Twmbarlwm Dig 2022 – Day 2

Tuesday 9th August

Another very sunny and very hot morning and again today’s volunteers were there waiting for me to take register. Five new faces joined us today and another two from yesterday arrived a bit later in the day – but we don’t mind that because we are very grateful for any input from our volunteers.

The trusty Land Rover arrived with Will to transport the equipment up the mountain again while Norman our vice chair led the rest of the Team up the hill – although he kindly let the younger ones go in front.

The work on the two excavations continued. Trench 1 is looking at the apparent stone circle on the south-east edge to examine whether it is an identifiable structure.

Trench 2 is located on a gap in the embankment and ditch – in the south-west corner – to see if the gap had been created by the backfilling of the ditch or if the embankment and ditch were never completed – the undergrowth cover here peeled away relatively easily as if it were a carpet – the shallow, brittle roots is evidence of just how dry the turf is with the current heat and lack of rainfall over recent months.

Today was extremely warm work for all involved and we had to ensure that everyone took plenty of breaks and took on plenty of water. The turf has been taken off the gap excavation and the stones exposed on the circle site. The work on the circle was very dusty and by the end of the day the team working on it looked as though they had spent a shift shovelling coal!

Richard and Will marked out the area for the third trench around the area of the bronze age cairn and it is hoped to set a team clearing that tomorrow.

A few visitors dropped by to ask some questions in particular Norman spoke to some visitors who was an expat South African (well, he was wearing a Springbok baseball cap and a Springbok rugby shirt – a bit of a clue there).  They were all very interested in what was going on.

The thermometer hit over 30° today so many took an early finish – but the archaeological agreed that good progress has been made so far.

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