What other things have you discovered? Are there any pictures of the things you found? Lucia (9)

Thanks for your question Lucia!

Over the years I’ve found all sorts of different things on lots of different types of sites. One excavation I worked on was a medieval monastery on the Isle of Man called Rushen Abbey. While we were digging we found all sorts of things relating to the monastery from roof slates and window glass to beautiful French pottery and even the graves of some of the monks. My favourite find from the site was a piece of carved bone with a very special purpose – one end was pointed and used to clean your finger nails while the other was a tiny spoon used as an ear scoop to clean out your dirty ears! You can find a great picture of it here.    

I was also lucky enough to find part of a soapstone bowl when I was digging at Westray in Orkney. Soapstone is a really soft stone that the Vikings often used instead of pottery to make things like bowls and lamps. I the piece I found was in the middle of a midden or rubbish heap and I think the owner must have thrown it away because it was broken.

Another of my favourite finds was from Knockaloe First World War internment camp, which is also on the Isle of Man, where thousands of German civilians lived the during the First World War. I didn’t do any digging on his site but I was lucky enough to do some field walking after the farmer had ploughed one of the fields. One of my favourite finds from the site is part of a teacup from the London & North Western Rail Company. I wonder if the owner kept it after having a cup of tea on the train journey to the camp! My other favourite find from Knockaloe is the very first one we found. It’s a toothbrush that came all the way from Germany. The last word on the brush, Pforzheim, is the town where it was made.

Here are pictures of these two objects: