Digging 2

It's a laugh this working 7.30 to 4! No blipwanders for me, in fact only took 3 photos the whole day, all for work-reasons. I've ramped up the saturation and contrast on this, a wee bit, to try to see if it makes the grave-cut any clearer.
No it doesn't, really.

In much of the centre of Edinburgh, the underlying subsoil is this hard pink (or sometimes green) clay. When the graves were dug into it, they were immediately filled back up, obviously, so one is looking for a slight difference between the clay fill and the undisturbed clay. Sometimes a grave is dug where there was already an older grave (think of Hamlet, and the "comedy" gravedigger chucking old skulls about) This adds to the problem of finding the sides of the grave yu are excavating.

At least you can see the shape of the skull easily enough. I hope there are still teeth left, as these provide a lot of information about the individual's age and health (and, if you can afford the chemical analysis, where they grew up)

Nice to get digging with more delicate tools than yesterday's backbreaking shovelling, though.
And I found a nice little copper or bronze ring, probably for hanging a knife or a purse off a belt :)

Now I've got the eggs boiling to make some sandwiches tomorrow morning, so I'd better leave it here.
Sorry for lack of commenting, probably do better when there's no football tomorrow ;)

Oh, and it was nice to finally meet Trev when I got off the bus this afternoon!