Digging Beneath Britain’s Houses of Parliament

The Palace of Westminster in London houses Britain’s Parliament. While digging beneath this palace, archaeologists have discovered several artifacts, including a 19^th-century beer jug, a fragment of a 2,000-year-old Roman altar, and 6,000-year-old prehistoric flint flakes.

Excavations were commissioned by the Houses of Parliament Restoration and Renewal Program. The digs are part of an ongoing archaeology project to illuminate Westminster’s history and inform restoration work.

Westminster has been a central part of Britain’s national story for at least a thousand years. It has been the location of momentous events in the U.K.’s history. While planning for restoration and renewal, scientists must also protect and learn from the history below the building.

60 prehistoric flint fragments (which date to about 4300 BCE) are evidence of toolmaking in the late Mesolithic or early Neolithic periods. Tools were made from flint by chipping the stone until it had a sharp edge. They were discovered in sand deposits that once formed part of Thorney Island, where prehistoric inhabitants fished, hunted, and gathered food. Finding prehistoric remains in central London is rare.

Researchers also discovered remains of Lesser Hall, also known as the White Hall. As a medieval two-story building built in 1167, it originally was a royal dining area. Later, it accommodated the Court of Chancery, the Court of Requests, the House of Commons, and the House of Lords during certain time periods. This was an unexpected discovery found below the present-day courtyard and car park.

When Lesser Hall housed the House of Lords in 1834, a fire started in the basement furnace room and became the Great Fire of 1834. These excavations showed the hall’s stone walls survived the fire. The building was reroofed and used until 1851, when it was demolished. The discovery of Lesser Hall provides insights into the layout of historic structures. The remains of Lesser Hall and other pre-1834 structures were documented (and some recreated in 3D models) before being reburied.

The Roman altar fragment was likely repurposed in another structure built later. Other artifacts included 800-year-old shoe soles, straps, a leather boot, and a lead badge shaped like a flowering heart from the 14^th or 15^th century.

Several artifacts from the 19^th century included fragments of clay tobacco pipes, which were probably smoked by the stonemasons working after the 1834 fire. Also found was a five-pint beer jug bearing the words “Ship and Turtle Tavern”. It also said “Geo Painter”, which likely referred to George Painter, the owner of the tavern.

I’ve been to London. I found it to be a very busy place. And all these artifacts show that it has been a busy place for a very long time.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/archaeologists-digging-beneath-britain-s-houses-of-parliament-discover-6-000-year-old-flint-artifacts-and-a-2-000-year-old-roman-altar-fragment/ar-AA1RAb5x?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=692f561f60da44d0807bb72e64e341b3&ei=37

Good Ol’ Saxons

The Saxons were a group of early Germanic peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country near the North Sea coast of what is now Germany. According to one proposal, the Saxon’s earliest area of settlement is believed to have been Northern Albingia, which is close to the probable homeland of the Angles. During the late Roman Empire, the name ‘Saxon’ referred to Germanic coastal raiders. Later, they were associated with settlements along the coast of Normandy.

Later still, the Saxons, Angles, Frisians and Jutes settled in England and became known as Anglo-Saxons. These were no longer raiders. The political history of the continental Saxons is unclear until the time of the conflict between their legendary hero Widukind and the Frankish emperor Charlemagne. Charlemagne won the conflict, and organized the Saxons into a Frankish province. Although the continental Saxons are no longer a distinctive ethnic group or country, their name lives on in the name of several regions and states of Germany.

But as I stated earlier, the Saxons, Angles, Frisians and Jutes either invaded or migrated to the island of ‘Great Britain’ around the time of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. For centuries before that, Saxon raiders had harassed the eastern and southern shores, and some had been granted permission to settle in these areas as farmers.

Tradition says that the Saxons (and others) were brought in to protect the Britons from raids by the Picts (of Scotland), Gaels (of Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man) and others. The Saxons were allowed to settle on the Isle of Thanet (eastern Kent) in exchange for their services as mercenaries. (Thanet is no longer an island, but is connected to the English mainland.) For whatever reason, more land was granted to the Anglo-Saxons, and more of them arrived to settle it. It is uncertain whether this was a peaceful process or not.

Eventually, in about the 6th century, the Anglo-Saxons took over all of the southeastern portions of Britain and formed 4 realms: The East saxons created the Kingdom of Essex; The Middle Saxons created the province of Middlesex; the South Saxons created the Kingdom of Sussex; and the West Saxons created the Kingdom of Wessex. Between the reigns of Egbert to Alfred the great, the kings of Wessex gained sway over the other realms and unified the country. They eventually organized it as the Kingdom of England in the face of Viking invasions.

One has to wonder if they saw the irony of becoming victims of coastal raiders, when that was how their own people started out?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxons