Monday, January 08, 2007

Dig at the dock - first day of the dig


Monday 08 January 07

Archaeologists in actionRob Philpott and Anis Price examine the lastest discovery

Karen introduced our head of archaeology Rob Philpott on the blog last week in a post about the excavation of the site for the new Museum of Liverpool. Today was the first official day of the dig, so I donned a hard hat and high visibility jacket to visit Rob and his team in action on the site.

Although relatively little of the tarmac covering the site has been removed so far, the team have already found the entrance to the original Manchester Dock. While I was there volunteer Anis Price uncovered the metal from the top of the dock gates, which she is pointing out to Rob in the photograph above. Some original cobblestones had also been exposed and we were starting to see the base of settings for cranes and other dock machinery.

As the dig progresses the team will be digging up the infill from behind the dock wall that dates back to the 1780s when the Manchester Dock was created, so could unearth ceramics or other interesting finds from the time. Rob will be keeping the blog posted about any discoveries and news.

You can see a Flickr slideshow of photos from the first day here.


Posted by Sam | 08/01/2007 16:13   | Comments [0]

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