York Museums Trust Blog

For an archaeologist, there’s nothing like getting your hands dirty. Wild Wednesdays (our free outdoor activities in August on - surprise, surprise - Wednesdays), and an adult education course, has given us archaeologists at the Yorkshire Museum a chance to do just that. Armed with scheduled monument consent we have been exploring the potential of archaeology in the gardens by reopening a trench dug in the 1950’s. Even better, we have been working with the York branch of the Young Archaeologists’ Club - they love a bit of digging, and normally only get one chance a year to get their trowels out, so this was a bit of a treat for all of us! We opened the trench on Friday to give them a chance to enjoy getting grubby just like we do. They trowelled, sieved their spoil and finally sorted their finds. And we didn’t even get rained on (much). I really enjoy working with people who are as enthusiastic as our YAC members (enthusiasm is so infectious!), especially when at the end of the day there’s a general chorus of “When are we diggin’ again?”.