LAARC VIP: Project 3 - Recently Updated Pages

Diary Blog

laarchaeologist — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 07:10:28 CDT

You can find out what's been happing each week by following the links on this page:
Week 1 - 26/5/09 - 29/5/09 : Tuesday 26th
Week 2 - 1/6/09 - 5/6/09
Week 3 - 8/6/09 - 12/6/09
Week 4 - 15/6/09 - 19/6/09
Week 5 - 22/6/09 - 26/06/09
Week 6 - 29/6/09 - 4/7/09
Week 7 - 6/7/09 - 10/7/09
Week 8 -13/7/09 - 17/7/09
Week 9 18/7/09 - 24/7/09
Week 10 - 27/7/09 - 31/7/09
Week 11 - 3/8/09 - 7/8/09
Week 12 - 10/8/09 - 14/8/09
Week 13 - 17/8/09 - 24/8/09

Week 13 - 21/8/09

laarchaeologist — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 07:08:54 CDT

The Last Week! Have we completed all we set out to achieve...

Registered finds.
We most certainly have achieved everything we wanted to on this side of the project. The final bits and pieces were completed this week and altogether we have checked and updated 5215 objects from 24 sites. That means every volunteer has roughly seen and handled just over 300 registered finds. Cool.

General Finds
Well the challenge was set. 199 Borough High Street, the mammoth task that has taken up almost half of the project. Would it be completed before the project finished? Yes it would!
All the general pottery, animal bone and building material has been looked at, rebagged as appropriate and sorted into trench numbers. All that's left is to rebox the site and then we shall find out if any space has been saved in addition to making in much much more accesible than it was 3 months ago.

Behind the Scenes tours at Museum of London
As a thank you to every one of the volunteers who have lasted the full 13 weeks, the final afternoons of the final week have been spent at the Museum of London, where we have been fortunate to visit the costume store, conservation labs and try our hands at the roman water lifting device.

So that's that! Another VIP project completed. A huge thanks to all our volunteers who have made this project the success that it has been. We hope everyone's enjoyed their time with us and hope they will continue to stay in contact and enjoy other volunteer opportunities that they may come across in the future.
See you all at the party!

Adam & Glynn

Week 12 - 14/8/09

laarchaeologist — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 04:38:07 CDT

The penultimate week. Will we achieve our goals...

Registered Finds
With only a few boxes of material to go, the end was visibly in sight this week. Monday's team worked on registered finds from Billingsgate Bathhouse (BB74) and tidied and ticked off those by the end of the afternoon. Tuesday's completed the remaining boxes from Aldgate High Street (AL74), these being general glass. Once repacked and relabeled the number of boxes was reduced by two boxes. Wednesday saw two little Borough High Street sites be completed (84BHS74, 88BHS74) and also Morville Street (MS73). Finally, on Thursday, the team checked and processed another Borough High Street site (93BHS74), completing the target for VIP3. Over the week, we even managed to work through the generl leather finds from a site to be tackled in VIP4; Ludgate Hill (LH74). All in all, a very successful week. Adam is happy.

General Finds
At the start of the week, with still several large boxes of pottery to go, our target of completing 199 Borough High Street, (199BHS74) was starting to look unachieveable. However, with all the volunteers on hand for half a day each, by Thursday, we had completed the pottery! An excellent effort indeed! With just the building material to repack now and one complete day followed by four half days left on the project, the heat is on. We're confident that the site will get finished and that we'll be ready to start a fresh with a brand new site for VIP4

Other News
Monday's volunteers had their human remains workshop, which was the last workshop of VIP3. A very appreciative thanks should go out to all the Museum of London Archaeology specialists who shared their knowledge with us over the 12 weeks. During the final session's afternoons, it's the turn of Museum of London staff to show us around behind the scenes in what's set to be very interesting tours...

Week 11 - 7/8/09

laarchaeologist — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 04:54:06 CDT

More Borough High Street Pot, but all's great with Aldgate...

General Finds
Back in week 6, Glynn commenced the pottery from 199 Borough High Street (199BHS74) and we knew it would be a challenge. 5 weeks later and the end is in sight. Having repacked thousands of sherds of mainly roman pottery, we estimate, that if all hands are on deck next week, the pottery may be completed, which will be an incredible achievement. There's still some building material from the site, but that shouldn't take too long. Can we complete everything with only 30 hours left of the project? We love a challenge...
When not packing pottery, Glynn has been dutifully reboxing the pottery, animal bone and building material from the previous sites that VIP3 volunteers have worked on - Billingsgate Bathhouse (BB74) and Aldgate High Street (AL74). Although still unable to tell at the moment, we may have saved almost another shelf of space once everything, including the Borough High Street material has been efficiently repacked.

Registered Finds
Whilst Glynn has been reboxing the pottery from Aldgate High Street (AL74), Adam on his side of the project has been steadily working through its registered finds. Monday's volunteers tackled the glass, Tuesday's sorted out the copper, wood, leather, fibre and stone, Wednesday saw Adam untangle the mess that was the site's large ceramic artefacts and on Thursday, the volunteers repacked 6 plastic tubs worth of iron artefacts, including an axe head and iron patten. They also ticked off all the coins from the site. Only a few more bits from this site need to be worked on next week, including a fine assemblage of general glass artefacts. Once complete, we shall hopefully tackle a few smallish Borough High Street Sites and that will be the end of registered finds for this project as VIP4 will start with the registered finds from 199BHS74

Special Workshop
Due to VIP3 lasting 13 weeks, we were able to slot in a very special fifth specialist workshop this week. Don Walker from Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) explained to the volunteer the processes he goes through as part of his job - a Human Oesteologist! In a fantastic session, volunteers not only learnt about how oesteologists approach the recording of human remains, but got to see up close real human remains, including an excellent demonstration of how bones fit together, articulate and have examples of pathology.

With only two more weeks left, VIP3 shall soon be coming to a close, but there are still challenges to accomplish and more fun lined up for the final week...

Week 10 - 31/7/09

laarchaeologist — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 06:17:00 CDT

A day of no play on Monday and moving closer to the final stretch of VIP, so what's been achieved this week?

General Finds
This week, we battled on with the seemingly endless Roman pottery from 199 Borough High Street (199BHS74). Tuesday saw volunteers tackle greywares and other fragments of pot, processing several large boxes of material. So much material in fact that Glynn made the decision to start sorting the processed pot into contexts, which is what Wednesday's volunteers helped with. Thursday's volunteers continued with the site, reducing the number of boxes left and taking us a step closer to our goal of completing the site over the final three weeks.
Over 5000 bags have been looked at already and will undoubtedly reach over 10,000 bags of pot once done and dusted.

Registered Finds
This week saw the completion of Mark Brown's Wharf, (MBW73) with coins, bone and newly registered iron artefacts all being completed on Tuesday morning. Tuesday afternoon saw volunteers return to their first site tackled on the general finds section of VIP3, Angel Court, Walbrook (ACW74). The site's registered finds that they worked on included a fabulous collecton of Roman shoes as well as some fine copper artefacts. Wednesday's volunteers continued with the site, completing all other materials in the morning. Wednesday afternoon saw them tackle some rather nice ceramic, bone and tortoise shell objects from Aldgate High Street (AL74); this site is likely to take up the majority of next week with lots more ceramic, the metal finds and several boxes of general post medieval glass to be looked at.

Other News
Starting next Tuesday and continuing until the folllowing Monday, we have our final specialist workshop. One that has never been done before during the VIP projects. One we hope that everyone will enjoy.
A big thanks to all the VIP3 volunteers who have stuck with the project and we hope you will enjoy the extra final three weeks as much (if not more) than those so far.

Week 9 - 24/07/09

laarchaeologist — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 04:17:21 CDT

Pottery, pottery and a little more pottery...

General finds
This week, the volunteers have continued to conquer the mountains of ceramic sherds that are piled up within the boxes of 199 Borough High Street (199BHS74). Although all Roman, and admittedly with the vast majority of pieces being no bigger than a biscuit, on a few occasions we've opened boxes to find some larger chunks and even some reconstructed pieces. These include some impressive Highgate ware, some Verulaniam flagons and even one substantial amphora neck and handles which has been put to one side, waiting for a registered find number to be issued.
The mass of pottery should still keep us occupied for a good few weeks yet.

Registered Finds
Saturday's volunteers got the ball rolling with the next site that needed work regarding Registered Finds - Mark Brown's Wharf (MBW73). Previously, the site's artefacts had only been half processed, some had been processed with the original, incorrect sitecode and some had been issued with random small finds numbers when indeed there was no need for them to even be registered finds. So... having been sorted out by Adam the previous week, Saturday's team worked their way through all the copper, lead and leather artefacts, packing the finds as appropriate, writing new labels for the individual objects, updating the finds card location and adding rather nice sketches of the artefacts on the back.
Despite a lack of regular volunteers on Monday due to various reasons, a reserve team of 4 work placements joined one Monday volunteer and completed the stone, flint, ceramic and glass finds. The fibre objects were also completed by Adam earlier in the day.
Tuesday's volunteers sorted out the iron objects that needed everything doing, whilst Adam went through the general glass finds changing the labels as appropriate.
Wednesday and Thursday saw no activity on this side of the project, but with just the coins and bone objects left (and maybe a few more iron bits), this final site of 1973 should be completed next week.

Workshops
Tobacco pipes kicked the week off on Monday followed by a mass audience of 14 for the roman glass on Tuesday, a significantly smaller audience for the rescheduled second roman glass workshop of the week and finally, the building material workshop on Thursday. With the final regular workshops over, we have planned for a very special workshop for week 11, starting on Tuesday 18th Aug.

And finally...
The VIP project was the topic of a presentation given by Adam and Museum of London's conservation's Helen Ganiaris at a Museum Association conference based on opening up storage collections. Meanwhile Glynn has written a short article for a forthcoming Museum of London "Archaeology Matters" publication. The VIP word is getting out there folks!!!

Week 8 - 17/7/09

laarchaeologist — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:20:15 CDT

Moving into the eighth week of the project and making steady progress.

General Finds
Another week, another shelf load of pottery from 199 Borough High Street (199BHS74) to be worked through. It's fair to say that the volunteers this week have patiently yet thoroughly persevered with the hundreds of roman pot sherds that were excavated from the site. Mainly amphorae and undecorated coarsewares, the site hasn't provided too much excitement and the bad news is there's still several boxes to go. However, each day we move closer to finishing it and reorganising this important archive into a standard context arranged system. By reorganising the material into standard "shoe" size boxes rather than the large "skele" size boxes they are currently in, we may even gain ourselves some extra shelf space when the site comes to be reboxed!

Registered Finds
On the other side of the project, lots has been completed this week. Monday's volunteers worked on the last remaining aspects of the Lambeth Road site (L129/73), completing the remaining tobacco pipes that needed registered finds numbers and then making a start of the general glass finds from the site. This was continued by Tuesday's volunteers who then carried out the important task of ticking off the seen artefacts and updating our records. Tuesday's couple also completed the whole of the next site, Laurence Pountney Lane (LPL73), checking and ticking off all the finds from the site. Wednesday's team of three this week got to complete a site each, with one volunteer tacking the archive of St Mildred's Church (MC73), even creating a spreadsheet for the information; another volunteer did 24-27 Martin Lane (ML73) and the final one completed the New Palace Yard, Parliament Square site (NPY73). A fourth site was even started - Swan Street (SS73), which was picked up and completed by Thursday's volunteers; all finds and database sorted. Six sites in one week - Awesome.
Meanwhile, Adam has been preparing the final site from 1973, Mark Brown's Wharf (MBW73), whose finds are a right jumble. The general finds from the site provided the biggest challenge for the VIP2 project, and with registered finds still to be packed from the site, all cards needing a location update and the vast majority of object labels needing a rewrite, this could prove to be the challenge for the next fortnight...

