Rachel made us very welcome with the support of some of the other small finds team at CAM ARK , and The Simpsons!

Before we started on the urn it was interesting to hear how in the flot from the soil samples, some plant seeds were found, including apple and lettuce.  Looks as though our Bronze Age friends were healthy eaters, not to be confused with Cookers!  Apples, eaters, cookers - Sorry!  I was also surprised to see that the pieces of the urn that had fallen out during excavation were decorated with a pattern.

It was then to the urn and after some extra support was given with the help of bandages from Tesco's, the layer of gravel encrusted around the collar was washed off with a gentle shower spray.  After a lot of careful work, the collar was uncovered and found to be patterned with vertical and horizontal lines.  The rim was also patterned with chevron impressions.

Eventually the gravel layer was removed to allow access to the contents of cremated bone and a lovely worked flint about 65 mm long and 40 mm at its widest part.  The "present" really made Rachel's day, as well as ours.

Whilst the collar and the base are still whole, the section between is in a number of pieces.  From some of the pictures you will see how cracked the urn was so it is surprising it is not in even more pieces.  Some special stabiliser has been applied and hopefully they will go back together in due course.

Some larger pieces of bone were removed prior to the excavation, through the hole in the side and probably we will have them carbon 14 age dated.  The flot probably needs to be sent to an expert for analysis and we will arrange Elie's master class checking the hard particles from the soil sample wash.