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On Sunday 3rd July 2011 Cosmeston Archaeology took it’s first tentative steps on Twitter. A day later, buoyed by the discovery of our ram head aquamanile, we decided to challenge other tweeting excavations to a ‘Finds Off’ to see if they could match our stunning artefact. You can also read this on Storify.The aquamanile (a type of high status vessel which would used for hand washing at meals) was discovered in a large demolition layer that sealed the medieval deposits at Cosmeston.
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For a full breakdown on the background and latest research on the ram see the blog below:
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Do you remember the fantastic rams head aquamanile that was discovered at Cosmeston during the 2011 excavation? Today Cardiff PhD student…
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Discovering this amazing artefact early on in the excavation season (and so soon after the project had expanded it’s digital presence) buoyed our confidence.
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“What other tweeting excavations are there at the moment (besides @brparchaeology )? Could we organise a finds off? #archaeology
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Surely no other excavation could match our stunning ram?
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Bamburgh responded with an ambiguous but confident tweet mentioning gold.Still, surely even a bit of gold couldn’t match our beautiful sherd of Welsh pot?
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Ah.Bamburgh had responded with this extraordinary gold plaque. You can read about it’s discovery in their blog:
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Over the course of yesterday T3 had unearthed a series of interesting finds. As we were readying ourselves to pack up and head home, Cons…
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With Twitter being such an instantaneous and public method of communication there were some questions on how wise it was to publicise such a stunning find:
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Nighthawks is a colloquial term used by archaeologists, heritage professionals and metal detectorists to refer to unethical metal detectorists who “trespass on to land…any finds are sold on to unscrupulous dealers” rather than officially declare them. Luckily Bamburgh had no need to worry about such unscrupulous individuals:
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“@Sarah_May1 We are inside the curtain walls of Bamburgh Castle which has heavy security.
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Silchester excavation quickly joined in the fun:
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“This large glass bead with twisted marvered blue & white decoration was found today @brparchaeology @CosmestonArch null
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“@silchexcavation Oh wow, that is rather beautiful. We saw that @RomanBinchester had a lovely bracelet as well.
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The bracelet in question:
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Nice #Roman #bracelet discovered at #Binchester this week! More on blog: http://binchester.blogspot.com #archaeology #Durham #UK http://yfrog.com/khonap -
With such a fantastic range of archaeological artefacts being shared on Twitter (often moments after they had come out of the ground) we thought a unifying hashtag might be useful to make it easy for people to follow all these amazing discoveries as they developed:
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“@silchexcavation @brparchaeology @RomanBinchester Perhaps there could be a #findoftheday tag to bring these amazing objects together?
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It seemed a popular idea:
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“@CosmestonArch @brparchaeology @RomanBinchester #findoftheday tag is a great idea!
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And so #FindOfTheDay was launched.
University research excavation were not the only ones tweeting pictures of objects:
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@m_law has a rather lovely #Neolithic #findoftheday http://lockerz.com/s/117610907 -
The finds quickly started to mount, with some great Roman artefacts courtesy of Silchester and Binchester:
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“Candidate for #findoftheday a samian stamp from the workshop of the potter Niger from Southern Gaul AD50- AD70 null
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#Roman (#Latin) inscription from #Binchester! #findoftheday http://yfrog.com/klyewp -
Meanwhile we had rusty medieval iron:
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“A fab find to start our day. Iron arrow head. Does anyone have an idea of date or any other info? null
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To which Silchester had a much better preserved copper alloy brooch:
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“Bit bored this Wednesday? Check out the #FindsOfTheDay from @silchexcavation – some astonishing objects coming up at the moment
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…and we had more medieval pottery…
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The large green sherds are from a French Saintonge jug (13th – 14th Century). Whoever lived in the manor house at Cosmeston had some fancy tastes!
Finds were now coming up thick and fast. Binchester came up trumps with a whole altar: -
Delayed #findoftheday from #Binchester #Roman #Fort on Monday: small stone #altar! #archaeology #Durham #UK http://yfrog.com/ki9rkpp -
“@silchexcavation we certainly can’t compete with the rate of finds you are retrieving. Archaeology envy!
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As we expanded our use of Twitter we discovered many more tweeting digs and became aware of how UK biased #FindOfTheDay was, something we sought to rectify:
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“@GrandPre2009 a few of the tweeting excavations in action at the moment are using #FindOfTheDay to illustrate best/favourite finds
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“@GrandPre2009 It’s very UK focussed at the moment, you should join in and broaden our horizons
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“@CosmestonArch Thanks, we’ll take you up on that! We have a wonderful coin to feature, which I’ll blog about later this week. #findoftheday
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Grand-Pré is a post-medieval settlement in Nova Scotia (Canada) founded by Acadian settlers in 1680. Saint Mary’s University is excavating the site, the coin they refer to in the tweet is pictured below:
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You can read about their ongoing work at the site on their blog below:
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We’re continuing to come down on this strange stone feature, at this point unsure of what it may be. Things are definitely coming togethe…
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Meanwhile, back in the UK, Silchester were continuing to make amazing discoveries:
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“However, our #findoftheday is… an Iron Age Coin!! From an environmental sample, found by Jess! null
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“@silchexcavation are continuing to discover amazing objects. Check out their #findoftheday for the latest awesome discoveries #archaeology
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Towards the end of July another Cardiff University excavation started at Ham Hill in Somerset.. This large Iron Age hillfort was being jointly excavated by a team of students from the University and professional archaeologists from the Cambridge Archaeological Unit. As the project had a strong web presence from the start (see their blog here) we encouraged them to join in with #FindOfTheDay.
