ANST - Tudor Trash Heap Excavated

[Cherie Nolan]

I have some pictuers of tudor style tents. I will see if I can get pictures
of them and scan them in the list.
----- Original Message -----
From: C. L. Ward <gunnora at bga.com>
To: <Ansteorra-Laurels at Ansteorra.ORG>; <sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu>;
<SCA-LAURELS at Ansteorra.ORG>; <ansteorra at Ansteorra.ORG>
Sent: Thursday, June 17, 1999 6:21 AM
Subject: ANST - Tudor Trash Heap Excavated


> -----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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