I became a town-lifer in the summer of 2011. Aged 27 I had
just finished my first year at the University of Bristol studying Archaeology
as a mature student. The whole idea of going away to a field for two weeks,
knowing no-one and having no previous practical knowledge of excavation was beyond
terrifying for me, and after an epic journey involving a very overladen
bicycle, several (delayed) trains and a very kindly dog walker I arrived on
site, exhausted, scared, slightly tearful and wondering what I’d let myself in
for. I didn’t feel that way for very long as I was helped to put up my tent and
shown to meet the rest of my group at ‘family dinner’. Over the next two weeks
I quickly realised that at Silchester everyone looks out for each other and
that’s how it functions and it does become like a big family. Eagle eyes can
spot an excavator in need without you even realising it and someone will always
try to help if you’ve got a problem, whether you just need a hug or a warm
cuppa or a bit more help with something archaeologically.
For me being a town-lifer means so much. It was where my
love of field archaeology really started. It has taught me so much about
recording and excavation and given me such an incredible opportunity to work
among so many like-minded people who have always been supportive and honest and
impressively bonkers to ensure that everyone has a great time at Silchester.
The 2014 season will be my fourth year and by the end I will have lived within
the walls of Calleva Atrebatum for 18 weeks, something that makes me immensely proud!
So I guess I should share a Silchester memory – there are so
many it’s hard to choose but I give you a fleeting but perhaps most important
one from my first season at Silchester – the moment I knew that I had made the
right choice to be an archaeologist.
It starts with a fire, nothing fancy, just a small allocated
space on the ground upon which a surface of clay has been deposited to make a
hearth. And in this hearth a fire once
burned, giving warmth on the cold days and heat on which food was cooked. How
many eyes looked into the flames and watched them dance as stories were passed
around? Now the memories of those moments are long forgotten but their
possibility remains in the dark red clay that has once more been revealed by
the edge of a trowel. And now it is my
trowel that is cutting through that hearth and pulling it apart but rather than
be sad that I am destroying it I feel privileged that I am recording its every
detail and discovering how it came to be, from the cut made into the gravel beneath
it to the layers of clay and flints that formed its structure. I may never know
the stories told around this hearth, or hear the voices of those who lived here
but I am proud that through archaeology I am once more putting this little
hearth back into the story of Calleva. Many archaeologists have their prized
find, the thing they wish they could take home with them when digging is done.
For me my prize find is a little flint pebble that has been turned ruby red by
the clay and heat from that little hearth. That pebble sits on my desk at home
and every day it reminds me that sometimes things need to be picked apart to be
understood.
Hannah Raines, Silchester TownLifer
Silchester excavator 2011-2014.
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