Hot and muggy day today which finished with a big photo clean just in time before showery rain came in, which at least discouraged the midges which had been out in force. Steve got his photos taken and the site was left looking pristine for laser scanning and more drone photography tomorrow. There was just time at the end of the day to clear the backlog of sieving which had built up during the day. I was trying to think up a joke along the lines of 'how many specialists does it take to run a sieve' since on the left we have Osteoarchaeologist Jackie MacKinley and Archaeozoologist Rebecca Nicholson, but I couldn't think of one so you'll just have to settle for the photo.
Meanwhile Tom Sparrow was doing his best impression of a man outstanding in his field, if you look closely you can just se his hi-vis jacket in the distance:
This is him in close up, and he's doing a whole raft of site and landscape surveys for us which involve a vast amount of specialist equipment and I think he said he's brought seven drones with him and tomorrow our resident surveyor Michal will be working alongside.
Steve has also taken some pictures of the copper alloy belt fitting which has now been examined by our archaeometallurgist Gerry McDonnell using his portable XRF machine and it turns out to be recycled Roman brass. Here's the front:
and back:
Gerry says that due to the very low lead and tin content, both less than 1%, this would have been very golden shiny brass when first made and polished, and so would've looked like real gold. I do wonder if whoever owned the fitting originally thought it was gold and got ripped off by the smithcrafter, or if they knew it was only brass and were conning everyone else that they could afford the best.
It's our Open Day on Sunday along with our Living History reenactors so if you're over in Rousay please do pop along to see us, until then we're off for a well deserved rest.
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