Colchester Young Archaeologists’ Club: October ’16 meeting

On Saturday 15th October, the Colchester Young Archaeologists’ Club (YAC) held their October meeting here at the Roman circus centre.

Colchester YAC organiser Barbara Butler writes: ‘… There were nineteen YACs at our meeting at the Roman circus centre, including seven new members. We all introduced ourselves and our favourite periods of history. Then we played a game of “Who am I?” devised by volunteer leader Kate Clover, where the names of historical characters are stuck on players’ foreheads and we each have to guess who we are. In September, the YACs had enjoyed a session of excavating with the Colchester Archaeological Group (CAG) on their site at Fordham near Colchester. At this meeting, the YACs – in groups of six – were able to clean the finds which they had excavated, under the supervision of Colchester Archaeological Trust volunteer and YAC volunteer leader Gillian Brown, in the Trust’s finds-processing room. Meanwhile, the other YACs enjoyed historical character charades and ‘archaeological bingo’. The bingo proved extremely popular, being played with pictures of objects from Colchester Castle Museum’s collection on bingo cards.

When we were all back together again, the YACs examined and passed round objects which they had retrieved from the spoilheap on the Fordham site: these included oyster shells, burnt Roman tesserae, and a diamond-shaped tile with some plaster still attached. Before they went home, the YACs went out into the garden of the Roman circus centre to look at the exposed remains of part of the foundations of the Roman circus, especially the inner wall which defined the chariot-racing arena itself …’.

The next meeting of the Colchester YAC is on the 19th November.

The images show the Colchester YAC members at the Roman circus centre on the 15th: playing “Who am I?”; being instructed on pot-washing by Gillian Brown; cleaning the finds which they excavated from the CAG Fordham site; and playing the ‘archaeological bingo’.