Gluing Oldest Fossilized Human Turd Back Together.

You’re looking at a famous piece of crap (literally!) called the Lloyd Bank Turd. It’s the largest piece of fossilized human excrement ever found (laid by a Viking over a thousand years ago).

Recently, the Turd was broken into three pieces by school children’s visit to the museum and Gill Snape of University of Bradford has the unenviable job of gluing it back together!

But despite surviving for well over 1,000 years, the Viking relic was broken into three pieces during a recent school visit to its home, the Archaeological Resource Centre (Arc) in York.

Now team member Gill Snape, a student from the University of Bradford, has the unenviable task of restoring the artefact to its former glory.

But despite admitting she has "never done anything quite like this before", the 21-year-old told BBC News Online it was not quite the revolting job people assumed.

"It’s rock hard, it doesn’t smell and it’s certainly not squishy," said Ms Snape.

By the way, how large was the Llyod Bank Turd? It measures 20 cm by 5 cm (or 8 inches by 2 inches) – that’s how tough Vikings are!

Links: Guardian, BBC articles – via Unlocked Wordhoard and Scribal Terror