Archaeology isn't always high tech

Archaeology isn't always high tech

Archaeologist marks one of the 27 points used to level the walls on the south side of the Friary

Under the supervision of archaeologist Tony Gnanaratnam intern Emma helps to record the north side of the Friary.

Now that the site has been cleaned, marked into grids and measured, the drawing can begin. This is all done by hand and is one of the many skills an archaeologist needs. Each feature is recorded onto a plan by hand. To use photography at this point may miss some of the key details that can only be seen by the human eye. Recording like this, at this point, means that if they choose to dig deeper they have a full record of what this level of the excavation looked like.

Since the area has been cleaned there seems to be some more walls to the South of the choir. Leon explained them to me yesterday, as there are three different types of mortar which indicate they could be three different structures or built at different times. Without excavation further underneath the area where the site office is, it will be difficult to tell what these were. They don’t appear to be attached to the church, but could be other buildings in the Greyfriars complex. You can see these walls in the foreground and left hand side of the photograph at the bottom of Wednesday's blog post “Hosing down the dig site ready to be photographed”.

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About the blog

Keep up to date with the progress of the Grey Friars Dig Part II throughout July 2013 via regular updates on this site. The body of King Richard III was discovered here in 2012 – who and what else lies beneath this now-famous car park?

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