson-Grant, N. and Anderson, T. 2010. Later Bronze Age Cremation at West Cliff, Ramsgate. Archaeologia Cantiana CXXX 147-172.

VM_365 Day 25 – The Invisible Element

24th July 2014Archaeology, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Projecteditor

Complex joinery in the upper structure of a large timber framed barn

Today’s image is inspired by a visit today to the excavations at Randall Manor in Shorne Wood Country Park, where a complex and prestigious medieval building is now only represented by the footprint of its foundations and low walls.

Although parts of the building may have been constructed in stone, the walls would have supported a superstructure built in timber, none of which survives. In common with buildings excavated on archaeological sites from the Roman period to the 19th century, the work of the carpenters and the spaces that were created within the structure can only be reconstructed now by using surviving examples for comparison, or in the case of more ancient structures by analogy with later joinery techniques.

The picture today is of one of the complex joints in a later medieval timber framed barn the Trust recorded at Chambers Wall, Birchington, when the cladding of the barn had been stripped off prior to the conversion of the structure to a house. The exposure of the skeletal frame of the barn allowed the complex carpentry to be examined in detail, revealing the clever engineering that was involved in using timber to build a structure to enclose a very large space.

The picture shows the complex jointing involved to bring together elements of the frame and the roof of the barn and to join long sections of timber beams while retaining the strength of the structure. All the elements were fixed using only wooden pegs.

A close look at the image will also show the numerals that were carved into each timber to identify its position in the frame when the pieces were manufactured elsewhere and brought to the site to be assembled on a supporting foundation of low brick and flint walls.

Like much of the evidence that archaeology provides, the walls exposed on a site like the Randall Manor excavation only take us part of the way to the story of the construction of the building. We need to stop and consider the elements that would be needed to complete the structure, which now only exist as a body of comparative evidence which we can bring to bear on our reconstruction of the missing elements.

VM_365 Day 24 Symbols of power and weak English coffee

23rd July 2014Archaeology, Beaker, In the Store, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Projecteditor

Three arrowheads associated with the Beaker at Margate

A few years ago a young French PhD researcher called Clément Nicolas, contacted us after seeing a piece on our Virtual Museum on the Beaker Burial discovered at Margate, which featured in the image for VM_365 Day 16.

Today we received a link to the two volumes and CD catalogue of Clément’s PhD thesis Symbols of power at the time of Stonehenge : productions of prestigious arrowheads from Brittany to Denmark (2500-1700 BC), which will no doubt provide an important and valuable resource for archaeological research in the future.

His interest was in the flint arrowheads that are commonly associated with Beaker burials in Britain and on the continent and part of his research involved creating a catalogue of every arrowhead that has been discovered, visiting museums from Brittany to Denmark to photograph and describe each of them.

We were able to show him the the four arrowheads that we had found in association with the Beaker burial at Margate, three with the primary Beaker burial and the fourth with a second skeleton which had been buried a generation later in the same location. Arrow heads that are in the collection at the Powell Cotton Museum were also made available for him to study.

The arrow heads from Margate are of particular interest as they are some of the few in Kent that were actually found in association with a burial. Although many Beaker burials have been found in Thanet, some in association with ‘archer’s wrist guards’ , another typical find from the Beaker archer’s kit, arrow heads remaining in association with a burial are surprisingly rare.

Perhaps his second greatest contribution to archaeology during his visit was to point out that the instant coffee we made for him was far to weak for French tastes and boosted with an extra couple of spoons and reduced to half its volume could be made moderately palatable. We still occasionally offer coffee in ‘Clément’ style to visitors who can take the power.

VM_365 Day 23 Roman Spoon

23rd July 2014Archaeology, Broadstairs, In the Store, Roman, Uncategorised, VM_365 Projecteditor

VM_23 Just how old are spoons? A spoon (apart from a knife) is probably the oldest utensil known to man, being used to scoop up food to eat and for mixing and measuring. The oldest spoons were probably just scoops made from shells, later developing into purpose made scoops with handles and made from wood and bone. Some of the earliest known spoons with handles dating from around 1300 BC have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs and are carved from ebony and ivory.

Our copper alloy spoon bowl, found in a Roman building at Broadstairs in 2004, is much younger, dating to the late second century AD and is without its handle. It was found associated with an oven on the floor of the cellar in a thick sooty deposit that also contained pottery, iron nails, rings and fittings as well as a Roman military belt buckle suggesting that old timber and even clothing was being used to fuel the fire.

