Our events take inspiration from ancient artefacts to get creative and crafty with the public.
Waste then and now: The most common find in the archive… Hands On Diary #3
CSI Intern and MA History graduate Ewan talks us through the most abundant object in the HS1 archive, and how they point towards a bigger question of waste in collection storage and beyond.
High Speed Archaeology Finds – Hands on Diary #2
Emma dives into the HS1 archive project - the what, how, and why of archaeological archiving. We’re documenting CSI’s work in real time - find all our blogs so far here. Welcome back! It’s Emma, with another update on the project. The DIY is now completed. The studio is officially up and running. Excitingly, we … Continue reading High Speed Archaeology Finds – Hands on Diary #2
Happy birthday x-rays!
Seeing the Google doodle today I see that x-rays are 115 years old today. Happy birthday x-rays! X-rays can be really useful for conservators working with most any type of material, but particularly archaeological finds, and they have been used extensively during the work in the CSI: lab. You can read more about the use … Continue reading Happy birthday x-rays!
Fingerprints…
This iron knife from grave 168 has been cleaned by volunteer Shirley. The grave was that of a male and other finds included a shield boss with fittings and a second knife. Although quite a small find, the object has presented several areas of interest for the volunteers, conservators and archaeologists. As mentioned in … Continue reading Fingerprints…
Mystery Object update…
This isn't really new news as the image was posted up a couple of months ago, but I completely missed it! Following a topic about the CSI: "mystery object" on Ða Engliscan Gesiðas (The English Companions) discussion group forum, "the society for people interested in all aspects of Anglo-Saxon language and culture", this image was … Continue reading Mystery Object update…
SEM
CSI: Sittingbourne was given a few valuable funded hours to carry out scanning electron microscopy (SEM) on a selection of interesting objects from the site. The availability of time for such analysis is valuable and CSI: Sittingbourne would like to give credit to Greenwich University science department for donating use of the SEM, as well … Continue reading SEM
completed brooch
There were only a few brooches discovered at The Meads. The saucer brooch featured in an earlier post about conserved objects, and pictured above, has now been completed. The brooch was carefully mechanically cleaned using a scalpel to remove the bulk of the surface soil. The remainder was cleaned by swabbing with a paste of … Continue reading completed brooch
spearhead
There were around 29 spearheads uncovered during the excavation at The Meads: these are always found in male graves. Conservation has presented us with the usual mineral preserved organics on these objects. Wood is usually found preserved in the socketed ferrule where the spearhead attaches to the wooden shaft, and grass has been discovered on … Continue reading spearhead
sword fittings
There were two of these decorative fittings found in grave 174 at The Meads. Grave 174 is a male grave consisting of a number of objects including a shield boss, spearhead, sword and one object said to be Bronze Age. The grave also contained some human remains, one of the few where some survived. These … Continue reading sword fittings
CSI: Sittingbourne 