Backfilling is well underway now, and we're having to go to extreme lengths to protect some bits of the site, such as Alan's very fine furnace, which we didn't have time to fully excavate, and since we're hoping to get archaeomagnetic dates from it we have to protect it till next year. Obviously it's too fragile to survive under the stone we cover the site with, so it had to have it's own little sandbag bunker:
This was then filled up with bubble wrap, and a convenient piece of driftwood (an otter board from a trawl net) placed over the top and weighted down, the whole lot will then be buried under the protective membrane and stone covering and with a bit of luck will still be there next year:
Since we've not been doing any digging today we can't bring you a star find of the day, but instead here's one that we found earlier, a large pot base ably handled by finds hut supremo Talia, found by Keith a few days ago:
Also in the picture is Talia's thumb, which avid readers of the dig diary will remember got shut in a door a few weeks back - it's healing nicely and as you can see only needs a small plaster now. Talia has promised to come back and run the finds hut again for us in 2023, so that's one less thing for us to worry about.
Everyone else was hard at it chaining endless trugs full of rock onto site, but at least the sun did come out eventually.
More of the same tomorrow, counting down the final 3 days of backfilling, deep, deep joy!