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Looks like they're unearthing a whole range of historical items while building the Olympic complex for the 2012 Olympics in London:
A 4,000-year-old axe, two World War II helmets and a 19th Century boat have been found on the Olympic Park site....Medieval pottery, a Roman coin and four prehistoric skeletons were also uncovered at the east London site.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7926592.stmIt really makes you wonder how much more is underneath all those other old buildings in the city.
People ahve been living there for over 2,000 years. I would imagine there is just as much stuff in the ground in London as there is in Istanbul/Constantinople.
They've been finding a lot of things lately. There's another one in Egypt besides that one Phid mentioned.Archaeologists must be saying "thank you" to the guys who invented sonar technology.
But archaeology is still just digging no matter how exciting it is. What I would like to see is some of the lost classics from Rome and Greece be discovered in some crumbling old abbey somewhere. I want to be able to read the words of the ancients more than look through their trash piles.
I think it's much more than just digging. If they're not meticulous in documenting and location, then we historians can't interpret it for them. ;D
I want to be able to read the words of the ancients more than look through their trash piles.
Funny. I agree - it's generally more exciting to read texts they left behind, but I imagine archaeologists would argue that looking through their trash piles entails a kind of "reading" the clues they left behind. Whichever the case, the trash piles are a heckuva lot more accessible nowadays....
Funny….there is actually a term for the study of trash — garbology.
Funny....there is actually a term for the study of trash -- garbology.
For some odd reason, that does not surprise me at all. ;D
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