small finds on the move!

Today (17th April), Trust archaeologist Steve Benfield went to the Colchester and Ipswich Museums Service (CIMS) building to collect a batch of small finds from two of our recent sites and to take them on to a specialist for analysis. The small finds which Steve collected today are from the Hyderabad and Meeanee Barracks site and from the Butt Road car-park site. CIMS have cleaned, conserved and X-rayed the finds for us, and the X-rays will aid identification of the finds which are corroded and unidentifiable.

The finds from the Hyderabad and Meeanee site include two shield bosses, two spearheads, one or two knives, an armlet, and several coins, which are all Roman; 23 Anglo-Saxon glass beads; and iron fragments and a corroded lump of iron. All these finds are from burials. Three areas of ironwork and a corroded iron object (SF 125) from the Butt Road car-park site are all late Roman and derive from one burial (F579). After several centuries in the ground, the small finds are now getting out and about and seeing the world…

The image shows one of the X-rays, of SF (small find) 125 from ‘GAL H’ (or Garrison Alienated Land Site H, in full – the Butt Road car-park site, adjacent to the Trust’s new premises at Roman Circus House). The X-ray shows that SF 125 is actually two objects, ie a nail and another, as yet unidentified object.

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