Over one hundred enthusiasts and experts attended the 2022 annual Wiltshire Archaeology Conference at the Corn Exchange in Devizes this weekend, hosted by our friends at Wiltshire Museum, and The Salisbury Museum was there. It was the first ‘in person’ Conference since 2019, and Director of Wiltshire Museum, David Dawson, spoke for us all when he said it was good to be back.
Wiltshire Finds Liaison Officer, Sophie Hawke (who is based with us in Salisbury), was there, and with two Volunteers, had a stall with information about the Portable Antiquities Scheme and with Salisbury Museum publications both for sale and to distribute. Other organisations were represented, amongst them Wessex Archaeology, The Association for Roman Archaeology, Wiltshire Archaeology Field Group and a VERY popular second-hand history book stall!
Sophie was one of the speakers, talking about finds of interest in recent months. Also speaking, amongst others, was Wil Partridge, previous Finds Liaison Officer, now based with Wiltshire Museum; the Deputy County Archaeologist who spoke about excavations county-wide, and Dr Phil Harding on the ‘Cradle of Stonehenge’ – excavations at Larkhill.
A number of the museum’s Portable Antiquities Scheme Volunteers were involved in archaeological excavation in Wiltshire this week, led by Volunteer Alyson Tanner. Supported by Wilshire Archaeological Field Group and members of the local community, including the generous hosts, the owners of the land, it was a busy week. It is late in the year for such things but it has, of course, been something of an ‘Indian Summer’ and there were hopes that the weather would hold.
It did hold – sort of. The first day was very wet indeed and gale force winds (we were on top of a hill!) continued until mid-week but at least that helped dry things out. The sun finally showed itself in the last couple of days and revealed spectacular views.
Wet and windy, but there were plenty watching……
There were plenty of visitors, including our own Finds Liaison Officer, Sophie Hawke, who did the right thing – brought cakes!
Serious archaeology revealed a lot of finds, and this trench is ‘textbook’ . The layers are beautifully displayed.
Beautiful Wiltshire countryside – full of history.
We wrote recently by way of welcome to Sophie Hawke who had begun a job share, mainly at The Salisbury Museum, with Wiltshire Finds Liaison Officer, Wil Partridge. Today, Sophie writes:
Farewell Wil!
It was good see our view of Salisbury Cathedral from the office window again this week as I popped into the Museum briefly to say goodbye to our colleague, Wil Partridge, Finds Liaison Officer for Wiltshire as he leaves the Portable Antiquities Scheme and The Salisbury Museum, for a return to academia. Wil has been a FLO in several counties prior to joining The Salisbury Museum in 2018. He is still going to be working at Wiltshire Museum on the Wealth of Knowledge Project so we will see him regularly (Covid allowing). Good luck, Wil, missing you already, keep in touch!
I have now increased my hours to become full time FLO. Work has continued on identifying the finds we took in before Christmas, and I am grateful to the PAS volunteers for their work identifying and recording finds remotely, from finders’ photographs. We have had further PAS training via Zoom, including Roman Radiate and nummi coins, further database training and Early Medieval metalwork.
Several people have found objects in their gardens during this lockdown, including a couple of Roman coins, one of them pierced, so we hope to see those once The Salisbury Museum reopens (planned for 17 May). We have provided NW Young Archaeologists’ Club with information for their session looking at the Portable Antiquities Scheme and the Treasure process.
I attended a Teams tea break with other new FLOs this week, so it was good to catch up with them and see how well they are finding their new roles and the challenges faced starting a new job in lockdown! We will meet virtually again after Easter.
Do contact the PAS office at The Salisbury Museum if you have any finds queries:
Wil has moved on (though continues to have links with Wessex Museums as Sophie outlines above). The museum Portable Antiquities Scheme Volunteers who have worked with Wil look forward to seeing him later in the year as, of course, we haven’t had the chance to see him and properly wish him well on his future career path.
Sophie now takes over full-time and when Volunteers are allowed back on the premises (might it really happen in the early summer?) they can expect to see her in what is fondly known as ‘Narnia’ – the tiny office above the entrance porch at The Salisbury Museum.
