A Random Find.

In the distant past I was involved in archaeology and helping on excavations in the Lake District and on Hadrian's Wall and I still have an interest in it . So the other day I took the dog for a walk to our local Roman fort, the site of which is surrounded on three sides by the river, to see if the recent floods had washed any Roman pottery out of the banks .

There is very little to see of the fort on the ground and it was partially dug about 40 years ago. Several hundred yards down stream from the fort the river regularly washes part of the banking away and I believe it was the site of a rubbish tip for the fort as I've found broken pottery and lots of charcoal  there and the field is known locally as 'Pot Field' because of the amount of pottery found when it is ploughed. It is probably also the site of the civilian settlement or 'vicus' .

As it was, the only piece of pot of any size I found was the above one , It's a piece red Samian ware imported from Gaul and was probably from a wide (12") shallowish bowl , being imported it would have been relatively expensive ,although readily available and somebody would have sworn when it got broken ! . It has no value monetary or archaeological - the local museum has boxes of the stuff and because it was not found in a archaeological context it  can tell us nothing other than about 1700 years ago somebody dropped and broke one of their better pieces of tableware .