And if the foreshore happens to be part of London’s River Thames, then there’s a good chance of finding something historically significant, too.

There’s been a surge of interest in treasure hunting in the UK. Historians say the finds made by amateur archaeologists are playing a pivotal role in constructing England’s historical past.

Now visitors to the country can take a stab at unearthing history too. One popular guide in London, for example, takes tourists ‘mudlarking’ and many of their finds end up in museums.

One such group of visitors gather on the banks of the River Thames, in the heart of London.

Stooping and peering, they pick through the stones and mud at their feet, hoping to find treasure left behind by past generations.

As the guide, archaeologist Dr Fiona Haughey says, it’s an historic location: “Really it was the ‘red light district’ in Shakespeare’s time.”

“We had four theatres here – The Rose, The Hope, The Globe and The Swan. We had bear baiting, boar baiting and of course the ladies of the night. So we’re on the interesting side of the river.”

Dr Haughey has been combing the Thames foreshore for 20 years. At regular intervals, she leads tours explaining the intricacy of ‘mudlarking’, a pursuit she says is hundreds of years old.   

“It was usually boys who were sent down in to the mud when the tide went out to find what had been dropped off the ships when they were offloading in order to be able to sell them to get money to live,” Dr Haughey explains.

“Because they were in the mud, they were called mudlarks.”

And although they’re not searching for their supper, today’s tourists and aspiring mudlarks make some interesting finds.

As they gather around her, proudly holding out the items they’ve found, Dr Fiona patiently explains each find and its origin and age.

“This is a bit of clay pipe stem,” she tells Rachel, a 35-year old visitor holding out what looks like a off-white broken tube.

“The problem with the stems is that very rarely is there anything on it that you can use to date them. I’ve got two pieces – not from here – that say diamond jubilee on them. And I tell you, it wasn’t 2012 and we’ve only had two,” she adds, referring to Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee in 1897.

Dr Haughey herself has found everything from ice age hand axes to Neolithic pottery in her own exploration of the Thames foreshore.

She says her tours have also turned up artefacts of considerable historical significance.

“We’ve had a few pilgrim badges found that were interesting and those were things that have gone up to the museum for people to look at,” she exclaims proudly.

On a visit to the British Museum, we find part of its collection of pilgrim badges in the Medieval Europe gallery on the third floor. Dr Michael Lewis, the Museum’s Deputy Head of Portable Antiquities who is showing us around, is currently researching pilgrim badges and their uses.

“People would go to Canterbury,” Doctor Lewis explains. “They’d buy a badge of St Thomas A’Becket and they would touch that badge on the shrine of the archbishop.”

“Then whatever their concern was– it may be they’ve committed some sin, it may be they’ve got some sort of disease or ailment,” he continues, “it would be hoped that by holding this badge close to them, that that would cure them of that ailment or that sin.”

Pilgrim badges were the world’s first souvenirs, sold to visitors travelling to religious shrines in the Middle Ages. Though hundreds of thousands of badges were made, now only a few remain. And it’s the mudlarks who have unearthed most of them.

“I’ve also got an interesting badge – one of my favourite badges – this one is basically Mary and Child on a crescent moon,” Doctor Lewis enthuses. “These badges are only really found on the Thames foreshore. They haven’t really been found anywhere else.”

According to Dr Lewis, archaeological excavation in England is ‘development-led’, meaning that it takes place when builders at a construction site unearth or are expected to unearth something historically important.

Amateur archaeologists like mudlarks and metal detectorists are more adventurous – often going where the professionals don’t.  And Dr Lewis says their finds can alter our picture of the past.

“Many of the finds are very fragmentary small pieces. They are like little pieces in a jigsaw puzzle that help us create a picture of the past,” he explains. “By putting them together we get an idea of what’s going on. They can actually rewrite history.”

So back at the tour on the Thames foreshore, we review the days’ finds. There’s the lower jaw of a horse, a roof tile from the Tudor period, flakes of pottery, bits of coal, a bucket handle and a bed spring.

Oh well. Even the most promising mudlarks can’t rewrite history every day.