Two months in as Finds Liaison Officer for Wiltshire
Hello, I can’t believe it’s been almost two months since I started as Finds Liaison Officer for Wiltshire, working for the Portable Antiquities Scheme, based at The Salisbury Museum. Starting a new job during lockdown is challenging, but I have had an easier time than most. I’m job sharing with Wil Partridge, (I was his Finds Liaison Assistant in 2019), so it’s great to work with him again, catch up with former colleagues and meet new ones both at the Museum and those working for the British Museum. I’ve also ‘met’ our local PAS supporters: Wiltshire Museum, Wiltshire County Council and Swindon Museum and Art Gallery via email. I have been made to feel very welcome and it’s good to be looking at finds again. Wil and I managed to meet in person at the Museum on my first day, just before we went into this third lockdown and we are in regular contact via WhatsApp and email.
I am still working from home and we have a weekly catch up meeting on Zoom for Museum staff which is a chance to see everyone and find out what others are working on. I also have a virtual coffee with other FLOs once a week. I imagine it can become quite isolating to work from home and not see work colleagues, so these virtual catch ups are a great way of feeling connected and part of the team.
Work has been quite busy! We are working on recording the finds we have in the office, and have had some finders sending in photos of finds for recording, which we and our PAS volunteers are able to work on remotely, provided the photos are good quality, taken with a scale bar or ruler and we are given the find spot. Although working from home means I don’t always have the reference book I need as it’s still in the office!
I have attended a number of online training courses provided for FLOs by the Portable Antiquities Scheme including photography, Photoshop, Lithics, the Treasure Process and PAS database and Roman coins. These have been really useful and I have more Roman coins and Early Medieval art styles training next month. I have ‘met’ metal detecting club members and other finders via email and I look forward to when we can get back to work at the Museum with our PAS volunteers again, as well as out and about to meet finders in person.
So, it has been a bit of a whirlwind so far but I’m really enjoying the work and being part of The Salisbury Museum and the Portable Antiquities Team. I feel extremely fortunate to have managed to get a new job during this pandemic, let alone my dream job!
P S. if you haven’t already seen it, read my blog post for WSHC here
Sophie, and another face you might know….photo taken Spring 2019 Photo: Rick Buettner
Sophie Hawke, Finds Liaison Officer for Wiltshire:
Hello, I am the new Finds Liaison Officer for Wiltshire, job sharing with Wil Partridge at The Salisbury Museum. I started in my new role at the beginning of January but have only managed three days in the office so far, due to Covid lockdown restrictions.
Like Wil, I have been working from home. This is a bonus in some ways as it’s warmer at home than in the office (we are situated directly above the medieval porch at work so any heat rises up to the ceiling and stays there) and my travel time to work is currently ten seconds as opposed to an hour. On the down side, I have to tidy up before any Zoom calls and hope that no-one rings the doorbell whilst I’m unmuted on Zoom as my dogs will bark incessantly at the bell.
I have always been fascinated by archaeology. I joined the Young Archaeologists’ Club in Dorchester, Dorset aged 10 (a long time ago), then went on my first dig aged 11, at Dewlish Roman villa. I was hooked!
Fast forward a few years, I studied at University of Bristol for a Certificate in Archaeology with Mick Aston as my tutor, started a family, did an Open University degree, then immediately returned to Bristol Uni, with Mick as one of my lecturers, for a part time MA in Landscape Archaeology.
During all this, I started work at a secondary school and stayed for 15 years, as part of my role there was (and still is in a voluntary capacity) as Archaeology Liaison Officer for the Roman villa under the School playing field. In 2018, I was awarded a Headley Trust internship with the Portable Antiquities Scheme at The Salisbury Museum, and Historic England. Following this I worked for Historic England as a Finds Supervisor and just before Christmas 2020, I was offered this Wiltshire FLO job. I love working with finds, meeting people and doing research so this is my dream job! My favourite find to date is a hoard of Roman pewter found near Westbury. When the finder sent photos of it, Wil and I couldn’t believe our eyes as it contained a lead tank (see photo below), quite a rare find, which may be a portable font.
