"In considering the area of Maumbury and the height of the encircling back, it is undoubtedly the largest and most important structure of its kind in Great Britain. It is, moreover, one of the rarest types of ancient monuments remaining in our country and I feel it a privilege to have had… these excavations in my hands." - Excavations at Maumbury Rings, by Henry Saint George Gray, 1908.
Today I put the trowel in one of the most sacred sites in our fair shores, and feel most gratified indeed to be able to dig, and unearth the treasures which may be curated by the Dorchester (Durnovaria) Museum and to be more well understood from scholars in ages to come.
Seemingly archaeologists from Exeter (Isca) are sometimes brought in, but the Council favour Dorset's own archaeological team (yours truly, and my mentor - Phil Clarke) to investigate these ancient ruins in the near future. Only three feet down were found some of the rarest Roman artefacts ever unearthed, and I am most gratified indeed to have ousted the Devonian "antiquisearchers" and that us (the "detectorists") have managed to win the hearts and minds of the local powers that be.
The next part of the project is to excavate some steps that need re-fashioning, and this will give us access to some of the most precious pieces of earth known to these shores. We may find nothing. It may be archaeologically sterile. But, if it is not (and let's face it: nothing ventured, nothing gained) then we may stumble across some discoveries of significance, to be researched by the local historians and archaeologists.
It does not matter that the other sites we have on the drawing-board (Bridport and Weymouth) are not as high profile.
This morning I was (in my mind at least) somewhere between Mortimer Wheeler and Indiana Jones.
God, I love archaeology. Whereas historians and Classicists (my contemporaries and colleagues) read about things and write about them, it is only the archaeologist who puts in the work, who gets his or her hands dirty, and unearths the fruits, which all other slothful scholars and arm-chair generals so venerate.
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