Category: News (Page 2 of 5)

In October we went back to the Avalon Archaeology Park near Shapwick.  MAYA has been there several times and we always look forward to our visits.  This time we were going to be making and decorating Glastonbury-ware Iron Age pots.  The session was run for us by Dr Richard Brunning from the South West Heritage Trust, with Jack Brunning helping out.

We started off with Richard giving us a tour around the site.  Although quite a few of our MAYANS had been there before, for some it was their first visit and the Archaeology Park is always a really fascinating place to look round.

After the tour we started work on our Iron Age coil pots.  We made the bases first and then coiled the clay around to make the sides, making sure they were nice and smooth.  After a break for lunch we finished off making and decorating our pots and the MAYANS produced an amazing variety of styles and decorations.

We were able to take our pots home with us where they would dry out and harden.  We all really enjoyed the day and would like to say a big thank you to Richard and Jack from MAYA for arranging this great opportunity for us!

Our second event in September was an invitation by Context One Heritage and Archaeology to take part in their excavation of a prehistoric site at Middlezoy.

Context One had already been excavating at the site for several weeks and had uncovered a Middle Bronze Age enclosure along with other archaeological features.  The MAYANS were put to work excavating the enclosure ditch to uncover more dating evidence.

At the same time as the excavation, some of the MAYA helpers carried out a small geophysical survey in the field adjoining the site to see if we could locate the rest of the enclosure ditch plus any signs of where the people who used the enclosure had been living.

Although finds were sparse as can be the case on prehistoric sites, we discovered several small struck flints, including a lovely little scraper, plus some charcoal and tiny pottery fragments.

While the geophysical survey results were being processed, the MAYANS carried out a small fieldwalk and recovered a variety of artefacts from a wide range of time periods.  After this we all gathered around the laptop to see what the geophysics had discovered.  The rest of the enclosure ditch showed up really clearly, along with a very obvious circular anomaly which could only be the round house we’d been hoping to discover!

A big thank you to Context One for inviting us along for this exciting day of discovery!

September was a busy month for MAYA as we were lucky enough to be invited along to two amazing archaeological events.

On 7^th September we attended an archaeological Craeft Fayre organised by Marc Cox from the Avalon Archaeology Park.  The field where the fayre was held was divided into three separate time zone, the Mesolithic, the Bronze and and the Anglo Saxons.  Our members visited each of these areas to witness demonstrations and then try out a variety of hands-on crafts.

We started out with the Mesolithic where we tried weaving with different types of plant fibres and preparing animal skins for tanning.  We also watched flint knapping and fire starting demonstrations.

After this we moved on to the Bronze Age to watch metalworkers casting a bronze axe head which was absolutely amazing!  We also tried making hurdles, used quern stones to grind flour, plus made beads out of shells.

We finished the day with the Anglo Saxons where we made coil pots and tried on chain mail armour with sword and shield.  There were also cookery and woodworking demonstrations.

All in all it was an absolutely amazing day!  A huge thank you to Marc and all the other volunteers for inviting MAYA along for the day.

In August the Kingsbury Time Travellers invited us to attend a day of archaeological workshops at Kingsbury Episcopi Church.  They had organised a lot of activities for the MAYANS to try, including Anglo Saxon calligraphy with authentic quills and ink; using a dino-lite microscope to examine archaeological artefacts and work out what they were and what they were made of; plus drawing an accurate and to scale floor plan of the church.  Our members were divided into three groups and each group was given the chance to try out all the different activities.

We were also visited by the local bell ringers who gave us a wonderful guided tour up the church tower and into the bell chamber. The MAYANS were able to try their hand at bell ringing which was a fantastic opportunity!  We were then allowed up onto the top of the tower where the views were spectacular.

A big thank you to Adrian and Helen and all the other volunteers who gave up their rime to organise and run such a varied and inspiration range of activities for us.

Our archaeology weekend continued on Sunday 2^nd June with a visit to the Quantock Hills to take part in an excavation near Cothelstone.  The dig was being run by the Quantock Hills Landscape Partnership (QHLP) and Dig Ventures who were investigating some features which had shown up as crop marks on aerial photographs and geophysical surveying.

