Today’s image for Day 233 of the VM_365 project shows the various stages of the reconstruction of a Bronze Age Collared Urn excavated from a child’s grave at Bradstow School, Broadstairs in 2009. The grave was located on the periphery of a round barrow which was partly excavated in advance of a construction project.

The vessel had been crushed flat by the pressure of the soil above and a significant portion had to be reconstructed so that the vessel could be properly identified and drawn.

After excavation the washed fragments of pottery from the flattened urn were allowed to dry. Joining sections of the rim and body  were laid out on a table in order  (image left) and  were then painstakingly glued and left to dry in a sand tray (top right).

Not all the sherds could be glued together and in the end it was generally  only the thicker parts of the rim that could be joined (bottom right). However enough was reconstructed to provide a profile of the vessel and allow our prehistoric ceramics specialist to understand the vessel and produce an illustration reconstructing the full profile.