12/06/2026
After the end of every dig, the work doesn’t stop. Having excavated the objects we then need to conserve and to learn everything we can about them and to write up our findings to publish them. This called post excavation or post-ex.
To help with all this Cumbria University and the brilliant team and students at the Institute of Health have offered to work together and to x-ray artefacts from the Roman Imperial site we have here at Carlisle Cricket Club.
Uncovering Roman Carlisle as a charity and a community archaeological project find that these kinds of collaborations mean a great deal and provide opportunities not only for greater understanding of our shared heritage, pulling together experts across disciplines, but also build important partnerships and opportunities for shared learning.
So far through their efforts we were able to identify a variety of Roman artefacts, and some mystery items needing further explorations! We saw emerging from the x-rays, a brilliant example of a utility knife, other parts of sword blades, knives, spear points, and spear butt-spikes/ferrules (the metal bottom of a spear), an iron strygil - a type of tool used in a Roman bathhouse to scrape sweat, mud, and oils off the body, and a handle for a Patera (a dish used for ritual libations), a knife (pugio) with silver inlay, as well as lynch pins, nails, and more.
All this helps us to asses how best to conserve objects and to understand what sometimes is quite unassuming.
There was also further fascinating but as yet unidentified finds from past sessions. Time will tell what these are.
From URC we would like to thank Dr Ian MacDonald, Kimberly Bradshaw, Johnny the technician, along with the students and University of Cumbria - and look forward to continuing to work together.
