Sunday, October 23, 2005

Beddington

I went to the Annual York Archaeology Book Fair yesterday, hoping to pick some interesting books. In particular, I was on the look out for Prehistoric landscape to Roman villa: excavations at Beddington, Surrey, 1981-7, edited by Isca Howell. According to the Museum of London website this book is in print and available. Yet, athough we arrived early, the Oxbow Books stall didn't have it, although they had many other MoL publications. On checking out the Oxbow website, it says it's unpublished. Will have to pursue it with the Museum, and pay postage costs, I guess!

The reason I want the Beddington publication so bad is that it was the first site that I was a Finds Supervisor, and the very first time I had to thoroughly record brick and tile! My partner wrote the coin report, so it would be good to find out if that's been published or not. Will any of our input be acknowledged? It's a shame that the people who directed the excavations, and wrote up it up very thoroughly don't have their names on the cover of the book. Lesley and Roy Adkins are excellent archaeologists and ensured that all categories of finds, even brick and tile, were properly recorded. It's their fault I went on to specialise in ceramic building materials :-)

Btw, the Adkins wrote a small interim, popular, report on the Bedidngton excavations, called Under the Sludge, which still seems to be available.

No comments: