Rhiannon Bianchi (2007)

I’m Rhiannon Bianchi from St Edmunds girl’s school and for my work experience I chose Wessex Archaeology. Before my first day I had to arrange an interview so I could be shown round and know what I would be doing when I came for my week.

The Monday arrived and I was very nervous! But everyone was welcoming and showed me what to do. My first day was in the Environmental Department. I was with Sarah, Laura and Chris. I did some Environmental sampling. I had a tray with chalk, burnt flint, burnt bone, charcoal and even bits of pot. If I found anything different I had to put it away in a little bag and number it. After sorting it all out I had to weigh the left over chalk and write it down on a piece of paper.

Tuesday I was in the Finds Department with Tara, Darren and Angie. I started to wash some prehistoric finds from a Southampton site.

About an hour into doing that, Tara and Angie drew me away to look at an Anglo Saxon sword. It was about 3 feet long! You could still see some markings that were on the end of it. I had gone back to washing, when Laura came in and showed a big pot that was whole but it was cracked. I touched it and she said ‘now you have touched something that is going to be on Time Team!’.

On Wednesday I went to a meeting at Salisbury Museum and then to an Anglo-Saxon site. I spent all my day with Margret who is the Education Manager. We arrived at the museum and went up to the library to have the meeting. It took about half an hour and was quite interesting. We came back to Wessex and before setting off to the Anglo-Saxon site I watched a CD and had my lunch.

The CD was produced by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and Margaret asked me to see whether I thought it would be interesting for my age group. The CD was about a troopship in World War I, called SS Mendi. It was carrying black recruits from The South African Native Labour Corps, across the English Channel to serve in France, when it was struck by another ship. Within 25 minutes more than 600 of the 800 on board had drowned.

After I had watched that, we set off to the site. When we got there we had to wear a fluorescent jacket and a helmet. A man called Kevin was in charge. He showed us round and explained what was happening and how many skeletons and other things were found. Then a man called Neil who was dowsing, showed us how it worked. He had 2 metal rods and he held them in his hands without his thumbs touching them and when he walked over a place where there was some disturbance to the soil, the copper rods would go inwards. I had a go at this. It was amazing - it felt really weird! After that we went over to a girl called Alice who was digging. Margaret asked if I could help dig the skeleton and Kev said yes! So I started to go round where there were already bones showing and I found another bone! It was really exciting! Alice told me all about archaeology and it was really interesting. Margret took lots of pictures and then we had to go!

Thursday I went to the Finds Department where I had to mark the finds I had washed two days before. You have to do this quite small and clearly so I had a go on a practice rock. After my practice I was allowed to start. A while after that, my tutor came in and I showed her lots of things that had been found and then I showed her to the Environmental Department and showed her what I did on Monday. After I had marked all the finds, I had to record them on a yellow sheet. I had to record the context number, site number, number of things found, material and the weight. I then wrote them all on excel.

Friday was my last day and I was very sad to be going because it had been an amazing experience! I started out in Environmental Department where I had lots of buckets full of samples that had to be separated. You had to use sieves of different sizes and then put two of them in a warming oven and one on top. After all of that I went back to Finds to do some more marking and, recording. Then I had to box them all up!

I said goodbye to everyone in all the departments and then made my way home. I found Wessex Archaeology an amazing experience and really enjoyed working with everyone, all the staff were lovely! So thanks to everyone who helped me!