Approaching Zero Hour Wednesday, July 16th, 2008
|
|
|
|
|
Readers,
we are delighted to be able to announce that the project now has official permission for its excavations at St Yvon this summer. The team will be on site for a week in August and will update this blog with news of finds and thoughts as we did last year.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Filed under: A Dig Diary by
admin
Add a Comment »
|
|
Spreading the Word Monday, July 14th, 2008
|
|
|
|
|
Yesterday Richard and Martin gave a presentation to the annual Conflict Archaeology conference at the Royal Logistics Corps Museum at Deepcut. It was good to present to an audience of interested amateurs and fellow practitioners in the field and the responses to our multistrand approach to the landscape and the individual sites was well-received.
_
The event was a mixture of ancient (Ramesses II) and modern (WW1 & 2 and Bosnia) with an interspersing of post-medieval (English Civil War). Tal Simmons paper on Bosnia was hard viewing and listening but ultimately worthwhile, not only because of her powerful delivery but also because it served to remind us of the reality of conflict, including injury, sickness and death in traumatic circumstances. Meanwhile Neil Faulkner’s paper on the Arab Revolt and TE Lawrence threw up some interesting differences with our work, although Plugstreet and Lawrence were contemporary. However there were marked similarities too, including the German trench systems.
_
The cross current in several papers was that this is essentially a community endeavour, whether those communities are close to the sites in UK, in Jordan or at a remove in a second or third country, as we are for this project. The nature of conflict means that it may have resonance and meaning years after the event for those affected, even indirectly. Archaeology gives some people the opportunity to engage directly with that heritage and, we hope, offers everyone the chance to hear something new about the events and people in the past.
_
Thanks and credit to Andy Robertshaw and his staff at the RLC Musuem.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Filed under: Conferences & Lectures by
admin
Add a Comment »
|
|
Zero Minus 3 Saturday, July 5th, 2008
|
|
|
|
|
Three weeks that is!
_
We have agreed the trench locations with the farmer and are set to launch our next season of excavation and survey at Plugstreet.
_
Once again a crack team of archaeologists and fellow-travellers is set to embark. This year the team includes some new faces, including two more American friends and our first representative from the Republic of Ireland. Kat has a missing relative so joins the members of the team with that particular attachment to the battlefields. We are also pleased to have Rod on board, after his absence last year due to a more modern war. Welcome to you all.
_
As we have said before the idea of No Man’s Land is an international venture and so we go on, our common purpose being to investigate something that once divided us.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Filed under: A Dig Diary by
admin
Add a Comment »
|
|