There were two sessions during the day so some MAYANS attended in the morning and the others in the afternoon.  The QHLP had very kindly organised a minibus to take us to and from the site.

We were met by Anna and Ben from Dig Ventures who gave us a tour around the site and showed us some of the artefacts they had found.  We were then given the opportunity to do some digging of our own in two trenches which had been located over two of the geophysical survey anomalies.  The archaeologists were not sure what these features were so it was our job to help them find out!

Unfortunately, apart from some charcoal we didn’t uncover very much but this is quite often the case with prehistoric sites and the team from Dig Ventures said we had done really well.

It is always great to get the chance to take part in an actual excavation so a big thank you to Dig Venture and the QHLP for giving us this opportunity.

The first weekend in June was a busy weekend for MAYA.  On the Saturday we visited Muchelney Abbey and on the Sunday we were invited to take part in Dig Venture’s excavation at Cothelstone on the Quantock Hills.

The weekend started with our visit to Muchelney Abbey.  We had been invited there by Stephen Honey who is the curator of the site.  Stephen took us on a guided walk around the abbey, starting with the ruins of the original Saxon church, then through the Norman period and all the developments over history including the dissolution of the monasteries.  The ruins were quite extensive and it was fascinating to look round them on such a lovely sunny day.

After a break we then looked at the building where the monks’ toilets were which was a source of great amusement!  We finished off by looking around the inside of the existing building and all the changes it has gone through over time, including some of the archaeological artefacts which have been discovered.

A big thank you from MAYA to Stephen for arranging such an enjoyable and interesting visit.

The topic for our May session was industrial archaeology with a trip out to Westonzoyland Pumping Station Museum on the Somerset Levels.

We started out with a talk by Iain Miles, Honorary President and Archivist of the Westonzoyland Engine Trust about the history of manging flooding on the Somerset Levels from Roman times to the present day.

After this we were taken on a guided tour by Jason Keswick, the manager of the museum.  We started out by looking at the huge original Easton Amos Land Drainage Machine and Jason explained to us how it had been used to drain flood water from the Levels into the River Parrett.  After a short break we then looked around the rest of the museum at all the different types of engines and pumps which had been rescued and restored by the museum.

We finished the day with a ride on the Westonzoyland Light Railway which was great fun!

A big thank you to Jason and Iain and the staff and volunteers at the museum for such a great day out.

In April we returned to the Museum of Somerset in Taunton for a session all about Castles.  The session was very kindly run for us by MAYA volunteer Chris Webster.  Chris started out with a presentation about castles and what their main function was and how it wasn’t always about defence.  After this our members got to draw or build a models of their own castles.

After a short break, Chris took us on a walk around the outside of Taunton Castle, pointing out some of the features which the MAYANS may not have considered in their designs.  We then went back indoors to finish our drawings and models, thinking about the extra features Chris had shown us.  Our members got really creative and it was really great to see so many different and unusual designs.

A big thank you to Chris for running this fun and interesting session for us!

A selection of pictures from our recent trip to the Blake Museum & Bridgwater Dock.

For our February session we were visited by Laura Burnett from the Southwest Heritage Trust.  Laura is a finds expert who specialises in coins and in this session we were looking at the ways coins can help archaeologists.  After an introductory talk by Laura, we split up into three groups and took it in turns carrying out three different activities.

One activity was to design our own coins.  Laura provided photos of coins to give our MAYANS inspiration, e.g. Roman coins, trade tokens and coins of historical British monarchs.  We talked about who or what we would put on our coins and what message that would represent.

The second activity was about different ways of imprinting the designs onto coins by hammering and screw press.  We hand hammered a coin die into playdough disks and then compared this methods to using a screw press to imprint designs into chocolate coins.  Great fun!

For the third activity we talked about what archaeologists can learn by studying coins, e.g. dating a site, trading, status and coin hoards.

This was a really interesting and fun session!  A big thank you to Laura for running it for us.