Secret streets of Britain’s Atlantis are revealed

Reblogged from University of Southampton's Noticeboard:

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In a project led by Professor David Sear of Geography and Environment, the most detailed analysis ever undertaken has been carried out  looking at the archaeological remains of the lost medieval town of Dunwich, dubbed ‘Britain’s Atlantis’.

Funded and supported by English Heritage, and using advanced underwater imaging techniques, the project has produced the most accurate map to date of the town’s streets, boundaries and major buildings, and revealed new ruins on the seabed.

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Fascinating blog on the town of Dunwich.

Spring Survey - Week 2 Review

Reblogged from Basing House CAT Project:

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The undergraduates have finished working at Basing House for this Spring, and we'll be back on site in a few weeks to collect  more data for some of our postgraduate students who are using the site for various projects.

This is the team from Week 2. I can't believe how much ground these guys covered! Thanks all!

I thought it might be useful to give you a rundown on the different tools that we were using to record the site during the topographic, building and geophysical survey, as we keep saying things like 'mag' and 'GPR' without explaining what any of them are!

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Smashing blog from Nicole Beale on the completed survey at Basing House, and a bit of a low-down on the techniques used, represented by abbreviations and three letter acronyms in my blog over the last few weeks. Enjoy!

Basing House Survey Final Day – A rain check and some reflections

The second week of survey at Basing House finished on Friday in a spray of mud and rain, hailstones and inky cloud. What had promised to be a reasonable day quickly became unworkable, wet and cold. The teams set out for the final day of survey, focusing on completion of the magnetometry and resistivity in the area of the New House and outer bailey, and GPR over the outer bailey also. We abandoned the magnetic susceptibility to ensure that all hands were working on the res and mag. The rain set in and the GPR survey was the first to suffer, with the notebooks turning to mush.

Time for a weatherproof notebook!

The magnetometry continued, mopping up grids on the Civil War earthworks, and finishing the survey of the New House and outer bailey. Resistivity was completed in the Old House and the New House, although the team had suspicions that the wet weather would affect the results.

Kelly with the magnetometer

Rain? What rain?

A new use for the resistance meter box

By midday the decision was made to start leaving the field. The resistance survey was completed and kit brought in. After lunch, and a cake-fest organised by Nicole and Gareth, the last grids of magnetometry and GPR profiles were finished, and the team started cleaning up kit and packing the van. The dark brooding skies did not change, and the bothy was locked up and all was finished by 3pm. The team headed back to Southampton for the routine of data download and meshing.

Maintenance on the Sensors and Software GPR

The team at the end of the survey, the Old House ringwork in the background

Data download revealed that the results from the resistivity were okay. The rain had affected them slightly, but some data processing should be able to deal with this. The line of the defences for the courtyard of the New House stand out spectacularly in thr results, together with features adjacent on the outer bailey. The downside is that the team did not quite complete all of the areas. The high resolution of the resistance survey at 0.5m by 0.5m travers and reading interval, meant that the work was slow. Similarly the magnetometer survey didn’t quite get started across the fence on the common. There is however plenty of scope to follow this survey up with more work in the summer alongside the excavation basinghousecat.wordpress.com.

In summary the two weeks have survey have been a success. Training apart, the team have produced a detailed topographic survey of the site, and combined resistance, magnetometer and GPR survey has been conducted within the scheduled area, providing a clear plan of the structural remains across the Old and New House, and the bailey and outer defences of the site. The students will now be using the results as part of their final assignments, and the results will go forward to help with new interpretations of the nature and extent of the earthworks and archaeological features at the site.

 

 

 

 

Basing House Survey, Day Four – Spring finally arrives!

We have had some really productive days on the second phase of survey at Basing House, with third year and postgraduate students from the University of Southamotin working hard, and carrying out resistance survey, magnetometry, GPR and magnetic susceptibility of the Old and New houses, and Civil War defences and the outer bailey. Spring also finally arrived today after single-figure temperatures and damp weather. Altogether today marked the best day of surveying yet.

Survey in the area of the outer bailey

Basing House Spring Survey – Week 2 Day One

After a few weeks out of the field, the staff and students from the University of Southampton arrived back at Basing House to start the geophysical survey component of the fieldwork. A mix of third year students from Archaeology and Oceanography, Erasmus students and postgraduates headed out to the site. Chris Elmer again gave the group a tour of the site, while supervisors commenced gridding out the site using Smartnet GPS. The group were then divided into teams to carry out magnetometry, resistance survey, GPR and magnetic susceptibility.

Team gridding out the site with the GPS

Magnetometry commenced in the area to the west and south of the ringwork and Old House, covering parts of the Civil War defences. Two Bartington Instruments gradiometers were used. The resistivity teams started work in the area of the Outer Bailey, surveying at 0.5m by 0.5m resolution.

Spring Survey Week One - Day Four

Reblogged from Basing House CAT Project:

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Today was a cold but very productive day up at Basing House.

The student teams are getting faster at recording topography and have covered huge areas of the site.

Surveying in the limits of the New House has been tricky as there are partial walls to try to identify.

One of the student teams is made up of Masters students, two of whom are planning to use Basing House as the major case study for their dissertation projects.

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Today's blog from Nicole for the survey at Basing House!

Antinoupolis – Some New Links

After nearly 10 days back in the UK, I received an email from Jay Heidel today with some new information on the state of Antinoupolis, and some plans for the up and coming work. He mentioned that an italian journalist is producing an article on the site, and has posted a blog entry on Antinoupolis at http://filelleni.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/allarme-egitto/. Apologies for not reblogging this, there doesn’t seem to be a link.

Just in case I didn’t reproduce it, here is the link to the Egyptian Independent article on the site http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/antinoupolis-archaeological-site-being-destroyed-systematically. A scan of the article in arabic in the paper Al Masry al Youm is available here:

Article scan arabic

I will update this blog category at a later date with some thoughts, once the fieldwork at Basing House is completed.