Stonehenge Archaeologists Furious at Construction Crew Accused of 'Smashing' a 6,000-Year-Old Platfo
Stonehenge Archaeologists Furious at Construction Crew Accused of ‘Smashing’ a 6,000-Year-Old Platform
By Brandon Specktor, Senior Writer | December 6, 2018 02:11pm ET
Archaeologists at Stonehenge have accused a highway construction company of drilling through a 6,000-year-old platform at Blick Mead — an ancient settlement about 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) east of England's famous stone circle.
According to the BBC, the digging was part of a plan to construct a 1.8-mile (2.9 km) tunnel below Stonehenge, which was approved several years ago to ease traffic around the popular historic site.
Highways England, a government-owned company in charge of the construction project, was reportedly checking the water levels at Blick Mead when engineers bored a 10-foot-deep (3 meters) hole through a platform made of flint and animal bone, dating to about 4,000 B.C. David Jacques, lead archaeologist at Blick Mead, told the BBC that the platform contained several hoof prints of aurochs — an ancient species of cattle believed to have roamed the area for millions of years before going extinct around the year 1600 — preserved in what appeared to be a "ritualistic" manner. [Stonehenge: 7 Reasons The Mysterious Monument Was Built]
"It's complete vandalism," Jacques told NBC News. "We have dug in the area since 2005, carefully sieving and working at times with toothbrushes. And for them to have come in and done things with a hand drill and just smashed through the surface is really upsetting and appalling."
More:
https://www.livescience.com/64253-drill-smashes-platform-near-stonehenge.html?utm_source=notification
= new reply since forum marked as read
Workers building the new Walmart in clear view of the Pyramid of the Sun.
October 20: Blame And Shame
2016/10/20
October 20: Blame And Shame
2016/10/20 § Leave a comment
On this day in 2005 Wal-Mart opened a store in Teotihuacán, Mexico.
Yes, that Teotihuacán, the two-millennia old city that, at the height of its population, was the largest in the pre-Columbia Americas; an unparalleleld site of archaeological, sacred and historical significance to a long-lost race, dubbed the “place of the gods” by the later Aztecs. With a footprint of over 268,000 square feet and rising over 200 feet tall, the Pyramid of the Sun is the most prominent of the many structures that still stands here.
Plans for the 71,902 square-foot store and its 236-space parking lot were approved by state and federal agencies and had the blessing of the Mexican Institute of Anthropology and History. However, approval was granted absent public hearings, and the resignation and death of two successive representatives of the Institute raise eyebrows about the process itself.
Negotiating the rights and interests of past, present and future residents, local consumers, business owners, politicians, archaeologists, tourists and students of culture is no easy matter. But the construction of a Wal-Mart seems to be one of the worst kinds of development possible so near this site. Granted, other development is visible from the monuments–but Wal-Mart is not just any kind of development. It is an arm of the American-based multi-national dedicated to the death of local businesses and by extension the putrefaction of regional customs of consumerism. It epitomizes everything bad about globalization. While development that improves the quality of life for residents everywhere and anywhere must be balanced against a mothball approach to protecting historic sites, this one is a grotesque whopper of a mistake.
More:
https://archhistdaily.wordpress.com/2016/10/20/october-20-blame-and-shame/
~ ~ ~
It was later discovered Walmart also bribed local officials to get this property, and they simply paid a fine, and, of course, the store remained.
Great Stonehenge image. Thanks.
That is awful. I never have and I never will set foot in a Walmart.
Thanks for all of your interesting posts!
