Last week, 13-year-old Isla joined us for a week of work experience. She describes her time in the Edinburgh office and what she learned:

Last week I was at Wessex Archaeology in Edinburgh for a week of work experience.

My favourite thing from the week was the photogrammetry, which was loads of fun. You have to take a picture at every different angle, then use a computer to line them up and it gives you a 3D model of the object. I saw lots of models of skeletons from Bath Abbey, which were really cool.

I also learned about different ways you can survey the sea bed for shipwrecks. We looked at lots of different artefacts in the handling collection and talked about how these things might have ended up in the sea and how you conserve them. I enjoyed looking at the mammoth tooth and comparing the size to our teeth and heads. They’re huge!

I also liked looking at the National Library of Scotland’s website and seeing the difference between the historic maps and the satellite photos from now. The people here do some really complicated jobs that I never knew existed.

Isla, Student