Yesterday’s Burials Thursday, July 5th, 2007
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The newspapers and news websites have all been carrying pieces about the funeral of the Lancashire Fusiliers that I was talking about yesterday. The BBC are now carrying this piece from their military history correspondent Peter Caddick-Adams of the UK Defence Academy:
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6273292.stm
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In the piece he describes the difficulties of arriving at any identification for the bodies that are still being recovered from the Western Front. He describes visiting the “Finding the Fallen” exhibition at the National Army Museum last year and learning how the smallest details could help identify a man.
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I am proud to say that the exhibition was based on the work of No Man’s Land and took it’s title from a TV series that featured our work. NML is, of course, the lead body in the Plug Street Project and many of its members are key people in the August dig.
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The BBC article underlines what I was trying to say yesterday – that attention to detail is important because it is those small clues, like the position of buttons on a cuff, that could make all the difference.
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Great War Burials Wednesday, July 4th, 2007
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According to today’s BBC web pages the bodies of a number of Lancashire Fusiliers will be buried today with full military honours:
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/6268464.stm
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The men all fell during World War One and one of them has been identified as Private Richard Lancaster of the 2nd Battalion, who was killed near the dig site. The men are to be buried in Prowse Point Cemetery, en route to site. I imagine this means we will call in to pay our respects during the dig.
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The BBC have also published a photograph of Mr Lancaster on the net. This is always something I find remarkable and difficult – in more normal archaeology is is far from usual to see the face of the person one has carefully exhumed but I have now had the experience of seeing the face Jakob Hones, who I helped recover in 2003. The frisson is remarkable but it really punches home the responsibility the excavator has to seek out each clue that might lead to a positive identification. If you want to know more about Jakob Hones then go to the No Man’s Land pages about the excavation at Serre.
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Some people think the dead of the War should be left where they are but in an age of major development and agri-business that isn’t an option so what you are left with is a responsibility to do the best job possible and to be respectful of the person in front of you as you try to recover their earthly remains and the artefacts that can help identify them.
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Cheery stuff but at least you now know it’s not digging folk up for fun!
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Conference Time Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007
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14th July sees Martin co-chairing the annual Conflict Archaeology Conference at the Royal Logistics Corps Museum at Deepcut (yes that Deepcut) in Surrey.
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Papers include the Plug Street Project’s own Peter Masters, who will describe the geophysical survey he undertook on a Great War landscape in … Wiltshire! Salisbury Plain is still a major Army Training Area, as it was in 1914. Out near Shipton Bellinger there are the in-filled remains of practice trenches. They are visible on aerial photographs but no longer extant as earthworks. Peter undertook a magnetometer survey of a large part of the site and his results are amazing. Come along to find out more.
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http://www.army.mod.uk/rlc/rlc_shop_museum/index.htm
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Other papers will include the No Man’s Land Project at Thiepval Wood on the Somme where we are working alongside the Somme Association to open, record and reconstruct trenches in the Wood from which the 36 (Ulster) Division attacked on 1st July 1916. There will also be something on the Zeppelin offensive and contributions covering Neolithic warfare, WW2 chemical weapons (British!) and the contribution made by archaeology to the study and crime scene analysis of combat and war crimes sites in the Balkans.
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Tickets are £20 but it’ll be worth every penny!
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http://www.army.mod.uk/rlc/rlc_shop_museum/index.htm
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Next year we’ll have the first Plug Street Project to talk about! Scary Thought!
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The German defenders Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007
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I am putting together an historic outline of the German defenders of this location. It seems the mines hit at the junction of two regiments, the 9th Bavarians and the 5th Bavarian IR.
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It seems the Ultimo mine went off just below the 12/9th Bavarian IR whose ranks included a fellow New Yorker who was listed as missing presumed killed.
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I hope to have the full details and at least one map if not two shortly.
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Ralph
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It’s getting worryingly close to the first spadeful Sunday, July 1st, 2007
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July. Crumbs, it’s July! At the end of this month we actually have to start digging holes and making sense of the site. At least we know we have a crack team in the field (no pressure guys) and some good friends waiting in the wings to help us out.
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Last Friday Richard and I were pleased to see Dr Rob Janaway from Bradford University, who gave us some invaluable advice on conservation of finds. Although some of the techniques are standard for archaeological sites the relative newness of some of the materials, notably the organics, means that care and flexibility may be the order of the day. Between Rob and NML finds supremo Luke have excellent support.
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In the meantime we are watching the weather and hoping that the pea crop in M. Delrue’s field will be lifted in time for the launch of the project. Watching the weather is a common preoccupation at the minute. Belgium has been having similar weather to the UK and Claude (patron of the excellent Auberge) has told us to bring our wet suits. Mind you, they were saying on the TV that it was the wettest June since 1914 and I keep comforting myself with the thought that July and August 1914 were remarkably good, giving that image of the Edwardian Summer that ends on 4th August (a bit like the project).
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