ANST - Tudor Trash Heap Excavated

[C. L. Ward]

-----Original Message-----
From: Warrwykk <warrwykk at geocities.com>
To: Middlebridge <sca-middle at midrealm.org>
Date: Wednesday, June 16, 1999 10:20 AM
Subject: [Mid] Tudor Life


>Thought this might be of interest to some of you.  A tudor trash heap
>that was used from about 1485 to 1600 has been discovered giving all
>sorts of glimpses into daily London Tudor life.  These 3 articles were
>
>all in the London Times today.
>
>Your Servant
>Robert Meryell of Warrwykk
>___________________________________
>
>June 16 1999
>                                                BRITAIN
>
>
>          Historians go a little bananas
>
>                   BY DALYA ALBERGE
>                  ARTS CORRESPONDENT
>  A BANANA discovered by archaeologists on a Tudor rubbish
>  tip near the Tower of London may have been nibbled by
>  Henry VIII. But it is the banana alone that is causing
>  excitement because it was in entirely the wrong time-zone,
>  about 300 years before such exotic fruits were regularly
>  imported to Britain.
>
>  The peeled and blackened banana - which, to anyone but an
>  expert, looks just like an over-ripe example today - was
>  found on a building site being excavated by Museum of
>  London archaeologists. Asked how they could be sure that
>  someone had not dropped it last week, Taryn Nixon, the
>  head of archaeological services, said that was impossible
>  because it had been buried "in a sealed context" next to
>  dateable objects. Bananas were cited by travellers in the
>  West Indies "quite early on", she added. "This could be one
>  of those. Whether it was just a curiosity or whether it was
>  passed from one ship to another is impossible to say. This
>  is puzzling."
>
>  John Georgie, a specialist in plant remains, said that this
>  was the first archaeological find of a banana: "They were not
>  imported on a commercial basis until the 19th century as
>  they would just go off. It wasn't a commercial viability until
>  the steamships."
>
>  David Cooke, a specialist at Kew Gardens, said this banana
>  might have originated in Asia. Because they take several
>  weeks to ripen, one might have been taken "straight to the
>  King" when a ship arrived.
>
>
>__________________________________________
>
>June 16 1999
>                                                BRITAIN
>
>
>    London fish tank reveals everyday
>                  life of Tudors
>
>          BY DALYA ALBERGE, ARTS CORRESPONDENT
>                        Links
>
>  THE discovery of a huge Tudor rubbish dump is giving
>  historians their best insights yet into the lives of the
>  Londoners of the day.
>
>  Archaeologists from the Museum of London have unearthed
>  thousands of objects dating from the 1480s to the early
>  1600s at a two-acre site around Tooley Street, on the south
>  side of Tower Bridge.
>
>  Shoes and spoons, toys and tools offer rare glimpses into
>  the lifestyles of all strata of society. Objects considered too
>  insignificant to have been recorded in documents or
>  paintings now reveal what Tudor Londoners ate, what they
>  threw away, how they dressed and how they played. Until

>  the site was found, relatively little archaeological evidence
>  had been discovered. "What we've found has proved we
>  didn't know half as much as we thought," said Simon
>  Thurley, the museum's director.
>
>  Among more than 400 leather shoes are some that are
>  perfectly preserved and as modern in design as anything for
>  sale today in Knightsbridge. A pair of stylish black suede
>  shoes with leather laces and an elegant buckle might have
>  been made yesterday.
>
>  To judge from some of the styles, Tudor Londoners were
>  prepared to suffer for fashion: one pair of shoes stuffed with
>  moss to stiffen the curled point would have been less than
>  comfortable.
>
>  Dr Thurley said that never before had so many Tudor objects
>  been found together in such closely dateable deposits and in
>  such a fine state of preservation.
>
>  The dump was discovered during excavations for a new hotel
>  complex two months ago. Its contents were preserved in the
>  waterlogged remains of a Tudor fish farm in an area that
>  was, from medieval times, home to the wealthy and
>  influential. The objects were thrown into the disused fish
>  tanks about 1560, when the property, known then as the
>  Pike Garden, was sold. Others were thrown into a nearby
>  sewer that was closed in 1610.
>
>  Dave Saxby, an archaeologist with the museum who is
>  supervising the search for artefacts, said: "If you excavate
>  any site in London, you're lucky to get one shoe or one
>  knife. The majority have broken bits of pottery and animal
>  bone. Here they are in mint condition, like the day they were
>  thrown in."
>
>  The finds portray all levels of society on London's South
>  Bank, from the wealthy with their padded armour to the poor
>  with their worn pewter spoons.
>
>  Pottery tankards and a bottle in a wicker basket point to the
>  taverns for which Southwark was famous. Many of the pots
>  were imported and a piece of Chinese porcelain is the
>  earliest example found in London.
>
>  Also extracted from the detritus was a delicate comb, which
>  has a circular indentation that may have held a mirror.
>
>  Vessels such as a huge copper cauldron in which people
>  would have cooked are almost intact. Other discoveries
>  include rare armour; perfectly preserved tools, including a
>  sickle, spade and shovel; and a musical instrument thought
>  to be a bagpipe.
>
>  There is also a dagger; part of a saddle; an intricate leather
>  fringe that may be from a belt; children's toys, including a
>  whistle; a wooden bowls ball; part of a window shutter; and,
>  of course, the banana.
>
>  Taryn Nixon, the head of the museum's archaeolgical
>  services department, said that the objects conjure up
>  "thriving industries of Tudor Southwark . . . people going in
>  and out of the ale-houses, the leather workers taking orders
>  from the finely turned out gentleman with his metal outer
>  corset, and perhaps even someone turning up their nose at
>  the thought that this curious soft, yellow food - well, no,
>  probably quite black and rotten - was to be eaten."
>

>  Dr Thurley said that the museum was keen to put the finds
>  on show as soon as possible.
>
>_______________________________________________
>
>June 16 1999
>                                                BRITAIN
>
>
>
>
>
>   Fruit and vegetables made for good
>                        diet
>  THE diet of the privileged person in Tudor times was a
>  healthy one, with plenty of fruit and vegetables (Dalya
>  Alberge writes).
>
>  While the banana is the most recent find, archaeologists
>  have in the past unearthed seeds and stones from grapes,
>  figs, apples, plums, peaches, walnuts and hazelnuts.
>
>  John Georgie, a specialist in organic remains at the
>  Museum of London, said: "They were suspicious of fresh
>  fruit. They used to cook it, as they thought it caused
>  common illness such as diarrhoea and dysentery."
>
>  He pointed to a comment from a 15th-century schoolboy
>  who complained: "I ate damsons yesterday, which made my
>  stomach so raw that I could eat no manner of flesh." One
>  contemporary document observed: "Raw pears a poison,
>  baked a medicine be."
>
>  Apples were pulped in a mortar and placed in tarts, while
>  strawberries and cherries went in pottages. Mr Georgie
>  noted that it was only in the 18th century that attitudes
>  changed and people started eating fresh fruit.
>
>  As for meat, Alan Pipe, a zoologist with the Museum of
>  London, said that the Tudors ate many animals we eat now -
>  chicken, duck, goose or rabbit.
>
>
>
>--
>Logician:  There you go arguing again!  You are so inconsistent!
>Sage:  How so?
>Logician: Because you admit that the good man does not argue, and you
>go
>on arguing with complete disregard of that fact.
>Sage:  I am not being inconsistent,  It just so happens that at the
>moment
>I feel more like arguing than being good.
>    -Raymond Smullyan
>
>
>From:  Warrwykk <warrwykk at geocities.com>
>+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ 
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