endlessrarities (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
endlessrarities) wrote2012-11-08 08:55 pm
endlessrarities) wrote2012-11-08 08:55 pm
Entry tags:
Developer-Funded Archaeology at its Best...
I'm currently watching a fascinating programme on Channel 4 called 'WWI Tunnels of Death: The Big Dig'.
I thought it'd be your standard run-up to Remembrance Day fare of history combined with film footage, etc. but as a piece of archaeological film-making it has proved fascinating. The work was carried out in advance of a pipeline, and the upstanding archaeology has in many cases been wrecked by shells, though I suppose these shell holes themselves now count as archaeology so you have to assign them context numbers and excavate them in the same way that you excavate a post-hole.
They've just uncovered a messed up bit of German fighting trench, which has been hit by a British shell and which I suspect may have bodies in it (I remember a Facebook feature referring to the recovery of some in situ corpses in a WWI trench and I can't help wondering if this is the same dig...)
Great archaeology, but oh so miserable (horse jawbone uncovered, too...) and a reminder that the past can be so very, very brutal...
Well worth catching up with, I must admit!
I thought it'd be your standard run-up to Remembrance Day fare of history combined with film footage, etc. but as a piece of archaeological film-making it has proved fascinating. The work was carried out in advance of a pipeline, and the upstanding archaeology has in many cases been wrecked by shells, though I suppose these shell holes themselves now count as archaeology so you have to assign them context numbers and excavate them in the same way that you excavate a post-hole.
They've just uncovered a messed up bit of German fighting trench, which has been hit by a British shell and which I suspect may have bodies in it (I remember a Facebook feature referring to the recovery of some in situ corpses in a WWI trench and I can't help wondering if this is the same dig...)
Great archaeology, but oh so miserable (horse jawbone uncovered, too...) and a reminder that the past can be so very, very brutal...
Well worth catching up with, I must admit!