You can read more about the site in Moody, G. 2007. Iron Age and Roman British Settlement at Bishop’s Avenue, North Foreland, Broadstairs. Archaeologia Cantiana CXXVII

VM_365 Day 22 – Margate Epigraphy

21st July 2014Archaeology, Landscape, Margate, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Projecteditor

A palimpsest of texts inscribed on the cliff face west of Margate. Who is Violeta, what was special about 1935, is I Steve a vision of the future?

This is just a few metres of an immense running inscription, unfolding a theatre of memory and an archaeology of seaside experience. Will this record be pored over for its meaning in the future or are these human experiences as enduring as the chalk they are written on?

Go and see it one day, see who you can find.

VM_365 Day 19: Saxon Silver hooked tag

18th July 2014Anglo Saxon, Archaeology, From the Archives, Sarre, Uncategorised, VM_365 Projecteditor

Today’s image from the archive is of a ninth century Saxon silver hooked tag excavated in 1991 from a ditch at Sarre. The hooked tag measures 2.5cm high and 1.5cm wide and is a crude design of a Trewhiddle style bird in niello inlay.

Decorated hooked tags are known from the seventh century and continue until the late Medieval period probably because they could be used multiple ways. The holes at the top of the plate were for fixing to cloth or leather and would have been used in a similar way to hook and eye fastenings. Similar tags have been found in association with coin hoards and may be purse fasteners, others have been found in graves where they may have been attached to garters.

VM_19

VM_365 Day 18: Celluloid. Huh. What is it good for?

17th July 2014Archaeology, From the Archives, Uncategorised, VM_365 Projecteditor

Extracting ancient images. We will say that again.

VM 18

Today’s VM 365 image follows on from a theme set by yesterday’s image, which was scanned from an old colour slide dating from the early 1980’s. The image was cleaned up for a new digital generation more experienced with looking at images sent instantly to their phones than delivered using a hot light bulb to the wall of a village hall. Today’s picture is of one slide archive from the 1970’s and early 80’s, full of many hundreds of images that are locked in celluloid slides.

Even though many of these slides were scanned in the early 2000’s, technology moves on and our ability to enhance and manipulate the images progresses every year allowing them to be available and potentially more accessible over time.

Many of the images we will present in the future for VM 365 will come from this valuable resource.

VM_365 Day 17: The Boxer

16th July 2014Archaeology, From the Archives, Margate, Roman, Uncategorised, VM_365 Projecteditor

VM 17

Today’s photo is from the large archive of slides we have from excavations dating back as early as the 1970’s many predating the Trust for Thanet Archaeology. This slide shows a Roman Bronze, no longer in our possession, excavated in 1981 by the Isle of Thanet Archaeological Unit, from a second century chalk quarry at St Peter’s Footpath near Draper’s Mills, Margate. Alongside the slide are Dr Dave Perkins’ illustrations which show it in more detail.
The head is bald and shows a lock of wavy hair at the back. There is a phallus and a pair of testicles modelled on top of the head; a symbol used to ward off the ‘Evil Eye’.
The head is hollow and measures 63mm high with a 50mm diameter base. It was probably a decorative mount for a horse harness and intended as a good luck charm.

The full details of the Boxer were published in Kent Archaeological Society’s journal Archaeologia Cantiana 97 pages 307-311 by the late Dr David Perkins.

VM_365 Day 16 The intellectual in pursuit of the unglueable!

15th July 2014Archaeology, Beaker, In the Store, North Foreland, Prehistoric pottery, Uncategorised, Uncategorized, VM_365 Projecteditor

Following on from VM_365 15, today’s image shows how it is possible to reconstruct vessels when only fragments remain.

VM 16

The sherds from a once complete Beaker vessel were found in the grave of a 40 to 50 year old male, radiocarbon dated to 2460-2200 BC, excavated near the QEQM Hospital, Margate. The vessel had been crushed as the grave structure decayed and some sherds had eroded completely making it impossible to reassemble. The vessel was reconstructed instead with a drawing by taking careful measurements of joining sections of remaining sherds and using the measurements to complete a full profile and section.

VM_365 Day 15 Piecing together the past

14th July 2014Archaeology, In the Store, Thanet archaeology, Uncategorised, VM_365 Projecteditor

Image of a Late Iron Age Fineware Jar — Late Iron Age Fineware Jar 25 -75AD, Found at Hartsdown, Margate in 2003

The image from the Virtual Musuem 365 project today is of a Late Iron Age ‘Belgic’ Fineware jar, which was reconstructed from sherds that were found together in an archaeological feature at a site excavated at Hartsdown, Margate in 2003.

The joins between each sherd were matched and carefully glued to reconstruct the profile of this vessel which now forms part of the Trust’s display collection.