I would imagine it's more about dismantling the 1800 years accumulated rubble inside the well to reveal its original state. With nothing more vicious than a trowel, pastry brush and bare hands.

Having a bit of an interest in archeology, I'd be interested to see this n900 at work.

We normally just remove the build up of material inside of features and record the sequence of deposits and datable materials within them. The N900's camera and big screen come in handy for recording these sequences so the paperwork can be done outside of the muddy features. It makes my job a lot easier.

The web browser is good for looking up dates and random facts regarding the various bits of rubbish we find, and gps is good for finding sites - trenches in remote fields generally not having addresses to easily navigate to.

The whole pastry brush and trowel thing is a bit of a myth, if we used those tools it would take another 2000 years to dig most things out. We normally use a mixture of 360 excavators, shovels and mattocks. Its quite a physically demanding job sometimes, and iv ruined a number of phones by cracking the screens in my pocket, or filling them with mud and water etc. The N900 is standing up really well so far and has taken a fair bit of hammer.

This time a local historical group wanted to relocate the actual shaft of the well and reconstruct it for display in the town of Bingham, just outside Nottingham. I think it was going to be reconstructed underground much like the original, rather than being a strange tower-thing... Iv no idea why really, but they paid for the work and seemed to be very excited to own a roman well.

I wonder if inside a roman well is the most unusual place an n900 has been? That sounds pretty cool to me and a great use for so many of it's features!

As to my own device care it currently goes everywhere with me - music and podcast player in the car and bath, good sized camera for walks and it's been fantastic to keep in touch while i've been ill in bed these past few days. I've got a cheap hard case for it and a screen protector too and while it has it's own bag it seems to prefer it's own pocket in my fleece. In a way I'm looking forward to it showing signs of use though! At times i guess I will revert to my n80 due to size and battery life but by then i will be so used to this powerful little object I will feel bereft!