“I’ll have my head in a box of artefacts…”

It’s funny how something which is so day-to-day to you can sound so funny and special to others. I suppose you become immune to the weird and wonderful things the life of an archaeologist presents.

I was speaking to a contractor on the phone yesterday when he asked if we could catch up today and I replied that it was fine, but  “I’ll have my head in a box of artefacts for most of the afternoon…” He burst out laughing and said that my response was the best he had heard in a long time!

This is exactly what I have been doing today- digging though a handling collection at Plas Mawr; the gigantic tardis-of-an-Elizabethan town house on the High Street in Conwy. Last year I launched a new Tudor education programme there and am now writing some new activity sheets for the new handling collection to accompany the workshops.

One of my favourite themed collections is the ‘mystery items’, photographed below. I won’t tell you what they all are, but they certainly get a lot of heads scratching, trying to figure out what the items were used for  if they have modern day equivalents.

All in a day’s work!