Funny day weather wise, went from hammering rain to bright sunshine and back again, all accompanied by wind gusting to 40mph. Came on and off site as conditions got too bad to work in, but late in the day the weather settled down a bit and Elvire and Keith could continue to excavate inside the roundhouse subdivision.
It wasn't log before Elvire was rewarded with the star find of the dig so far, this Iron Age glass toggle bead, identified immediately by Alan Braby and as rare as hen's teeth:
There's an article about these (and other) beads by Roddy Regan, originally published by the Kilmartin Museum, and very helpfully reproduced with permission by Bernie Bell https://theorkneynews.scot/2019/06/17/the-varied-beauty-of-ancient-beads/ There's very few examples known from Scotland and these are mostly from the west, some are also known from Ireland, and some of them have been analysed and are made of Roman glass. Interestingly we had some Roman glass from the same area in 2019, so maybe they were making the beads on site? Anyway Elvire was justifiably very pleased with her find:
Not to be left out, Keith (who is on top form this year having had not one, but two new hips fitted since our 2019 season) then turned up a rather fine bone mount, which under other circumstances might have been the star of the dig diary, but rather paled into insignificance alongside the bead - sorry Keith!
All in all a very good end to the day and the weather forecast looks a bit less windy tomorrow.
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