©Jean Di Marino 2013

Questo post è protetto da password. Per leggerlo inserire la password qui sotto:

Password:

A half-hour train trip from central Rome lies a little-known historical landmark, that may soon be forced to close its gates.

The ‘Castello di Giulio II’ or Julius the Second’s Castle, is a centuries-old structure.

Overlooking the ruins of Ostia Antica, the ancient harbour city, it has always been over-shadowed by its more famous neighbour, but still it has managed to thrive. Its future, however, is uncertain.

“We have a real shortage of staff lately, like all cultural heritage sites,” Castle guide Donatella Dotti says. “You can only visit the castle now on Thursdays.”

     Donatella Dotti has been been conducting tours of the castle since 1996. Until recently, it kept her busy all week. For decades, the Castello was open every day except Monday.

But recently the tours were drastically cut. Now they take place just once a week – at 11am on Thursdays, and then, only if visitors phone to book first.

Confused tourists often cluster around the sign on the Castello gate, advising them of this fact. ‘Thursday only?’ they ask. ‘Yes, just Thursday,’ passing residents of the nearby village reply.

The Castello di Giulio II is one of just two castles in the city of Rome.

Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere financed its construction between 1483 and 1487, entrusting the work to Florentine architect Baccio Pontelli.  (The Cardinal became Pope Julius the Second or Giulio II, famous for being Michelangelo’s patron.)

Julius the Second’s castle once had immense strategic importance.

Customs officials at the Castello collected duties for the Vatican from ships sailing to Rome. It protected the last bend of the Tiber, before the river emptied into the sea.

Constructed of marble and other materials from the nearby ruins, it was built for war.

From the battlements above, where the cannons were fired and boiling oil poured through channels, to its moat below, everything was designed for defence.

“There are ovens for cooking bread, ammunition stores, grain stores and mills and so on.  There is everything needed to survive a siege – even one lasting for months,” Donatella explains to visitors, as she conducts a tour.

The castle also reflects Pope Julius the Second’s great love of the arts.

Frescos, created by artists of the Baldassarre Peruzzi school, remain over the main staircase leading to the papal apartments.

A restoration effort four years ago revealed paintings of the trials of Hercules and cameos of ancient Roman emperors.  

    But Donatella Dotti says the restoration work has come to a halt before it is complete.  

“These frescos were supposed to be restored in three phases,” she says.

“The first two phases are finished. They should start soon on the third. I don’t know when (it will happen). The sooner you begin the work, the sooner you stop the decay,” she explains.

    But in-cash strapped Italy the heritage dollar is stretched too thin.

There are more UNESCO World Heritage sites here than in any other nation, but in the past few years, the culture budget has been drastically reduced. There’s barely enough to maintain and preserve them. There’s also a critical shortage of staff.

Recently the government proposed the sale of hundreds of historic buildings, to reduce debt. The Castello is just one of many needy venues.

      “We want to be optimistic and hope the castle will be open more often in the future,” Donatella Dotti says. “People like it a lot. The tour is always full and the castle is worth it.”

     The castle’s fortunes have always risen and fallen.

In the 1500s, barely sixty years after it was built, there was a terrible storm. The Tiber, which once flowed just past the moat, changed its course, leaving the Castello high and dry.

A year after surviving a Spanish siege, overnight, the castle was rendered obsolete.

For three centuries afterwards, it languished – the centre of malaria-ridden swamp. At most it was used as a machinery store and a prison.

“The prisoners at the castle were taken out each day to move the earth from the ruins of Ostia Antica. The history of the castle is linked to the dig in this way.”

In the 1900s, the castle underwent extensive restoration. It’s now almost back to its former condition.

But jockeying for attention amid thousands of other historical treasures in Italy – Roman ruins, Renaissance churches and priceless artworks –it’s struggling for recognition.

So though it’s survived a stormy past – fighting off invaders and tempests, and housing prisoners and Popes in the centuries since it was commissioned by Michelangelo’s patron, now its future is uncertain.