We have a lovely team of PAS volunteers who help with the identifying and research of finds. When we are eventually all allowed back in the office, there will be cake and we can enjoy working together again as a team. Wil and I are currently working through the finds that came in last year, and as I write this, limited local metal detecting is now permitted as exercise under updated Government Covid regulations. I imagine we will be extremely busy once both The Salisbury Museum and Wiltshire Museum are allowed to reopen and we can make appointments to see finders. Hopefully, it won’t be too long before that happens! We also like to see finds that people have made whilst gardening or out walking etc. and not just metal objects. You can contact us via email: PAS@salisburymuseum.org.uk or follow us on Twitter @FLOWilts
You can find out more about the Portable Antiquities Scheme and current Government advice on searching for archaeological finds during Covid, on the Portable Antiquities Scheme Website.
I look forward to meeting many of you in the (hopefully) not too distant future!
We, at Salisbury Museum, know Sophie already, as she explains above. The team of PAS Volunteers look forward to working with her again.
Salisbury Museum Volunteers who work with the Portable Antiquities Scheme were in the museum this week for C19 health and safety training. Joint Wiltshire Finds Liaison Officer, Denise Wilding, and Volunteer Co-ordinator, Rachel Coman, took us through the ‘drill’.
The planning and the detailed risk assessment is impressive. In order that everyone – staff, volunteers and public – is as safe as possible, everything, from what to consider when using light switches and door handles, to fire drills and interaction with the public, has been thought through.
Volunteer teams are starting back to their tasks again gradually, as the individual activities and the new demands on space allow.
As a retired person, I have been grateful these past few months, that I haven’t had the responsibility that others have had, to get life moving again SAFELY.
The new Wiltshire Finds Liaison Officer (FLO), Wil Partridge, has quite a team working with him these days. At the moment, in addition to the new Finds Liaison Assistant, Sophie Hawke, with us for a few months, there are four or five regular Volunteers and assorted colleagues on work placements, etc. It’s just as well, for the metal detectorists’ finds come thick and fast.
Winter is a good time to be detecting, when there are no crops in the fields. The most common finds in Wiltshire? Roman coins, and more Roman coins. The Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) encourages detectorists to bring in even the worst preserved of these (known as ‘grots’!) as all data obtained from these is important in providing an archaeological picture of what was happening all those centuries ago. Unless the coins are ‘treasure’ they are always returned to the detector after being processed by the PAS.
Sometimes it is not metal that arrives on Wil’s desk, but pottery, usually stumbled across by the detectorist when seeking those coins, but occasionally dug up by a farmer or gardener.
This is a sherd of Black Burnished Ware, c AD 250 – 410. In technical terms it is ” a coarse grained fabric, reduced grey-black throughout and containing abundant sub-angular quartz inclusions with infrequent small ferrous inclusions…the sherd exhibits burnishing on the exterior surface, with no surviving decoration.”
Black Burnished Ware was hand or wheel formed ‘coarse ware’ – sandy, rough pottery used for everyday kitchen and table ware such as jars, dishes and bowls. It was produced in huge numbers in the Poole (Dorset) area and distributed throughout Britain for centuries (pause to consider the logistics!). It was also produced in the Thames Estuary and in the Malverns. No wonder it turns up fairly frequently!
Pottery is important as a dating tool as it is well researched when and where certain types of pottery were made throughout history. If something metal (a knife, a key, a horseshoe…) turns up with the pot then the metal item can be dated with some certainty.
The Roman period, of course, is famous for its Samian Ware, a strikingly modern looking, characteristically red, ceramic. One of the ‘fine wares’. Quite a lot is brought to us here at the museum, sadly usually only fragments, but interesting nevertheless.
The technical description written by one of the PAS interns at Salisbury Museum is as follows: “A fragment of a Roman wheel made, Samian ware vessel. The fragment forms part of the body and is almost pentagonal shape. The sherd is an oxidised, sandy and pink colour fabric with an orange-red slip. There are no visible inclusions. The sherd is decorated with a stamp representing two figures. The figure on the left is bending forward the one on the right, extending his hand. The figure on the right is smaller than the first one and appears to hold something over his head. The scene is inserted into a circular and raised frame.”
A somewhat finer example of Samian ware from Vindolanda Museum (Northumberland).