We also set the wheels in motion for special treats for the final week on Monday and Tuesday and with one more round of specialist workshops next week, followed by a special extra workshop a fortnight later, there's still much more fun and surprises to come during the second half of the project!

week 7 - 10/7/09

laarchaeologist — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:16:44 CDT

Half way through the project and the two sites from last week got a little closer to completion:

General finds
Week seven started with our Saturday volunteers continuing with the huge task that's proving to be 199 Borough High Street (199BHS74). Several more boxes of Roman pottery have been sorted out and repacked into good standard archive bags with proper labels. Monday's volunteers picked up from where Saturday's left off as more pottery was processed in the morning. Tuesday's volunteers spent the whole day with the material and saw samian, amphorae and fineware sherds amongst the assemblages. The rest of the week saw Glynn continue to repack the pottery from the previous site, Aldgate High Street (AL74), which is starting to look rather happy sitting on the shelf.

Registered Finds
Monday's volunteers completed the metals from our current site, Lambeth Road (L129/73), which included some impressive coins and a beautiful lead figurine in the shape of a bird. The site was picked up again on Wednesday, when we started to interrogate the five boxes of general tobacco pipes that are stored with the registered finds. Amid the many plain pipe bowls and stem fragments were several that had makers marks on the spurs, heels and bowls. These needed to be given individual registered finds numbers and over 100 tobacco pipes were registered on Wednesday. Thursdays volunteers continued with the pipes, issuing new numbers, completing finds cards and packing the artefacts with foam. The odd bit of pottery also cropped up amongst the pipes including the spout of a miniture toy tea pot, which also was given a number. With only one box to go and then only the general glass finds to check and reorder, Adam has every confidence that we'll be moving on to another site next week.

Workshops
Four workshops took place this week, albeit with a slight change to the planned schedule. Both Monday's and Tuesday's volunteers got to take an in depth look at animal bone as specialist Alan Pipe explained the different circumstances that archaeologists find bone, the different types of information it can provide and the steps he takes when recording contexts containing animal bone. Wednesday's talk was with Ian Betts in our ceramic and glass store and focused on tiles throughout the ages with a little bit on wall plaster for good measure. Thursday's workshop was led by specialist Jacqui Pearce who stepped in for Tony Grey to educate us about the history, typologies and all the wonderful things clay tobacco pipes can provide archaeologists.

Week 6 - 3/7/09

laarchaeologist — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 05:06:43 CDT

Lots done this week, new sites on both sides of the project and some spectacular finds.

General Finds.
Three sites have been looked at this week. The start of the week saw the completion of Aldgate High Street (AL74), with the Building Material packed and ready to be reboxed. Tuesday's team of volunteers successfully repacked the whole of the next site, which was one of several excavations that took place at Billingsgate Bathhouse (BB74 - GM111) Lots of roman pottery from the site as well as some animal bone that needed a good brush down, a few bits of building material and 5 artefacts which we deemed worthy of registering and giving them their own registered finds number. Among these were the samian stamp and mortar below.
The final two days of volunteers began the next mammoth task - 199BHS74: Borough High Street. The VIP projects have already tackled some other Borough High Street sites, but this will be the first big challenge of this project and may well take up the remainder of the project. Some beautiful finds are expected though - already we've seen some fab samian and fineware sherds. Saturday's volunteers have some fine mortarium fragments to look forward to.

Registered Finds
Two sites were worked on this week. Monday's volunteers sorted out the whole of GF73 - Christ Church, Greyfriars. Some spectacular medieval floor tiles were checked off as well as a few bits of bone and some rather nice coins.
Tuesday's volunteers and Thursday's volunteers worked on the next site along - Lambeth Road (L129/74), which has an incredible amount of glass vessels. With these and the copper based artefacts ticked off, next week should see the site completed as there's only a few more materials to go.

Workshops
A couple of postponed workshops from last week took place this week; Roman glass and Clay Tobacco Pipes. Next week all four should be running as regular.

Week 5 - 26/6/09

laarchaeologist — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:25:15 CDT

Week 5 of our project has seen two major milestones reached, with a whole material processed and a whole site done:

General Finds.
The pottery from Aldgate High Street (AL74) was final overcome this week, with over 125 boxes of pot looked at. That is quite the accomplishment and now Glynn has the task of ordering these sherds into context order and reboxing, waiting to see if any space has been gained in the process. With 125+ boxes of pottery down, the 1 small box of animal bone was a doddle in comparision and got processed within 30minutes. All that's left from this site now is the building material and that will be two sites down and a fair length of shelving into the amount we're aiming to get through during the 13 weeks.

Registered finds
Work continued on Custom House (CUS73) and actually focused on the bits of general finds that are stored with our registered finds. Monday's volunteers repacked the vast majority of the sites general leather collections, with Tuesday's volunteers finishing the last bits and making a start on the general wood finds. The wood was finished up on Wednesday which meant all Adam had left to do on Thurs was tick off what had been seen and note what hadn't. Another site down, roll on the next.

Workshops
Due to unforeseen events only two workshops took place this week with the other two rescheduled for next. Ian Betts enlighted Tuesday's volunteers with all things relating to building material and Alan Pipe had a bone or two to pick out for Thursday's volunteers.

Week 4 - 19/6/09

laarchaeologist — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:58:14 CDT

Steady progress was made this week on both sides of the project. Although no new sites were tackled, we moved closer to the finish line on both archives currently being worked on.

Registered Finds

Some excellent artefacts were checked and updated this week as the metals were processed on Tuesday and Wednesday morning, Textiles and fibre on Wednesday afternoon and leather objects on Thursday. Altogether over 5 boxes have been saved by effective packing of the registered finds from this site! Next week should see Custom House (CUS73) completed.

General Finds

Still battling on through the vast boxes of pottery, the Aldgate High Street (AL74) site is full of a right mixture of sherds from various wares. To compliment the bits and pieces seen whilst volunteering a visit to the ceramic and glass store at the end of each day, to take a peek at some post-medieval ceramics concluded this week's sessions.
As the boxes completed pile up, the aim is to finish the pot next week and begin work on the animal bone.

Week 3 - 12/6/09

laarchaeologist — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:01:37 CDT

Hard work continued this week on both sides of the project, focusing on two major sites from the 1970's.

General finds

Work started on a new site this week - Aldgate High Street, 1974 (AL74). Each day saw volunteers process bags of post medieval pottery including a right range from borderware to delftware to stoneware. Over 25 boxes of material have been repacked and are ready to be reorganised by context number. Considering the whole site is around 3 times as large as the previous site processed (ACW74), this is quite the achievement and at this rate, we might see this site accomplished in a couple more weeks!

Registered Finds

Week three saw us tackle the first large site in the registered finds - Custom House, Lower Thames Street, 1973 (CUS73). The general finds for the site were processed as part of VIP1 and on Monday we started to repack and tick off registered bone artefacts, including several large bodkins. On Tuesday, volunteers, packed and ticked off delicate wooden artefacts such as fine teethed combs and then took a look at the sites registered tobacco pipes. No work on registered finds took place on Wednesday, but Thursdays volunteers worked on the glass and stone objects. Ceramic artefacts next week and then on to the next site!

Workshops

The first specialist workshops of VIP3 included two old favourites, animal bone and building material, and two completely new workshops, clay tobacco pipes and roman glass. Using a combination of finds worked on this week, examples from the museum's collections in the ceramic and glass store and the specialist's own teaching collections, a wide range of topics were covered and tip top artefacts viewed. The next set of workshops will take place in a fortnight.

Week 2 - 5/6/09

laarchaeologist — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 08:59:38 CDT

The week started off with Monday's volunteers joining the project and being inducted into the VIP programme. They continued to work on the pottery from Angel Court, Walbrook excavations from 1974 (ACW74). By the end of Monday all the pottery from the site had been completed!

Tuesday's volunteers got to tackle the one box of animal bone from the site in the morning, followed by building material and ending the day with impressive bits of Roman painted wall plaster.

Tuesday also saw the first work being undertaken on the registered finds side of the project; one site, Africa House (AFR73) had all it's non metals checked and ticked off and another site, Bush Lane House (BLH73) saw a box of general glass material get sorted out into various colours and styles.

Work continued with registered finds on Wednesday, updating, improving and checking off all the registered finds from CASS72 - St John Cass School excavations, 1972. Also completed that day were all the finds from Milk Street excavations, 1972 (MIL72).

Thursday's volunteers continued to work on registered finds, completing AFR73 & BLH73 and working through the whole of one of our Borough High Street sites (106BHS73). Included amongst the finds were impressive coins, roman toilet instruments, glass vessels and stamped samian ceramics.

