Finds from 2009

In a recent post we promised to show a few of the finds recovered from the site this year. Here is a small selection.

Thanks are due to Rob, Egon, Shirley and their team in the findsroom who cleaned, catalogued, conserved and generally made things recogniseable again.





A set of German ammunition pouches.

The plate and badge from a Saxon pickelhaube helmet.

A patent medicine bottle - troops often took their own cold remedies and lice powders into the line.



Lots of cartidges, mostly fired, which are probably evidence of battlefield salvage that someone dumped in a position when he couldn't be bothered to carry them to the rear!

Our star find,the German 1915 snipers face mask. This is a particukrly evocative artefact as it leaves no doubt about its evil intent. No aesthetics, just malevolence. It is also very rare, only one of 1500 made.

And we found all this rusty munition but thanks to Gontrand and Rod it wasn't a significant problem. There are German stick grenades and trench mortar rounds, as well as a British Stokes mortar bomb and someother bits and pieces. DOVO have now removedthem from the safe area on site.

Recording Methods

Those of you that have visited us on site will know of all the many methods we employ for recording our work. One of these is to film our work to provide detail on decisions made and methods employed. This has the added benefit of the potential for producing documentary work on the excavations. Angela and Derek have filmed all of the fieldwork so far and Angela has now put together a 1 minute clip of the work as a trailer for a documentary proposal. We hope this leads to further work for the project!

The Project was selected as one of five finalists for the National Film Board of Canada Cross-Media Challenge 2009 competition at The Sheffield Documentary Festival. Angela delivered a presentation to the international judging panel and gathered audience, which was well received. Unfortunately we didn't scoop the main prize, but were very pleased to have reached the final and obtained some useful feedback and encouragement.

An Irish Memorial

The team was fortunate enough to have Billy Quinn working with us this summer. Billy has posted his thoughts on the excavations here: http://mooregroup.wordpress.com/2009/08/18/my-summer-holidays-by-billy-quinn-aged-41-and-a-half/



In other news - there is the possibility that this week we will hear the results of the stable istope work that was undertaken on the remains of the Australian soldier recovered in 2008. Was he from Western Australia, New South Wales, England, Scotland or.....Sweden?



Lastly, it is confirmed that the volume on the project so far is now out: you can purchase at many book stores or Amazon... http://www.amazon.co.uk/Digging-Up-Plugstreet-Archaeology-Battlefield/dp/1844255425