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“@hamhillfort any chance of tweeting your favourite finds as #FindOFTheDay – All the cool kids (like us & @silchexcavation ) are doing it
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Naturally, not wanting to seem uncool, Ham Hill joined in:
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As did the Cardiff University excavation at Caerleon Legionary Fortress (read their blog here):
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“#findoftheday Part of an Antefix (gable ornament) from Trench 7 twitpic.com/62mfl6
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We, meanwhile, had even more pot.
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“Another day of marking pot. this afternoon will cover our ceramics featured in #findoftheday as the sherds are properly sorted and marked.
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As did Silchester:
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“The first #findoftheday is this amazing Alice Holt fragment of pottery – with some graffiti on! null
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Along with a rather nice key:
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And more pot:
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A piece of terra nigra pottery – with a complete stamp! #findoftheday http://twitpic.com/66obv0 -
From another pit on site, we have pieced together a near-complete Alice Holt pot! #findoftheday http://twitpic.com/66oejv -
…which also has a pierced bottom! #findoftheday http://twitpic.com/66of4o -
… and Lisa from environmental found this gorgeous piece of millefiori glass in a sample! #findoftheday http://twitpic.com/675sjq -
This tiny blue glass bead was also found during flotation! #findoftheday http://twitpic.com/675tbe -
Phew!As the excavation at Silchester drew to a close their team sat down, thought hard, and decided on a find of the season:
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…the Puddingstone quernstone! The first of its kind found at Silchester – a favourite among diggers & public! http://twitpic.com/69v7ej -
At Cosmeston it may seem like the aquamanile was an obvious candidate for our #FindOfTheSeason, however, one of the students (Rachel Phillips) thought this 1980′s trowel was the true star:
“Archaeologists digging up old archaeological tools.
This is a GGAT (Gwent and Glamorgan Archaeological Trust) trowel we found in our trench. It had been left and buried at the bottom of their trench from their excavations in the 80’s.
Despite finding some amazing medieval pottery and such, i think this is my favourite find of the dig.”
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Bamburgh had so much to choose from they went for a top 5!
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Well I have just downloaded the many pictures I took throughout this eventful season and thought I would share some of the images I took …
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Whilst many excavations were now coming to an end others were still going strong:
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“#findoftheday typical, small copper ring flicked out as we were cleaning T7 for section drawing t.co/i8Dys8T
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And as the year drew to a close the hashtag was still going strong as CADW (the historic environment service of the Welsh Government) tweeted finds from their excavations at the St Lythan’s and Tinkinswood Neolithic burial chambers (located in the Vale of Glamorgan).
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“Microlith, Neolithic scraper, plus lots of pieces of Bronze Age pottery – some with nice rim decoration in Chamber 2 #FindsoftheWeek
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Including an intriguing, distinctly non-Neolithic, find:
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“Oops no pic. Ahem. Here is the find of the day at #stlythansdig @CadwArchaeology
What is it??? t.co/jOJWfOaL -
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You can read about CADW’s work at these sites (and find out about opportunities to get involved) on their blog. They continued to find brilliant artefacts right into December (brrr):
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“The decorated pot from yesterday… are we allowed to have 2 #findsoftheday? t.co/uCXUb4TY
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As 2011 ended we started compiling this Storify. Silchester on hearing this had a great idea:
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“@CosmestonArch Look forward to your Storify – a great idea – looking forward to the #findoftheyear ?
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So, what was your favourite #FindOfTheDay 2011? Which should take the ultimate accolade of #FindOfTheYear? Have we missed any great objects that were tweeted about?If you have enjoyed reading this please consider using #FindOfTheDay yourself. You needn’t be a big university project or a professional archaeologist, anyone can join in by tweeting pictures of any interesting old object you come across (whether in a field, skip, attic, museum or archive).Here’s to #FindOfTheDay 2012!
Cosmeston Archaeology
Cardiff University excavations at Cosmeston medieval manor
#FindOfTheDay 2011
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This is great Cosmeston! I sense a re-match this summer…….
Posted by bamburghresearchproject | March 22, 2012, 5:39 pmvery cool stuff I love the photos! Thanks for posting them!
Posted by dirt fill florida | April 18, 2012, 7:34 pm