Thursday 25th July Event

DDCAG are having an exhibition at Maiden Newton village hall from noon until 5pm. Come and see pictures, videos and artefacts as well as visits to site.  

Romans at Druce Farm

The Swastika mosaic is an ancient symbol from the Indian sub-continent and the Nazis stole it. As usual the Romans used many other cultural symbols for themselves, tacking other religions onto their own. At Druce Farm villa the symbol was the main decorative element. Mistakes have been found and that makes it even more interesting. One can see the human side to it much more than a perfect example.

Thursday 30th June saw some of us arrive at Druce Farm, east of Dorchester, where Lillian Ladle is working with the East Dorset Antiquarian Society excavating a substantial Romano-British villa complex. It was a  trek to site in the heat but it was worth it. A large section of mosaic has been excavated and although quite plain as mosaics go, it is non-the-less impressive as a design for the room of a wealthy Romano-Britain, as it is quite probable that this was inhabited by a Romanised native of Britain.

Not much in the way of dating evidence has turned up, but some quite nice wall plaster has been found:

We were very impressed by the base of a stone column:

The ditch surrounding the villa is interesting, in that it seems to be a bringing together of Roman and British features:

A possibly unique feature of this villa is its use of slate. This is so unusual that the experts who came to see the site thought that they must be much later. But it seems they were sandwiched between two layers of Roman stone roof tile, so must be contemporary, or the overlying material is residual, i.e. deposited from elsewhere:

Not being an expert on the Roman period I could not say if this is a unique find or not, but if anyone out there can help please let me know.

Well done all the volunteers that have been working here.

Clean Cobbles

This is a shot of the cobbles in the north room. Only half the room is surfaced with these, the eastern half has compact stones. The slightly raised area to the south is a puzzle; although the slot makes it difficult. It is definitely different to the main slab of stones though.

The site has slowed down somewhat, due to the more delicate nature of the layers and having to keep these floor layers in place for the 25th July event. But the dedication of all the diggers on site is undiminished, and we are still working on other parts of the structure, especially the south room and the double door entrance. Still puzzling us in some respects.  

Not all hard work

It's not all hard work at the Drift Road site. Even when the winds a'blowing we can find time for a jest.

What a load of cobbles!

We seem to be nearing the end in relation to digging any deeper in the north room. Here we have come across a cobbled surface and we will stop there. The cobbles cover only half the room, with the other half comprising of packed small stones.

The south room is still causing a scratching of heads and there are lots of little jobs to be done still, including recording and drawing of horizontal sections of wall. But essentially this is what visitors will see when they come up on the 25th of July.

'The pen[knife] is mightier than the sword'

I had one of these when I was a kid, as did many of you I expect.

I don't expect someone was very happy to have lost it.

Dorset Diggers Have Bottle

This glass bottle was unearthed this weekend which, as you can see, was situated next to the internal wall of the north face; a lovely little find:

Here it is cleaned up:

Here is some research carried out by Ben:

Vet’s bottle found close-by same day, intact, with glass stopper.  Embossed  “ELLIMAN’S    ROYAL    EMBROCATION    FOR HORSES    MANUFACTORY   SLOUGH”   Possibly late Victorian, but was still about in 1980.  See below.

Greetings from Finland! I have a bottle with the embossed text: "ELLIMAN´S ROYAL EMBROCATION FOR HORSES MANUFACTORY SLOUCH". The height is 19cm and it is a BIM style bottle with a crown top and a second lip under the crown. The colour is clear with perhaps a slight tint of green (seen esp. in the thick bottom). The base is smooth and has an embossed "4" in the center and "11338" at the edge of the bottom (not on the side). The bottle itself is in mint condition, although the label has suffered some minor damage. It is still 99% legible and almost fully clean & white. The label says it helps for rheumatism, sore throat, sore shoulders & backs, capped hocks and elbows, broken knees etc. At the bottom of the label there is a reference to "the E.F.A. Booklet enclosed with this bottle, and the Elliman First Aid Book, pages..., 5th edition". This reference is for horses, cattle, dogs and birds.