Month: March 2008

San Jose cocksuckas!

Modern(ish)

That’s a Deadwood reference there in the title. I have nothing against the fine folks of San Jose.

Quite the opposite, in fact, since they’re bucking the trend and turning a parking lot into an archaeological excavation of a turn of the century Chinatown.

Starting on Tuesday, historians, archaeologists and two community members will spend 10 days digging on the block bounded by Jackson, Sixth, Taylor and Seventh streets. Their hope? To find a trove of post-1887 artifacts from the lost community that provided a rare sanctuary amid the anti-Chinese hostility gripping California.

Buried on the site may be evidence of how San Jose’s Chinese population indeed thrived – all thanks to an enigmatic German landowner who risked his livelihood to lend them a home. […]

In May 1887, when arsonists burned down the Chinatown where the Fairmont San Jose hotel now stands, 71-year-old John Heinlen stepped forward. He ignored angry mobs and fought an attempted injunction by city leaders to offer low-cost leases to build on pastureland he owned. Chinese were barred from owning land.

Chinatown stood on Heinlen’s land until the depression bankrupted him and the banks took over the property. Eventually the buildings were all razed and the city paved the block over with concrete. Until now.

Neanderthal stash under the North Sea

Ancient, Treasures

Back 50,000-100,000 years or so ago, when the ice caps had slurped up enough of the oceans to make dry land out of what is now the North Sea, Neanderthals frolicked in a state nature, eating berries and drinking dew drops.

Or else they eked out a living using dozens of flint axes to butcher mammoth.

Academic interest in what are being described as drowned Stone Age hunting grounds is likely to increase dramatically after the discovery of 28 Neanderthal flint axes on the sea bed off the East Anglian coast.

Dating from at least 50,000-60,000 years ago, they were found with other flint artefacts, a large number of mammoth bones, teeth and tusk fragments, and pieces of deer antler. The sea bed location was probably a Neanderthal hunters’ kill site or temporary camp site.

The axes – one of the largest groups ever found – were spotted by a keen-eyed amateur archaeologist when a consignment of North Sea gravel arrived at the Dutch port of Flushing.

Go keen-eyed amateur, go! Hanson, the dredging company, has stopped its activities on the location to give the pros a chance to assess the site.

The possibilities are very exciting indeed. The cold water is an excellent preserver of materials that on land decay or naturally erode or are destroyed by subsequent inhabitants.

Augustus’ home open to the public

Ancient, Museums, Roma, Caput Mundi

Technically, it’s Octavian’s home because he lived in it with Livia in 30 BC, right after his victory over Marc Antony and Cleopatra at Actium in 31 BC, but before he donned the title of Augustus in 27 BC.

It was a modest home in terms of size, but the 4 rooms that have been restored and open to the public are decorated with the most gorgeous frescoes I’ve ever seen.

Some of his interior decoration was found intact when the Italian archaeologist Professor Gianfilippo Carettoni finally broke through to the rooms in the early 1970s.

Other frescoes had to be pieced together from fragments found by a team led by Irene Jacopi, the archaeologist in charge of the Palatine Hill.

The art is so delicate that no more than five visitors at a time will be able to enter the rooms. Nevertheless, they are expected to attract large crowds.

Also notable is the graffiti the builders left behind. They sketched a design for what might have been a floor mosaic and signed their names to it. It’s not often you to find out the names of contractors who worked on a house 2000 years ago.

Some pictures of the frescoes:

Fort Lane, Oregon, site plagued by looters

Looting, Modern(ish)

Authorities have kept the exact location of Fort Lane undisclosed to keep treasure hunters at bay, but even so archaeologists have found missing artifacts and holes on the site.

“There was a fairly extensive amount of looting,” said Mark Tveskov, an associate professor at SOU and director of the laboratory.

“The value of the fort is in its integrity,” he added. “Our excavations were very limited in scale. We left everything intact.”

Tveskov, who led test digs at the site in a joint effort by the county, SOU and the Southern Oregon Historical Society in 2004-06, noted that artifacts taken out of context render them useless to those looking for clues about the region’s past.

The Oregon Parks and Recreation Commission has agreed to take over the fort and environs, but until the ownership transfer goes through, the sheriff’s department is going to keep an eye on things.

Built in 1853 by the U.S. Army’s First Dragoons based in Benicia, Calif., the short-lived fort represented the Rogue Valley’s only civil authority. It was established shortly after a clash between American Indians and European settlers. It was named in honor of Joseph Lane, Oregon’s first territorial governor, who also led military campaigns against the Indians in 1851 and 1853.

It sounds like it’ll be a great park when all is said done, with something for the history enthusiast, hiker and day-tripper alike.

Uh oh… New subway line in Rome

Ancient, Medieval, Roma, Caput Mundi, Treasures

Rome has only 2 subway lines, and they’re old and crappy and don’t hit many of the most famous locations in the center of town because it’s basically impossible to dig in the historic center without encountering structures of immense archaeological value.

The laws on the subject are strict: the city’s archaeological superintendency decides the fate of any archaeological find.

Most of them remain in place, with the new construction either changing route or going up around the ancient. Some are moved.

Some are even be destroyed, don’t ask me why. They let this Roman villa get split in two by a parking ramp. Go figure.

Anyway, since 2006 so far the subway digs have come across:

  • mosaics
  • aqueducts
  • an ancient arch
  • Roman Villas
  • the foundations of an imperial Roman public building
  • dating back to imperial times,
  • parts of a monumental complex built by Augustus’ partner Marcus Agrippa
  • Roman taverns near the ancient Forum
  • remains of 16th-century palaces
  • Roman tombs
  • A sixth-century copper factory
  • medieval kitchens still stocked with pots and pans

It remains to be seen what becomes of these treasures. The authorities are looking into the planned route to see if it can be made to snake around finds, but it seems to me no matter where they go, they’re going to find other stuff that needs snaking around.

I think they should include them in the build of the subway. Like box them in plexi or something. That would be coolest subway ever. People could get an education just taking the train.