 ©Jean Di Marino 2013

It’s taken a while to adjust. My stomach for one has not returned easily to normal fare after goat meat and rice. But I’m not complaining. In fact, my time in South Sudan has made me feel incredibly grateful.

So many things have made me cry, ‘So lucky!’ since I’ve returned: hot water, clean water, vegetables that you can just wash and cook, yellow-yoked eggs, the cinema, classic architecture, good affordable education and yes, even politicians who resign.

Looking back, I can say, while it was tough and tested all my resources, it was a positive experience.

Many people were generous with their life stories – fishermen in Terekeka, cattleherders in Torit and women farmers in Morobo (Ha – thought I’d misspelt the title, didn’t you) and I know I was lucky in many other ways.

I met some wonderful people, workmates, who for a few months generously guided me through the realities of South Sudan.  There was Schola, who shared her mandazi; Data, who listened kindly; Lokai, who went to get telephone cards for me even on Sunday in the midday sun; just to name a few.

A friend once told me life was about making memorable moments. And I certainly have plenty of those:

A work colleague (with the characteristic tribal scarring, missing teeth and lisp of the Dinka tribe) translating for me during an interview with an ex-soldier, ‘I’m Jean from PAO. I’m porty-pour.”

Tall young fishermen on a riverbank of the White Nile, covered in orange mud, gathering around me to ask why I dyed my hair red and didn’t have tattoos, as nearby the driver broke out laughing.

And a good-bye party for some other colleagues, where my male workmates danced for hours as dusk fell. It was dancing as I’ve never seen it before – rhythmic, joyful, contagious!

So South Sudan, I’ll never regret or forget my time with you. Good-bye. Good luck. I wish you all the best.

©Jean Di  Marino 2012

It ‘s a measure of how used I am to South Sudan after five months, that I didn’t blink at the cheetah, which paced to and fro nearby.

I didn’t even ask for a knife and fork. I surreptitiously used the wet wipes I carry everywhere now; made my fingers like claws and dug into the tender white meat through the scales, shovelling it into my mouth, ignoring the glassy fish eye staring back at me.

Still, FAO’s fisheries officer, William Ushalla, looked amused as he glanced at me. He and the others at the table ate their fish – eyes, scales and all.

We were in Terekeka – a town on the west bank of the White Nile. And we’d just been to interview a fisherman, in his camp on the riverbank, about a 15 minute motorboat ride away.

I kept flashing back to a story I was researching before leaving Italy– about fishermen plying their trade on another river – in Caorle, a town near Venice.

There the fishermen belong to a cooperative that supplies them with styrofoam containers and ice. It takes their fish quickly in refrigerated trucks to markets for sale. The market in Venice has tile floors and granite slabs for tables. It too is refrigerated and is constantly sluiced out by workers.

Paul Modi and his group of fishermen on the Nile have no ice. There is no refrigerated transport. They put their fish on the bottom of rowboats and row them to Terekeka. (Our arrival created a stir, because they could borrow our motorboat to rapidly transport a Nile perch they’d caught downriver.)

The market in Terekeka is made out of rickety branches and infested with flies. Traders carry their fish back to Juba in burlap sacks on the back of motorcycles. With 40 degree temperatures, as you can imagine, a lot of the fish spoil.

Still Mr Modi and his group are eating well. He maintains seven children at school and another at a cattle camp. He’s cultivating vegetables, crops and fruit to see them all through less bountiful times.  And he’s learnt processing techniques– smoking, drying and salting – to try to cut down the spoilage.

My Caorle fisherman is one of the last practising the trade. The area has been overfished. Invasive fishing methods have devastated the hatcheries. The catches are small.

In South Sudan, the environment and hatcheries are so far unspoilt. The fish are plentiful. So much so, FAO says the industry could support tens of thousands more fishermen than it does at present.

I feel like holding my breath at the potential and with fear at the dangers– hoping they learn from our mistakes – do it right and succeed.

©Jean Di  Marino 2012

It was difficult to react quickly. The road shoulder was just a ditch and dirt. If I’d pulled aside quickly, we could have rolled. As I slowed down to a halt, I turned my head to see a black limousine hurtle past, followed by a truck-load of soldiers, with their rifles trained on our car.

The commander had his hand outstretched, pointing hard at me, and his look could have frozen steel.

“You’re lucky you’re white and from the UN,” my colleague said. “If you’d been a local, they would have come back and beaten you up.”

It was a reality check. South Sudan is a country at war with its neighbour and itself.

Sudanese fighters have been bombing South Sudan’s Unity state. Juba seized the Heglig oil hub from Khartoum. Up until a month ago, competing tribes in South Sudan itself were carrying out long-running tit-for-tat cattle raids in Jonglei.

Within the same tribe, there’s also conflict. In one town, we held eight seed fairs in different districts, because neighbouring clans, living 15 minutes away from each other, can’t get together without beginning to fight.

The capital, Juba, is no picnic either.

The man living in the room next door to me was shot dead a few months ago. He’d parked his vehicle outside at 7.30 at night and was carjacked. I’d arrived an hour earlier and was lucky enough to get a park inside.

At a church service I attended on New Year’s Eve, the young, white-clad pastor said one of his parishioners prayed for 24 hours of daylight, fearing the violence night would bring.

It’s not just the nights. The manager of a hotel I occasionally go to for breakfast told me two of his staff had been attacked on the way to the bank. They were beaten up and the money they wanted to deposit was stolen. This was at 11am on a Wednesday.

It makes me feel for this country. Its people have been at war for so long, many have forgotten the tools of ordinary living. FAO has to teach many of them how to farm. A generation of people have grown up in refugee camps or spent their youth running to foxholes to hide from bombers overhead. Many now just want peace so they can create lives and families.

An ex-combatant I interviewed in Rumbek, in Lakes state last month, put this sentiment well.

Once a captain in the army, he bore the tribal scarring around his forehead and the three missing front teeth in his lower jaw, that is an initiation mark of his tribe, the Dinkas.

After more than ten years of fighting, last year he was demobilised and returned home. A few months ago, he was forced to run for his life, when his home and fields were set on fire by youths from a rival clan, who lived just ten minutes walk away.

“Why can’t they just give us a bit of forest, away from this community in conflict, and leave us to settle on our own,” he said. “We’ve seen so much war, and we’re tired of it.”

But how do you put down the guns and create a nation, when all you’re used to is war?

The pastor at the church on New Year’s Eve warned his parishioners sternly; “If you are a child of God, you can’t draw a gun on another. It’s like shooting yourself. Bless and embrace one another,” he said.

I foresee a long journey to peace.

©Jean Di  Marino 2012

But Juba– well, it’s hot like I’ve never experienced before. I wake up at 5 in the morning, my head aching, my throat parched, in a room that feels like the inside of an oven.

At work, we huddle in our air conditioned containers. Getting the job done feels like wading through waist deep treacle and tempers are trigger-hot.

The mozzarella cheese I bought from ‘Vam’, the Chinese shop around the corner, melts in my bag.

This week they’re registering temperatures of 47 degrees Celsius. Apparently the rainy season normally comes in mid-March, but this year, it’s late. ‘Climate change’, the boss says. ‘It’s never taken this long to rain before.’

Some of my colleagues are pleased. The funding has been delayed and what has come, is only a fraction on previous years, so the more time they have to get seeds and tools to the farmers, the better. Once the rainy season begins, so does the agricultural season and the farmers begin to plant.

But other colleagues are worried that when the rains come, they’ll end quickly and won’t be enough to give the crops a good start.

Personally, I can’t wait.

It all reminds me of my grandfather. A tall lean Australian farmer, he used to note the rainfall and atmospheric pressure figures each day in a slim blue diary. His barometer was at the bottom of the grandfather clock on the wall of the homestead. The rainfall he gauged himself from calibrated plastic containers placed around the farm.

Not that there was much rain to measure. It’s a dry country in the outback. Most of the time the grass is brown and red clay almost dust. I remember, as summer developed, he used to look at the figures with a worried face and listen carefully to the weather forecasts on the radio each morning and night.

