Not quite a monolith in the desert but equally enigmatic. The three boxes contain 600+ bags of finds from the recent excavations at Chancery Lane, recovered by Archaeological Projects Ltd. under the watchful eye of Site Director, Alan Hayden. The excavation itself concluded in late 2020.
It is a large assemblage and the first stage in processing the finds involves sorting all the bags by Context and Find numbers. They are gathered by context first and then put into numerical sequence within each context. This process also allows for an assessment of the bag contents, which consist mainly of shoe and boot parts such as soles and upper parts, as well as a number of complete examples of both. Other artefacts include knife sheaths, belts and straps. The initial sorting also gives a preliminary dating for the different contexts, which ranges from the Late 10th to Early 17th century. Once this is done, the actual process of cleaning and analysis of the finds can begin.
As this work progresses, there will be a series of posts on the finds as they emerge.