Of Things Past Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
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It’s now almost a week since Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday. Of late this has meant that the nation thinks of the Great War, probably more than anything else and the TV underlined this with programmes about Jack Kipling and Wilfred Owen.
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The Owen programme was interesting as it included land at Serre where Martin and several other of the NML members were involved in a dig in 2003 that was seeking a dugout occupied by Owen. The story of the project is on the No Man’s Land website and will shortly appear in the Journal of Conflict Archaeology. Sadly they didn’t mention the archaeology, nor the rather nice memorial that NML member and Plugstreet digger made to commemorate the three men we discovered.
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This brings us back to 11/11, of course because of the emotions evoked by the knowledge that we have excavated these men and in two cases restored them to their families. We found no identifiable remains at Plugstreet this year but in Steve L’s trench the absence of remains was probably a testament to the destructive power of the mine. Whatever the case we know that we are in a place where men fell and died and where there are still missing bodies across the landscape. I am also confident that when we do find our first skeleton we will be approaching the excavation in a professional and respectful manner.
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The Spreading Word Friday, November 2nd, 2007
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As you know Richard and Martin recently went to an event at the Belgian Embassy (thanks to Franky Bostyn). They took along a number of short interim reports on the project to leave for interested parties to take away.
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Lo and Behold! Some kind soul has scanned it and put it on the web here:
http://www.leinster-regiment-association.org.uk/download/plustreetproject.pdf
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We say thank you to the Leinster Regiment Association for giving us another outlet for the story. The Leinsters were part of 16 Division, who stormed Wytschaete (White Sheets) during the Battle of Messines while the Anzacs were busy around, or possibly creating, our dig site.
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Also on the topic of spreading the word Martin has been out and about this week lecturing to post-grads at Liverpool University and to the lovely Forensic Archaeology students at Cranfield University. Both groups got an introduction to the Plug Street Project as part of wider discussions on Great War archaeology and some of them may join the team in 2008.
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The Sincerest Form… Thursday, November 1st, 2007
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We broke new ground with the Plugstreet Project blog, giving you up to date information on the planning and then offering news from the front line. It’s nice to see another group following our lead in disseminating information about a Great War project.
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If you want to read about the Great Arab Revolt Project in Jordan go here:
http://garp2007.blogspot.com/2007/11/day-3-wadi-rutm.html
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It’s the archaeology of the Arab insurgency against the Turks (Lawrence of Arabia stuff). How topical!
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It’s led by friends of ours and members of our team (Nick Saunders mostly) are out there._
Good Luck Guys!
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Some site record shots Tuesday, October 9th, 2007
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As you will sense, Ian has been very busy. These three photos are some of his record shots of the trenches excavated in 2007.
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Steve L’s team trench with Australian recut of demolished German trench.
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Steve R.’s team trench through the trench that presumably led to a punker which illustrates the 33rd Btns reuse of what was left of the German line.
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Dan’s team’s excavation of the Lewis gun sap.
The lighting for these sondages (in woodland and very sunny) was incredibly tricky and thus the results are really fantastic.
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Ian’s Images Monday, October 8th, 2007
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Those of you on site in 2007 will remember the presence of Ian R. Cartwright, photographer with the Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford. Ian brought his box camera with him and took plate photographs on site in much the same way as Frank Hurley did in following the Australian 3rd Division. His stunning results are presented below. We have also included the original Hurley image of the Australian 3rd Div artillery limber (Richard’s grandfather’s old mob!) to illustrate the motivation for Ian’s studies. The images speak for themselves and we hope to be able to announce their exhibition alongside some of the Messines finds at some point.
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‘Spoils of Archaeology’: detritus of war emerging from the excavated trenches
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‘Front Line dirt’: part of the (enormous) spoil heap from the bunker trench
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‘Life in no-man’s land’: Mr Delrue’s crop emerges in no-man’s land.
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Entitled ‘Anzacs’ – Michael in the Australian Lewis Gun sap
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Entitled ‘Fallen Remembered’ – Tori and Ralph laying the wreath at the Ploegsteert Memorial
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Entitled ‘Sap Team’ Danny and his team (with Martin and Richard) at the Lewis sap
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‘Generations’: Tori and Kirsty by the German bunker with the church of Messines in the distance
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‘Peace Dig’ – Jo and Becki looking on as the Australian recut of the German front line is dug
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‘Messines Ridge’ taken from no-man’s land
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‘Shell burst’ – Tangled iron work from Jon’s excavation of the shell crater
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Archaeological Limber – Ian’s take on the famous Hurley photo of the gun team (below)
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Elsewhere on the web… Thursday, August 30th, 2007
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Three members of the project team work at Defence Estates, so the PR staff were interested in what we did in Belgium. Since running a piece on the project for the DE intranet they have expanded the article, added some new photos and had it accepted as a story for the main Ministry of Defence website.
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You can access the story here:
http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/HistoryAndHonour
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Most soldiers will have been on a battlefield tour to the Western Front at some point and many are interested, as are MOD civil servants, for perhaps obvious reasons but it’s great to see the project getting another boost.
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Spirit of Radio Monday, August 27th, 2007
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Don’t all Rush at once but you can hear the interview Martin did for BBC Radio 5 Live programme Up All Night.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/programmes/upallnight.shtml
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Under the heading for Tuesday you’ll see at 03:30 Archaeology with Win Scutt and there is a feature marked listed again, so you can hear what was said. Martin says his key points were that we can still find things on pulverised battlefields, that this is a real archaeological story with physical evidence of the effects of war on people and landscape and that No Man’s Land are an international team investigating a common European heritage. As you would expect he also mentioned smoking, food and the Battle of Messines. All in 13 minutes!
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If you do listen let us know what you think via the comments.
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On My Radio… Monday, August 20th, 2007
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Not the Selector’s Ska classic sadly, rather another media opportunity for the magnificent Plugstreet Project.
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For the insomniac readers who are up at 03:30 UK time tomorrow (Tuesday) morning you can listen to Martin being interviewed on Radio 5 Live about the Plugstreet Project. Thankfully the interview will be done slightly earlier in the evening so Martin might make some sense, but I wouldn’t count on it. Up all night is the umbrella show for the dead zone and there, at 03:30 is our mate Win Scutt and his Archaeology slot. Win is digging at Durrington Walls at the moment so listen out for an update on that exciting project too.
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If you really wanted to hear what he has to say you can probably download it via the “listen Again” feature that many BBC programmes have. To do this you’ll need to go to the BBC webpages at www.bbc.co.uk and follow the links to 5 Live.
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Overseas fans of the project can listen on the internet via the BBC homepage.
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Peter Chasseaud’s panorama drawing looking east from Ultimo Crater Wednesday, August 15th, 2007
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Photos of a 3-section panorama drawing I made from the north-east lip of Ultimo Crater, looking east. The coverage is approximately an arc from north-east to south-east. The photo below shows the whole panorama obliquely. The three above show the individual sections in the sequence: left – right – centre. All images Copyright Peter Chasseaud 2007.
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Such panoramas were drawn during the First World War to show the views from observation posts for artillery and intelligence purposes. The drawing was often overlaid with a degree grid, sometimes showing bearings right and left of a centre-line, e.g. Warneton Church. The bearings given on my drawing are very approximate, and the whole thing needs to be recalibrated to give correct bearings.
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