Whilst Adam & volunteers working on registered finds, Glynn reboxed all the pottery from Angel Court, ACW74, which now sits happily on our shelves, in context order with a little bit of space saved as well!

All in all, an excellent second week.
Next week, the first set of specialist workshops.

LAARC VIP: Project 3 Home

laarchaeologist — Fri, 29 May 2009 06:43:08 CDT

Welcome to the homepage for the third Volunteer Inclusion Project based at the London Archaeological Archive & Research Centre (LAARC)
The aim this time is to continue to create more shelf space for future archives by effective, efficient packing of material excavated over 30 years ago.
The project focuses on two sections of the archive; the first will continue working on general finds archives from 1974, picking up from where we left the last project; the second tackles registered finds archives from the early 1970's, bringing material up to the archive's standards. This time round we've increased the programme and volunteers from various parts of the community will be joining us for 13 weeks. In addition to volunteers helping us, we are offering them a chance to develop basic transferable skills which can improve CV's as well as improve their knowledge of London's Archaeology through specialist workshops and by handling real artefacts.
Keep an eye on these pages to find out more about how the project progresses, look at images of rediscovered finds and learn more about getting involved.
Weekly Blogs
Staff Profiles

Week 1 - 29/05/09

laarchaeologist — Fri, 29 May 2009 04:47:48 CDT

Tuesday saw the start of our third VIP programme! 10 volunteers have joined us so far with everyone else starting next week.
After the initial inductions at the start of each day, we all began working on Glynn's side of the project, tacking the many boxes of pottery from the site of Angel Court, Walbrook (ACW74). The majority of material was Roman pottery, with a vast range of fabrics and forms for us to get our hands on.

The star find of the week so far was a sherd of nene valley colour coated pottery with some awesome decoration on it of 4 horses. Could this be part of a chariot race that is being depicted?

As well as this, there were plenty of Samian sherds, Mortarium fragments, impressive colour coated wares, burnished wares and amphorae and even a few bits of early medieval pottery just to keep us on our toes.
To end each day, we paid a visit to our ceramic and glass store to take a look at complete examples of these vessels, to help put these sherds in context.

We hope everyone enjoyed their first day and are looking forward to meeting the rest of the VIP3 team next week, where who knows what awaits us in the next batch of boxes from the site?

Click here to read volunteer Maggie's diary blog about Tuesday 26th

Tuesday 26th May

laarchaeologist — Fri, 29 May 2009 04:38:13 CDT

Tuesday, 26 May 2009 - by Maggie McDonald

First day as volunteer at LAARC is spent repacking pottery from a site excavated in 1974 near the Walbrook, City of London. There are four of us in the Tuesday volunteer group, working with Glyn and Adam. The pottery is Roman, and looks mostly 2nd-3rd century. A huge range of fabrics is carefully documented on the old labels. There are a few surprises: a stamp on a piece of terra sigillata, a piece of AngloSaxon shelly ware and a bit of green-glazed mediaeval were found lurking among the fragments of amphorae, cooking pots, cups, dishes, jugs and bowls. It's a treat handling clean, dry pot: most of the potsherds I've seen are covered with mud and dirt. There's never been much time to look at it in detail because either I've been digging it out of the ground or cleaning it up by the crateload at speed to get it ready for someone else to analyse. Frightening to discover how much I don't know about Roman pottery fabrics, was quite confident for a half hour or so that it would all come back to me... It didn't, so back to the books.
And I'm happy that we're reducing the number of staples used to pack up the pot. Some people get too enthusiastic using a stapler. Wrote a blog for the osteology crew at MOLA about this after innumerable ripped gloves and fingers. It's at http://mymuseumoflondon.org.uk/blogs/blog/author/michaelhenderson/

Aniko

epidot — Wed, 27 May 2009 10:43:55 CDT

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

Staff

laarchaeologist — Sat, 23 May 2009 06:17:15 CDT

There are two members of staff, funded by the museum's hub, who manage the project:
Adam
Glynn

VIP3 volunteers

laarchaeologist — Fri, 22 May 2009 03:36:10 CDT