The tool of the Archaeologist.

You should have a 4" or smaller pointing trowel.
The smaller the trowel, the easier it is to handle and the less the strain on your wrist.

To get a good trowel expect to spend up to £15.
WHS are the favoured brand in...well the whole of Europe.

Where to Buy: Murray's Tools, South Clerk Street - kind of opposite the Abbey Pub - £15.03 + 10% Student discount
or try tooled-up.com £13.37 + p&P

Drink is a common theme on Archaeological excavations.

You don't have to drink to be an archaeologist, it's just a... err... tradition? (One which some fear is dying out - this can't be allowed to happen ;¬)

You can buy this brilliant poison from pubs, clubs, shops. Heck you can even brew your own. Just make sure it's legal before you try.

The Brush is also very important.

Having more than one size of brush can be useful for the trickier things. One thing though, make sure it has natural bristles (as in horse hair). Synthetic bristles split, so all brushing achieves is a muddy lump on a stick.

You can buy these from art shops and hardware stores.

Painting and plastering (leaf) trowels are useful for any fiddly bits.

These always come in handy - you don't need to come across skeletons to want the extra control and feedback.

Where to Buy: For leaf trowels: Murray's Tools, South Clerk Street - kind of opposite the Abbey Pub.

Art Shops for the painter's trowel (the one with the wooden handle.

Tape Measures are used during planning, section drawing, setting up grids etc etc .... basically they are essential, and having your own can save a lot of time and confusion.

It is advissable not to get metal ones, as these rust and have other nasty side-effects.

Hardware stores stock these.

A pen, pencil, ruler and rubber come in very handy.
These may well be supplied by the dig, but having your own just in case is good.

They should be
Pen: Black ballpoint
Pencil: HB, and 6H for permatrace

Stationary and art shops for these.

Line levels are used during section drawing to give horizontal lines from which you can measure

erm... they sit on a piece of string.

They can be bought from hardware shops.

Plumb lines are also know as plumb bobs, and other things with 'plumb' in the name. Also known as, 'that...
err... metal thing on a stringy wotsit'.

These are measuring aids. When the point you are trying to measure is low down (e.g. in a hole) and you can't get the tape to it to take an accurate measurement, you drop the plumb line to it and its string gives a vertical line up to the tape and gives you the measurement(it's easier to do than to describe!). This avoids embarrassing errors due to perspective.

Hardware shops again.

Scale bars are...well... bars with a set scale on them, which you put next to the thing you are taking a photograph of to give a scale.

A little more accurate than getting someone to stand next to it.

Don't know where you buy one of these...but I'll try to find out.

The humble mattock is very similar to a pick (the picture actually shows a pick). Basically it's a stick with a double headed pointy piece of metal on one end. If both sides of the head are flat blades, it's a mattock, if it's got one flat, one pointy, it's a pick.

You can buy these from hardware shops I guess. If you really want to.

Shown here is a spade. You lift mud off the floor with it and put it down somewhere else, usually in a bucket or wheelbarrow (see below).

You also get shovels, same idea, only not so pointy. Thus allowing shovel scraping (shudder).

These can be found along with mattocks.

Buckets.

Put things in 'em, lift 'em up, move 'em about, empty.

How clever.