Yesterday, I received a mail informing me that a colleague had stumbled across a .pdf version of a Festschrift for Frans Verhaeghe, online and downloadable free of charge. Since I am a curious person, I took a look at the link she had posted. And since I'm a very curious person, I then took a look at the site that hosted the file.

As anyone who was at a typical archaeological dig knows, work safety is not always easy to achive. To be really safe, for example, it would be necessary to bank the sides of any trench after about 1.5 m of depth. Now this is unfortunately not possible if you want to document and analyse an archaeological profile... and there are many other conflicts between archaeology and perfect work safety like this.

Most archaeologists know about the risks. But since it's often a choice between take the risk or do not dig and document at all... the risks usually get taken, and most of the time luck is with them who wield the trowel and the showel. That said... situations like the one that you can see here (provided the link works - their server seems to be a little iffy) make me gulp.

So should you consider studying archaeology, or should you be one of the many folks who think they would love to be an archaeologist... it's not only hard and dirty work with not so much pay, standing in the exhaust fumes of big excavator machines sometimes, know that it often also means that you take quite a lot of risks - since you don't know what is behind a wall, or a trench wall, and you still go there and you still do the work.

If you are reading this blog, there is a rather high chance that the name "Oseberg" will mean something to you. Just in case it does not: The Oseberg ship was a Viking age burial ship and a spectacular archaeological find. It has beautiful carvings, and, as usual for a burial ship, was equipped with the burial (of course), other wooden items (such as a wagon), non-wooden items, and some equally spectacular textiles (the pictures aren't of spectacular quality in this link, but it will give you an overview of the finds).

The ship was found in 1903 and excavated in 1904. And now, it seems, the wooden items are in really, really dire need of reconservation - as this article (in Norwegian) describes.

For those of you who do not read Norwegian: The conservation method used for several of the wooden finds (not the ship) was employing alum as a stabilising agent. This has made the wood very brittle, and now it has been found that the finds are slowly rotting away from the inside, so that  they are only still kept together by the slightly more stable surface. The main items afflicted with this are the wagon and the sled. The museum has asked for money from the Norwegian government to save the finds, but this was denied. Because, the government says, the museum and/or university should be paying for something like this out of their own budget.  (They asked for approximately 5 million Euro to save the finds. And everybody knows that any museum or university can easily afford a sum like that, just so, at the drop of any hat.)
According to the article, the finds could fall apart any moment. (Thanks to Natascha Mehler and Rainer Schreg for translating all that to German, so I could translate on.)


I don't know what to say. I really, really don't. Norway is not that poor a country, and the finds really are outstanding and a piece of their cultural heritage.

Now the museum's last hope is for private sponsors. 


I still can't believe this.

It seems like Maney Publishing is doing some promotional called "Journal of the Month", which leads to one journal being offered with discounts and, even better, free issues! This months' special journal is the Journal of Field Archeology, and you can access and download the 12 issues here:
http://www.maney.co.uk/jotm/jfa


That's a nice idea, I think, especially since those journals can be quite pricey...

Open-air-museums and reconstructions of historical buildings are still en vogue - a look at Guedelon in France proves that easily. There is, however, one basic question which often leads to discussion among archaeologists and museum folks: In situ or not in situ? Is it a good idea to build a reconstruction right on top of the excavation site - or is it not?

The EXARC website has a very interesting piece on this question, where ten authors from different positions and places give their answer and opinion. If you like open-air museums or are interested in reconstruction, I heartily recommend reading it.

My own view, by the way, is that it should be avoided - I feel that the danger of sealing in or destroying archaeological information that might be helpful later on is too great, as is the danger of mixing reconstruction and historical reality - both in the visitor's minds and eyes and, once the new structures are also decaying, in the field.

I stumbled across this link a few days ago:

archaeologywordsmith is a page with some kind of archaeology dictionary - so if you ever wanted to read about trowels, ditches, mottes and a gazillion other things, you can do that there. Plus there's a "learn a word" feature when you open or reload the page.

Have fun!