Sunday, May 11, 2008 Covington: Archeology and me By Gary Covington Looking In
APRIL last and we saw a flurry of reporting on the discovery of an ancient burial chamber near the town of Maitum in Sarangani Province. The scramble to 'protect and secure' any artifacts in the chamber took on the elements of a theatrical farce but as happens, the episode triggered memories of archeology and me and so I've dusted a couple off.
Archeology, defines the dictionary, is the study of ancient cultures by the excavation and analysis of physical remains. We can forget the ancient bit; no culture these days endures for a span of thousands or even hundreds of years because technology and culture has evolved, is evolving, so fast. Today archeology starts fifty years ago and in some branches, such as industrial archeology, last week.
And me? I became interested in archeology because it intertwines with history, is a constituent of history, and is a physical science. An artifact exists. It is tangible. We can handle it, turn it this way and that feel the texture, all of which somehow brings us so much closer to the maker or user.
I lived for many years in the east of England only a few miles from a series of subterranean bell-shaped chambers known locally as Grime's Graves. The name (I think) dates from Victorian times, the chambers considerably earlier because they are flint mines excavated by Neolithic man five thousand years ago, the mineral flint being extremely hard and, when broken and shaped, presents a sharp edge suitable for cutting tools such as knives and scrapers.
It used to be possible, maybe still is, to climb down a ladder into the chambers and an eerie experience it was. Crouching on the ground in the gloom there was nothing -- bar time -- between a hairy forebear and me. The marks of his digging tools were faintly visible on the chamber walls and so too were shallow, mold-like depressions where he's levered out a flint. I had the distinct feeling that if I'd shouted someone would have lowered a basket for me to fill with rock. I wonder if any of the folks who crept into the Maitum cave experienced a similar sensation?
Years later, camped on an arid stretch of the Libyan coast, I found myself in the middle of a modern archaeological site.
At the start of the Second World War Libya was an Italian colony. Italy invaded Egypt from Libya, was thrown out, and the battle for North Africa was well and truly under way. British, Italian and German armies marched and countermarched and fought their way back and forth along the coast and each left marks of its passing.
Libya was, and still is, an empty land. Stuff left laying about tends to stay laying about. I was forever picking up lost coins, old buttons, and everywhere there were neat open-ended rectangles of stones where soldiers had weighted down the hems of their tents. I found old records; great thick 78s warped and cracked but with still readable labels (German labels, I'd chosen a Luftwaffe camp as my residence). And, of course, all about lay the materiel of war. Cartridge cases by the thousand, unrecognizable engine parts and rusty but genuine jerry cans embossed on one side with the German eagle.
It took little effort to imagine soldiers and airmen creeping out of their tent at dawn -- the delicious part of a desert day -- running for a dip in the sea and then heading for the mess tent and breakfast.
There was another bit of local archaeology around too, the remains of a triumphal arch the Italians had somewhat optimistically built in the middle of nowhere in 1936.
British soldiers called the structure Marble Arch after the London edifice and that was what it looked like; a thumping great square-built arch twenty meters high surmounted by two enormous and reclining bronze figures. The arch was demolished, as often happens, when Libya moved on from a post-colonial monarchy to the present republic; flattened and scattered, but we amateur archaeologists are a dogged lot and I scratched and kicked around until I found a piece of the arch's sheathing, a polished brown marble, and it's in front of me now.
The piece is about three inches square and, as marbles go -- some are spectacular -- it's very ordinary and certainly not in the same class as the potsherds and funerary urns pulled out of the Maitum chamber but it is still an artifact and I found it and that is one of the thrills of archaeology, the thrill of discovery, no matter how trivial the piece may be.
The second thrill is the finding out, the questions raised by the discovery. I'd heard about the Libyan Marble Arch -- some maps still show the place -- but why did the Italians build it there, about half way between the cities of Tripoli and Benghazi? And what did it signify? The story turned out to be long and fascinating; much, much more than the few morsels I'm tempting you with -- and that's the third joy of archaeology. It leads to discovering more and more and more until...
