#ribchester

I’m studying archaeology for a whole bunch of reasons, and if anyone ever wants to chat to me about the field, I’d be happy to! There’s a lot to love about it. (And some things which could really be improved, too, which I’m also happy to complain about if people feel like being on the receiving end of a rant or five.) 

One thing that I never expected when I started, though, was the cute animals! So here, have some cute, archaeology-adjacent animal photos to brighten your day. 

This is Marcus the field mouse. He was living under my friend’s tent for the month we were camped out on a dig in the UK. We finally found him when my friend took down her tent. 

This is Chester! He’s the least useful planning assistant I’ve ever had, which is saying a lot, because I’ve worked with some remarkably unhelpful people. He lived at a homestead we were doing some survey work at, here in Australia. He had a habit of running into the centre of where we were working, stomping all over people’s plans, and then dropping his drool-coated ball right on your context sheet, expecting you to throw it. He was lovely, but, as I said, not the most helpful. 

The site I dug in the UK was a Roman cavalry fort up in Lancashire- it’s in a village called Ribchester, which has a Roman festival each year. The fort is actually quite a big deal in the town- a hoard of arterfacts was discovered there in the late 1700s, which is now in the British Museum, and the town has a museum as well as accessible remains of both the granaries and the guardhouse.  I don’t know the name of the horse above, but there were reenactors at the festival. They valiantly speared quite a few cabbages. 

And, last but certainly not least, this is Sansa. She belonged to one of the site directors at the dig in England, and was the only dog allowed in trench because she knew she wasn’t allowed to dig. We all adored her. Whenever you were eating lunch, she’d sit and stare mournfully at your sandwich- she’d never actually try and take it from you, but it was so difficult to resist those eyes. 

Ribchester