Our archaeological warriors strike again….!

 

 

“….Engineers digging a tunnel underneath the National Gallery have discovered objects from Saxon times, showing that the urban centre of Saxon London extended further west than previously thought….”

Well, I think the gist of the above sentence (from  this link) applies to just about everything from the past. We think we know what happened, why it happened, where it happened and how it happened, only to discover that it wasn’t a full battle, merely a skirmish in a mediocre campaign, and that it didn’t happen through heroics but when two opposing groups of soldiers chanced upon each other face-to-face in a ravine that the sea has now reclaimed.

That’s my daft exaggeration, of course, but you’d think that by now we’d at least know the extent of the Anglo-Saxon city of London. Surely after all this time there have been enough prompt archaeological digs in feverish operation when new roads are decided upon, railway stations are needed, and buildings are removed so that all this can be achieved. In those precious weeks—or if they’re lucky, months—between the clearing of the site and the erection of new edifices, the archaeological warriors double march in with their trusty trowels and behold, vital new information is revealed as if by magic.

And so it is that we now learn that Anglo-Saxon London was bigger than had been previously realised. This particular dig has gone down through many layers from the intervening centuries, bringing to light all sorts of fascinating finds.

All I can say is that I hope against hope that one day soon a working version of the Tardis is invented. Then those layers of history could be revealed as never before. We really would know everything. In the meantime, thank you to the noble archaeologists of the world who delve industriously to tell us what they can.

Concerning the dig, if you go here you will learn a little more about the hitherto lost Anglo-Saxon town of Lundenwic, which has been rediscovered in the form of a 7th or 8th century hearth.