At present E is trowelling a lm wide strip within a larger area, taking off a spit of 2-3 cms, as he follows along the inner cut of a ring-ditch. The strip is continually being extended in length as further portions of the cut are delineated and E moves backwards to follow its expected course. The already trowelled strip in front of him has a smooth and polished finish, from which the 'cut' (the soil boundary between the darker ditch-fill and the natural gravels) stands out quite clearly. The area behind him and beneath him, however, is covered with 'tread', footprints and vestiges of plough-soil; it is this area which is being continually brought under the trowel as E moves backwards, and from which the cut of the ring-ditch emerges.

(Recorded Event 22)

The work of a skilled troweller can be compared with that of a novice - new to the tool and the art of using it, unfamiliar with archaeological materials and practices. (There were no such novices on this site; in talking of the novice I am drawing from experience of working on other excavations).

The novice invariably obscures and smudges rather than highlights significant patterns; the material field shows instead a pattern of trowel-marks and ridges, as well as loose crumbs of dislodged soil, where every action with the trowel has left its trace. The ridges catch the light and cast shadows over the surface, obscuring significant patterns further. On the other hand, the mark of a skilled troweller is a surface which shows no mark or trace of having been worked - except that all significant patterns are highlighted, all soil boundaries sharpened, so that they stand out as figures from the general background.

The task of highlighting significant patterns, then, is inextricably bound up with the task of removing the traces of the agency that highlighted it. In this sense each trowel-stroke has a double-effect, at once revealing and hiding aspects of the world. What is revealed is the evidence for human agency in the distant past; what is hidden is the evidence of our own agency in bringing those patterns to light in the present day. The troweller proceeds with his work like a fugitive crossing a terrain of sand or snow, brushing away his tracks as he goes. By subtle sleight of hand, he erases all trace of his own subjective activity from the objective material field.

'It is art to conceal art', as the saying goes, expressing in common-sense wisdom a paradox that lies at the heart of scientific as well as artistic production. Our own skill or artistry in manipulating the world causes that skill to become objectively hidden to us, so that the product we fashion from a raw material appears to us as the raw material itself, independent of any apprehending subject. This effect is possible only by means of a traditional act, in which all the acquired and practised skill of the worker is brought to bear upon the material being worked - even if the act is performed as a matter of routine, and even if the effect of the act is to make the material appear as though it is not the effect of any agency or artisanship in the present day at all.

(slightly amended extract from 4.3)

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