But then the clouds would gather, thunder would begin to rumble and lightning flash across the sky. As the fat rain drops fell, my grandfather’s relief was tangible. He’d stride out onto the farm, ‘Blue’ the blue heeler dog at his side, and call out to the sky, ‘Send her down, You-ie’. My sister and I would run to follow him, screaming and laughing, as we splashed in the puddles.

I’m many years older now, but little has changed. I know when the rain drops begin to sound on the iron roofs in Juba, I’ll be so relieved. I promise I’ll run outside, shouting, ‘Send her down you-ie’, to the sky.

It’ll be a little difficult to translate to the Ethiopians who own the compound where I live, and sit all day in a little gazebo near the gate, drinking coffee and chatting. But they’re a very civilized bunch.  I’m sure they’ll understand.

©Jean Di  Marino 2012

We’d begun talking a few weeks ago, after I’d asked for one of the Ethiopian dishes on the menu. It arrived without cutlery, leaving my Virgo soul offended to the very core. He passed over a spoon, when he saw the waitress observing my anguish without budging.

In the ensuing conversation, he explained he was Eritrean, married with two children, had studied English at university and was looking for conversation practice. This relaxed my guard and for the past few lunches, I’d been explaining terms like ‘that’s another kettle of fish’ and ‘no rest for the wicked’ over my tibbs (goat meat) and rice.

But when I sat down at my usual table last week, he asked me into his office for a private conversation. My sleeze antennae bristled and I braced myself for an uncomfortable few minutes.

Then it came out: he was looking to marry an English or European woman so he could leave Juba to go overseas. He had tried other ways of finding work outside Africa, but to no avail.

“I’m strong,” he said, “and happy to work.”

Then eyeing the grey roots in my hair that I’d not had time to colour during my latest RnR in Rome, “I don’t mind about her age. I like older women,” he continued magnanimously.

So relieved this wasn’t a frontal attack, I let the age reference – and the apparent disappearance of his wife and children- go.

“I’m sorry. I can’t think of anyone.”

He persisted: “Can you ask your sister or your mother?”

I fumbled for a reply. It’s difficult to explain that I haven’t even told my mother I am in Juba. The woman is a champion worrier. For weeks, during the height of the Italian financial crisis, she had sent panicked emails telling me to take my money out of my Italian bank account. I can’t even imagine how the conversation would go:

“Hi Mum. I’ve got a job in Juba. Yes, South Sudan. Where the war is. Yes, that South Sudan. I’m fine. By the way, do you know anyone who might want to marry a 27-year-old Eritrean here in Juba? He speaks English and doesn’t mind an older woman.”

I fobbed him off with promises that I would contact her and thought that would be the end of it.

But no, I was wrong. I’d reckoned without this young man’s determination. Each time I go to the restaurant – ever more rarely since this subject was broached – he asks, ‘Have you heard from your Mam?”

I’ve replied with various vague explanations. My mother is technologically challenged and can’t use the email. She hasn’t worked out Skype and I can’t call her.

But soon it will be unavoidable. I’m going to have to key myself up to say, ‘No. I’m sorry. My mother can’t find you a European bride. Neither can my sister. Nor my friends. I don’t know anyone who wants to come to Juba or bring anyone home from Juba’.

I feel sorry for him. I do. But I’m pretty sure that when I say this, his attention may turn to the person in front of him. And the restaurant has been so convenient. It’s a pity not to be able to go there again.

©Jean Di  Marino 2012

I try to count my blessings:

1. I have accommodation.

This is no small feat in Juba at the moment. With the South Sudanese diaspora flooding back into the country, accommodation is scarce.

In fact, I was booked into a hotel for my first few days here, but was bumped when I turned up at night to pick up my keys. Others had arrived before me waving cash and my reservation had been ‘cancelled’. I spent hours going from hotel to hotel to find a room.

1. I’m staying in a closed compound.

There’s barbed wire on the top of its high walls and the gates are manned by security guards. In Juba, apartments are very rare. It’s either closed compounds or grass huts. I know which I prefer.

