Windy Miller and the Temple of Juno

And the first shall be last.

2010-07-31T04:13:00.000-07:00

Here we go again! I was first on site last year and I'll be the last this year. Flying to Ciampino tomorrow for final week of this years summer season on Gabii

Epilogue

2009-05-24T12:19:00.000-07:00

Arrived home safe and sound at 1.30 am yesterday morning after a very pleasant day in the Villa Borghese Park in Rome. Strangely Helen thought it was much less crowded than it had been in the week. Valentina decided it was because everyone had gone to the beach; she spent an hour and a half in the traffic queues they created when she came to take us to the airport!

An enormous thank you to Anna, Valentina, Sabrina and Federica plus all the workers on site plus, of course, the directors of the Gabii project, Nicola Terrenato and Jeffrey Becker of the University of Michigan. Finally thanks to Sally Worrel who initiated this great opportunity for metal detectorists.

Parting is such sweet sorrow

2009-05-22T09:19:00.000-07:00

Last day going over the remainder of the rough, bulldozed area and a preliminary scan of the start of the spoil heap. Five coins and an old telephone box token and all before lunch when I said my goodbyes to Anna and the workmen and Federica and Sabrina took me back to Frascati by a new new route via Rome! Valentina had to leave as soon as she dropped me off this morning to attend a tutorial with her Professor but I will see her tomorrow as she has very kindly insisted on taking us to the Ciampino airport.

My new helper for the day was Sandrio, whose English was as good as my Italian (mind you he spoke several other languages). Here we are enjoying our one break in the shade.

From the shade I could still see Anna keeping the digger on it's toes.

The girls do not hang about and are working their trowels as soon as the digger's bucket leaves the ground. You can see the soil still falling from the moving bucket.

OK I was posing - I know the head's too far above the ground!

And talking of posing here's the last photo I took and my favourite - except that I had to put it on the ground for a self timed shot and a pesky blade of grass has obscured Sabrina's lovely face.

The bad news for you follow on detectorists is that Federica and Sabrina will be tied up with their student diggers and Valentina will be doing all her logistics work when you come, so you'll get one of the workmen to be your digger and it's not nearly as nice kissing them on both cheeks when you say goodbye! Welcome to the Hill :).

The End is Nigh

2009-05-21T08:54:00.000-07:00

I was mightily relived to finish covering the basic area today and it was a joy to get onto the loose earth and just push it aside to locate the find. The first picture shows the start of the top soil heaps - look and fear follow on detectorists. This is where you will be banished to fry in the sun while your boots fill with loose soil and sweat when you are not needed in the trenches.

The digger trembles before the critical gaze of Anna and her two enforcers in red hats, Federica and Sabrina, no longer my slave diggers but all powerful Trench Masters now that the trench has been opened!

Equalled yesterdays coin total and managed a couple of interesting partifacts. A fragment of a crucifix with a stone in it and not a toy train wheel as I first thought but a badge of some type. I hope they prove to be medieval and not more recent. Cibalia has since told me that the 'train wheel' is in fact a Roman fibula.

The end of the day and cool, clean shower time.

The Earth Moves

2009-05-20T12:23:00.000-07:00

The digger arrived on site today and made a start on the 'wild' part of the dig site while I continued with my nail mountain. Once Anna had used her mediating skills the plan she had so painstakingly made could finally be put into operation and the digger turned it's attention to making the first cuts of the dig proper on a section I had already covered, moving the soil to a convenient adjacent section.

It was becoming apparent that I would never cover the area in time if we continued to track every iron signal down and Anna readily agreed to my suggestion to ignore all the definite iron from now on as she rightly said we had covered a sufficient area to give a reliable figure of the ratio of iron to non-ferrous finds on that particular site. It is a real pleasure to work with Anna and her team as they manage to combine fun and flexibility with their adherence to professional standards. Even the labourers on the site take every opportunity to help out by digging out the finds when they can persuade the girls to give up the shovel. Below you can see them and various other officials on the site playing that favourite game of guess what the detectorist has dug up. In this case it was two lead sling-shots.

Well the new non-ferrous plan soon paid dividends with much more ground being covered and six coins coming to light including a particularly nice one which was thought to be of a third century Emperor called Gordon!

Hot Hard Work

2009-05-19T08:43:00.000-07:00

The grind starts - nine hours in the sun for 5 coins and a lead decorative piece showing 3 figures on one side and a single figure on the other. Well all right we had an hour for lunch at the usual cafe nearby and the lovely ladies kept my spirits up. Oh and just remembered a small trinket that I was hoping may be a seal box lid but then again could easily be medieval or even modern. I forgot to get a photo of that. Anna will pass on all the photo's the team take when I get back.

Anna with two days worth of mostly ferrous scrap fought for through the tough roots of years old pasture! From four inch nails to tiny tin tacks and our particular favourite - rusty wire in a variety of lengths! We only found one modern bottle top, about a dozen shotty caps and no silver foil (have to think positively :) ).

The shade.

The winner for the seat in the shade is Sabrina - unfortunately the sun moved for tea-break.

Tomorrow the bulldozers arrive to flatten the scrub and hillocks that still cover half the proposed dig area. Should make life a lot easier and Anna has arranged for all the topsoil to be dumped right next to the dig which will be ideal for you guys who follow on from me as you will always have something to search through if the dig is not producing spoil fast enough.

A grot saves the day

2009-05-18T12:27:00.000-07:00

Amazing to see how well this site is looked after - a high gate with digital code to open and a permanent attendant on the site. Valentina picked me up as planned and after some scenic excursions and hair raising turns (it was only the second time she had driven to the site) we met up with Anna who explained the site to me. Also waiting there were the trench masters Sabrina and Federica!

Well as this is an archaeological dig it makes sense to have every signal dug as we all know iron objects can be of great historical value,s it's just that they are usually nails of recent age and it is generally best to leave any iron object in the ground unless you have the skill and intent to preserve them immediately before they become a pile of rust. So having spent the day collecting many dozens of nails and lumps of rust plus a few bits of lead it was a mighty relief to locate a Roman coin and though many would class it a grot it was of a good size (thick half a crown size for the oldies amongst us) and Anna thought she could make out two faces on it suggesting the god Janus and putting it nicely in the Republican era that we are interested in. Hopefully a picture will follow tomorrow.

Who cares about digging up endless bits of iron when you have such a lovely work force to do the digging !

The lower photo gives some idea of the number of holes dug and I am pleased to say that not a single target was lost, i.e. every target dug for was found.

I was warned there would be no shade and despite my factor 50 Helen took the precaution of sewing a white hanky to the back of my cricket hat and I think it saved me from burning to death plus it was just the touch needed to complete the well dressed Englishman abroad look that wowed my Italian colleagues.

Minor disaster - my coil went floppy! Luckily it was nearly 4.30pm when we knock off and I managed to nurse it for the last few targets. I just couldn't tighten the head bolt sufficiently and thought it might be broken. No spare for that bit of course as never had a problem with it on this model before. Valentina took me into Frascati but as I feared only metal screws were available so I bought two rawlplugs and managed a reasonable bodge but then I realised one of the washers was missing. Probably lost when cleaning it before packing and it was this that was causing the problem. By a stroke of luck when I checked the washers on the Garret Ace that Roy had lent me as a back up .... they fitted :).

7.30 start tomorrow and so I'm off to bed.

I'm melting

2009-05-17T10:04:00.000-07:00

Nine degrees Celsius when we left Stanstead at 8.40 this morning. 29C when we landed in Ciampino a couple of hours later! Wonderful views to the right of St Peter's Square and the Colosseum as we flew in over Rome that brought back happy memories of a long weekend we had spent here a couple of years earlier.

No problem with the detectors safely stored amongst cushioning clothes in the two suitcases apart from Ryan Air's creative charging system. I was comforted, however, to be in possession of the official invitation from the University of Michigan in English and Italian! It was a relief to see both bags among the first dozen on the carousel.

We were early and Anna and Valentina were caught up in holiday traffic but soon we were in their car heading for Frascati and chatting freely to these two typically lovely Italian ladies. As it will be the first day on site this year for everyone I get a bit of a lie in as Valentina will not be picking me up till 9.30 tomorrow.

The hotel is very pleasant and a much better standard of accommodation than most archaeologists would expect on the average dig I'm sure. Certainly the simple pasta and 'speck' lunch they rustled up for us when we arrived was excellent.

We braved the heat and hill to get our first view of Frascati town. Above is a view of the Piazza Roma and the Villa Aldobrandini. I'm sure Helen is going to enjoy exploring it in more detail and hopefully I can find the time too but today I must admit I took more pleasure in returning to our room to find that they had got the air conditioning working! We had a quick siesta on the cool bed!

Well the GMP detector is assembled and working and the rucksack packed with all the usual accessories and so as the sun heads downwards over our distant view of Rome I had better let Helen get on the computer before we go for dinner. The free Wi-Fi is a real bonus.

The cat's out of the bag

2009-05-13T08:40:00.000-07:00

Just been told it's ok to let others know. The secrecy was to avoid the project being swamped with requests!

On Thursday 29th April I received an innocuous text from Corrine saying she had given my name to Sally Worrel from PAS and that Sally would be in touch. Thinking it was probably to do with lead bag seals I pondered no more on it as I was up to my eyes in my son's wedding that weekend and it was not until the following Monday that Sally managed to get hold of me. After a hectic few weeks culminating in a wonderful family get together we were feeling a bit flat so a request to spend a week in Italy metal detecting on a new archaeological dig with hotel and food supplied was just what was needed! In the interests of saving my marriage my wife was invited along too.

So here I am about to be the first (as far as I know) detectorist ever to be invited to join an archaeological dig in Italy ten miles east of Rome investigating the ancient city of Gabii. See the Gabii Project website.

As I'll be doing the top soil it will probably be a case of removing all the ring pulls and silver foil for the guys who follow me but just maybe something like the Republican Denarius pictured above that I found near my home town of Colchester will turn up! - PAS ESS-8EA350

Hush hush

2009-05-11T20:55:00.000-07:00

Can't say much now but watch this space. Contact made, tickets bought and off to Rome this Sunday. Hopefully pictures will start appearing here next week. God I hope the detector doesn't get lost or broken in transit! Think I'll have to take a back up just for peace of mind. Time to start a list.