Field School in Nottingham | Graduate Student Summer Spotlight

This summer, 2nd-year PhD student in medieval art, Rebekkah Hart, attended an archeological field school in Sherwood Forest, Nottingham, UK. The site of King John’s Palace was a luxury deer park and hunting lodge in the medieval period and was visited by all eight kings from Henry II to Richard II. Rebekkah had the opportunity to excavate near an inner boundary wall of the palace site where she came across an array of finds: Roman pottery (2nd-3rd Century CE), medieval pottery (13-14th century CE), medieval pot boil stones, 17th-century cookware, burnt material, and remnants of the 12th-century palace building materials. The school provided training in a range of skills including 3D surveying with a total station, finds handling and processing, pottery identification, context sheet recording, trench layout, and site photography. Rebekkah used her newfound knowledge the very next week to survey medieval graffiti in Norfolk churches with archeologist Matt Champion, a project she hopes to continue working on as she studies the popular devotion in English parish churches.