1. It only costs $65US a night.

The hotel I first stayed in charged $150US per night for a single room and a bathroom. One down the road charges $180. With the UN in town, the landlords know the sky’s the limit and they’re intent on reaching it.

My work colleagues, some of whom have been in Juba since 2004, recall staying in tents. They had to share and pay $65 US a night and more for the privilege. One told me his tent was so small, he had to slide into it, often leaving his clothes behind.

4. It could be worse

My house is humble I admit.

The tap is leaking in the bathroom. There are damp stains on the ceiling and strange black droppings on the walls. My mosquito net is so small I sleep curled up like a swizzle stick.

But I’m counting myself lucky. I have a roof over my head, a comfortable bed, and while I’ve been musing, the intruder has been expelled.

As for the overhead scrabbling, I’m choosing to believe it’s lizards. They are big here, after all.

©Jean Di  Marino 2012

I got my South Sudanese license yesterday. A triumph – as readers of my past blogs will realize.

It means freedom for me here. Up till now, I’ve been relying on the drivers at work to get around. During the day this is fine, just a matter of negotiation with others going to the airport, delivering packages, and travelling into the field.

But it’s the two ends of the day that are problematic.

I live half an hour away from the office and the drivers picking me up have been erratic to say the least. My favourite, Amin, came at 8 o’clock on the dot, so I reached work by 8.30. Another took until 9.15, and only after many frustrated telephone calls.

At the end of the day, there’s a milk run home at 5.15pm. But my compound has only intermittent electricity and even rarer access to the internet. Working at home is difficult and the job tasks are piling up as a result.

I also need desperately to shop. When I bought some replacement jeans and shirts, the driver waited patiently and gave sage advice. But I can’t bring myself to ask him to take me to a lingerie store. I think, well, it’s just one step too far.

But there’s one other challenge I still have to overcome- learning my way around town.

Juba is not like other capitals. There are no street signs and very few paved roads. Mostly they’re made of packed dirt, flanked by buildings under construction and thatched mud huts.

The landmarks that do exist – mostly government and embassy offices, a university and school – aren’t on my route.

The lead driver took me on a test run but it was difficult to remember the way. I focussed more on dodging madmen on motorcycles, carrying girlfriends, bananas and even bedding. Drivers going the wrong way up the street didn’t help.

My first solo trip today has left me wringing wet with sweat and sobbing to my partner on skype.

I set out with a map from Google, but it didn’t reflect the terrain. After half an hour of driving, turning where signs seemed familiar, I realised I was hopelessly lost.

And terrified! I read a daily security briefing at work. And there are frequent reports of UN staff, mugged as they enter and exit their cars. The office manager had also warned me, whatever happens, not to stop and get out of the car.

But I needed help. Praying to God, the angels, and my missing travelling Buddha, I saw a nurse with a cross on her hat, entering a compound. I reasoned that anyone who’d taken the hypocratic oath surely wouldn’t break it just to filch a hundred bucks from a desperate aid worker.

I swerved my land-rover off the road, bumping down a steep incline, stopping inches short of a grass hut.

Plastering on my best, ‘I’m an ambassador from the Australia’ smile, I dipped under a line of washing and headed towards two tall men dressed in suits.

My compound has no address, so it was difficult to explain where I was heading.  I showed them my google map and it was obvious, they too concluded it bore little relation to reality. With a flash of inspiration, I rang the lead driver, Frances, from work. He explained a nearby landmark in Arabic and the younger man took control.

‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘I’ll drive my van and you can follow me home.’

Narrowly scraping the grass hut on my way out, I waved manically at a group of grim-faced young men gathering nearby and bumped off behind my new white knight.

When we pulled up outside my compound, I thanked him profusely, tears splashing out from under my sunglasses and pouring onto my cheeks.

He tutted reassuringly and asked, ‘Where are you from?’ When I said, ‘Australia,’ he replied, like countless others from every city I’ve been: ‘I have cousins in Melbourne, you know’.

I learnt something today. It’s a small world, even in South Sudan. And no matter the reports, there are good Samaritans in every corner of it.

©Jean Di Marino 2012