Digging Hill 80

An interesting change of pace this year.  Each spring for the past decade I have packed up and gone off to northern England to excavate at the Roman fort site of Vindolanda. 

This year I will shoulder the digging bag again in May, but for a different destination.  Different in time.  Different in place.

The Hill 80 excavation is a World War One site in the soggy, flat Flanders region of Belgium.  It was the site of four long years of unimaginable misery.  But today it is a green, tidy little corner of Europe, a place where most things are new looking.  Well, and for good reason.  Four years of artillery fire reduced everything above ground to futile rubble.

There were individual battles in The Great War that took more lives, but this corner of the Western Front has the terrible distinction of having been a series of continuous battles from the first days of the war to the bitter last ones.  The casualties defy calculation.  After a million killed and wounded, does it make any sense to keep counting?

Below the ground the archaeology always remains.  It cares not at all about the past, present and future folly of man.  So when a pre-building survey showed extensive and well preserved fortifications in a little village south of Ypres, a project was launched to excavate and preserve the site properly.

I never imagined that I would become what is referred to as a "shovel bum", one of that motley tribe of underemployed archaeologists who meander from place to place as the need arises.  But the project intrigued me so I contacted them asking if they needed a reasonably fit, experienced digger who could bumble along in assorted languages and perhaps treat minor injuries if necessary.  

And so I shall be off again, digging kit on my shoulder.  Back to the trenches but quite literally this time.

For those interested in the story:   Dig Hill 80

The organizers of the excavation are very interested in having the history of the place shared so I expect them to have frequent official updates.  I will add to them as the vagaries of weather, wifi and disclosure policies allow.