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Yer Honest Sonsie Face...
Jan. 25th, 2012 08:57 pmIt's Burns Night tonight, and we've celebrated in the usual fashion, with veggie haggis, neeps & tatties. J's dad joined us, and now I'm stuffed!
I won't stay long - I've been horse-riding, and Diva was her usual diligent self. She really is a lovely horse - very generous and honest. I don't think I've had as good a working relationship with any horse since I had Squire, though the two of them couldn't be any more different. While Squire was pure air and fire, Diva is earth, pure and simple.
The finds work is progressing well. I've spent another day sifting through glass, thereby disobeying all those words of wisdom my mother told me about not handling broken glass without a gloves. I did, however, manage to cut my finger once - on an envelope...
Amongst all the mangy 20th century beer and 'pop' bottles, there have been some more interesting finds. The Boss had put in a request for some fragments of Merovingian glass, which was a bit of a tall order. Nonetheless, there have been quite a few fragments of early window glass - I was sceptical about the possibility of their being medieval, but after having leafed through the glass report from the excavations of Battle Abbey, I'm now more convinced that they might be contemporary with the medieval abbey, rather than being 16th/17th century.
We've also got about six or seven pieces of a rather snazzy purple perfume or ointment jar. It would have been a beautiful piece when it was complete - it seems to have had white 's' shaped patterns upon the surface, and it has a lovely neck/rim, with a flanged collar and a twisted circular-sectioned thin rod of glass adhering to the surface beneath the collar. We can't currently decide whether it's a 19th century perfume jar, or something more significant. Research has revealed that purple glass was around in the medieval period, but none of the reports we've looked at as yet have revealed any glass vessels made from this material (the purple being used in stained glass...) So, if any medievalists out there have stumbled across purple perfume jars in their travels, I'd love to hear about them. Suffice it to say that the jar will be sent out to the specialist to see if he's got any observations on the form, etcetera. We have the rim/neck, we have the base, and we have a few body sherds, so we're doing well.
And now I'm signing off, because I'm shattered...
I won't stay long - I've been horse-riding, and Diva was her usual diligent self. She really is a lovely horse - very generous and honest. I don't think I've had as good a working relationship with any horse since I had Squire, though the two of them couldn't be any more different. While Squire was pure air and fire, Diva is earth, pure and simple.
The finds work is progressing well. I've spent another day sifting through glass, thereby disobeying all those words of wisdom my mother told me about not handling broken glass without a gloves. I did, however, manage to cut my finger once - on an envelope...
Amongst all the mangy 20th century beer and 'pop' bottles, there have been some more interesting finds. The Boss had put in a request for some fragments of Merovingian glass, which was a bit of a tall order. Nonetheless, there have been quite a few fragments of early window glass - I was sceptical about the possibility of their being medieval, but after having leafed through the glass report from the excavations of Battle Abbey, I'm now more convinced that they might be contemporary with the medieval abbey, rather than being 16th/17th century.
We've also got about six or seven pieces of a rather snazzy purple perfume or ointment jar. It would have been a beautiful piece when it was complete - it seems to have had white 's' shaped patterns upon the surface, and it has a lovely neck/rim, with a flanged collar and a twisted circular-sectioned thin rod of glass adhering to the surface beneath the collar. We can't currently decide whether it's a 19th century perfume jar, or something more significant. Research has revealed that purple glass was around in the medieval period, but none of the reports we've looked at as yet have revealed any glass vessels made from this material (the purple being used in stained glass...) So, if any medievalists out there have stumbled across purple perfume jars in their travels, I'd love to hear about them. Suffice it to say that the jar will be sent out to the specialist to see if he's got any observations on the form, etcetera. We have the rim/neck, we have the base, and we have a few body sherds, so we're doing well.
And now I'm signing off, because I'm shattered...
