Dropped my trowel into a 2,000 year old latrine pit in Turkey

I was squatting at the edge of this Roman-era cesspit near Ephesus, trying to scrape a sample, and my favorite Marshalltown trowel slipped right out of my sweaty glove and plopped into the ancient sludge, so I had to fish it out with a stick while my professor yelled at me not to contaminate the deposit, has anyone else lost a tool in a really gross excavation context?

2 comments

2 Comments

adams.taylor18d ago

Did you try a magnet on a stick before going full retrieval mode?

fisher.taylor18d ago

My socket fell into a 2-inch gap behind my workbench once. An extendable magnet pickup tool saved me from having to move the whole thing.