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14th April 2008, 04:58 PM
I'd like to start a thread on what brings a smile to my face when sat in a miserable site cabin.
Those truly brilliant wittcisms that bored archaeologists like to write to make my day a happy one [:p]
My favourite from the last couple of months:
Skelly Sheet 855
Position of (7) feet: "at end of legs"
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14th April 2008, 06:16 PM
Not quite the same but;few years ago a young lady had an upside down human skull,she took out the fill and wrote on context sheet "cut of bone-lined post hole",myself once when faced with feature sought of cross between tree bole/pit/rabbit warren wrote "take your pick-i'm buggered if i know":face-huh:
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14th April 2008, 06:30 PM
A smile comes to my face whenever I think of one of the first context sheets I ever saw (in 1984), in which one of the fills of a medieval cess pit had been described as "green velvet stool".
A shudder comes over me every time I think of the experienced site assistant who filled in a couple of dozen context sheets, using fewer words in total than the number of sheets, and immediately left.
1man1desk
to let, fully furnished
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14th April 2008, 07:45 PM
Superb topic... my face is hurting!
I remember writing
"If you can read this then you must have a desk job"
Sorry to whoever got that one!
and my fave was hiding secret messages in the sketch plan... its amazing what you can do with gravel !
Another sheet from York had something like "this complicated layer can only be described using the medium of dance"
"No job worth doing was ever done on time or under budget.."
Khufu
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15th April 2008, 09:54 AM
How about a coprolite sampled from a drain described on the sample sheet as "A dump deposit of bottom soil" [xx(]
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15th April 2008, 12:16 PM
Seen one layer described as "black sh!t"
And the "blancmange shaped feature"
And the layer that was recorded as melting in the hot sun!!
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15th April 2008, 01:29 PM
Ah... the old fave... Amorphous Blob...
take a big word and place it near a subjective little word... voila.... new Archaeological term!
"No job worth doing was ever done on time or under budget.."
Khufu
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15th April 2008, 02:42 PM
Have had many chuckles (and growls) over the years at context sheet comments some of my favorites are:-
This pit was excavated by a donkey and filled by a monkey (a nice machine driver levelled this area of the site after hours!!)
Linear was filled with organic material that looked like it had passed through a pig
This feature was either a pit or a ditch or a post-hole or something else entirely as it was only seen for a scond before the trench flooded.
Although not from a context sheet (from a specalist finds report) this is still one of my favourites - all the pottery was Neolithic or later. (no further dates were given)
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16th April 2008, 08:11 PM
A soil colour description of 'mushroomy grey' (I casually asked what sort of mushroom).
A soil colour description of blackish-black
A peanut-shaped pit.
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16th April 2008, 08:23 PM
The sum total of description for the fill of a prehistoric fire pit: "soil and stones". !!!! Actually that didn't make me laugh when I first read it... only many years later.
