Railway Workers discover a 14th-century cave with medieval shrine or hermitage
An archaeologist’s team from Archaeology -Southeast, a member of the UCL Institute of Archeology, explored a small cave with medieval carvings believed to have been dated the 14th century.
Archaeologists investigate the cave, which could only be reached by abseiling!
Markings found within the small cave in the hill below the ruins of the chapel of St Catherine
The finding followed a landslip in the area of Guildford in Surrey and is considered to be a medieval shrine or hermitage, with links to the nearby church of St Catherine.
Engineers came across the small cave, with markings and evidence of use in the 14th century, while stabilizing the embankment between the railway line and the A3100 Old Portsmouth Road.
The sandstone cave is made up of several sections ranging from 0.3 meters to about 0.7 meters high and it’s thought to be the surviving section of a much bigger cave.
The rest may have been lost when the railway line was carved out of the hillside in the early 1840s.
Initial findings by a specialist archaeological contractor suggest that it was a later medieval shrine or hermitage associated with the early 14th century chapel of St Catherine, the ruins of which are situated on the hill nearby.
It may even have earlier origins as a site of cult activity, due to its pre-14th century name of Drakehull, or ‘Hill of the Dragon’. Images taken from the site show the presence of a Gothic niche decorated in dots with a Calvery cross nearby.
The Gothic niche or shrine
There are seven or eight further niches and experts found considerable evidence of writing and other markings across the cave ceiling.
The cave is partially covered in deposits of black dust, believed to be soot from lamps. The remains of two suspected fire pits were also uncovered in the cave floor.
The cave was found during work to stabilize the embankment next to the railway tunnel
The hope is that radiocarbon dating can be used to establish the period when the cave was in use.
Mark Killick, Network Rail Wessex route director, said: “This is an unexpected and fascinating discovery that helps to visualize and understand the rich history of the area.
“A full and detailed record of the cave has been made and every effort will be made to preserve elements where possible during the regrading of the delicate and vulnerable sandstone cutting.”
Tony Howe, a historic environment planning manager and county archaeologist at Surrey County Council, added: “The discovery of this cavern is tremendously exciting. It’s very early in the process of understanding its full significance, but the potential for knowledge acquisition is huge.
“We’re looking forward to learning an awful lot more about the site as studies progress.”
The Tarkhan Dress Confirmed to Be the World’s Oldest Dress
This tattered V-neck linen shirt, currently on display in the UCL Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, is the world’s oldest woven garment.
The Tarkhan Dress likely was worn by a young or slim female member of the royal court, and then placed in the tomb as a funerary object. Although the bottom does not survive, it may once have been full-length.
A recent radiocarbon testing conducted by the University of Oxford has established with 95% accuracy that the dress was made between 3482-3102 BC.
While garments of similar age have survived to the present day, but those were simply wrapped or draped around the body.
The Tarkhan dress, on the other hand, is a tailored piece with long sleeves, V-neck and narrow pleats, that looks surprisingly modern.
The Tarkhan dress was excavated by Egyptologist Flinders Petrie in 1913 from a First Dynasty tomb at Tarkhan, an Egyptian cemetery located 50 km south of Cairo.
Petrie had found a quantity of linen cloth under the sand alongside other artifacts. Instead of discarding away the linen as worthless, as most archaeologists at that time did, Petrie decided to preserve everything he found as evidence that would someday help throw light on the daily life of the ancient Egyptians.
The bundle of filthy rags Petrie recovered was stored away and forgotten for sixty-five years. It was not until 1977 when conservation experts at the Petrie Museum were sorting through the bundle did they stumble across the garment.
As textile conservator Sheila Landi carefully removed the caked mud from the dress, she was excited to see creases in the sleeves at the elbow and under the arms indicating that the dress had been worn in life.
The garment was also found inside-out, as it would be if one were to pull it out over the head.
The Tarkhan dress is made from three pieces of sturdy hand-woven linen with a natural pale grey stripe, which complements the neatly knife-pleated sleeves and bodice.
The lower part of the dress is missing so it’s difficult to say how the long the dress originally was or whether it was for a man or a woman, but its dimensions indicates that it fitted a young teenager or a slim woman.
At the time of its rediscovery in the late seventies, radiocarbon dating was not carried out as it would have required the destruction of a large piece of the dress fabric.
Instead of dating the fabric itself, the associated artifacts from the Tarkhan site was dated. Results indicated that the dress belonged to the First Dynasty which began in 3100 BC, making it the world’s earliest example of a woven garment.
Advancement in radiocarbon dating has now allowed researchers to date the textile directly by taking a tiny 2.24mg sample of the dress.
The new results not only confirm the dress’s antiquity but also suggest that it may be older than previously thought, pre-dating the First Dynasty.
387-Year-Old Shopping List Discovered Under Floorboards In Historic English Home
Such must-have items were listed on a shopping list 387 years back, including pewter spoons, frying cups and “greenfish.” Under the floors of Knole, a historic country house in Kent, England, a scrap of paper has recently been discovered.
Among other necessary items, the list includes “greenfish,” a “fireshovel” and two dozen pewter spoons.
Jim Parker, an archeology volunteer at Knole, has found the 1633 note for the restoration of the building, as reported for Kent Live by Oliver Porritt.
The team also found two other 17th century letters nearby. One, like the shopping list, was located under the attic floorboards; another was stuffed into a ceiling void.
The shopping list was penned by Robert Draper and addressed to one Mr. Bilby.
According to the UK’s National Trust, the note was “beautifully written,” suggesting that Draper was a high-ranking servant.
In addition to the aforementioned kitchenware and greenfish (unsalted cod), Draper asks Mr. Bilby to send a “fire shovel” and “lights” to Copt Hall (also known as Copped Hall), an estate in Essex. The full text reads:
Mr. Bilby, I pray p[ro]vide to be sent too morrow in ye Cart some Greenfish, The Lights from my Lady Cranfeild[es] Cham[ber] 2 dozen of Pewter spoon[es]: one greate fireshovell for ye nursery; and ye o[t]hers which were sent to be exchanged for some of a better fashion, a new frying pan together with a note of ye prises of such Commoditie for ye rest.
Your loving friend
Robert Draper
Octobre 1633
Copthall
Jim Parker, a volunteer working with the archaeology team at Knole, discovered the 1633 note during a multi-million dollar project to restore the house.
How did this rather mundane domestic letter come to be stashed in an attic at Knole, which is some 36 miles away from Copt Hall? As the National Trust explains, Copt Hall and Knole merged when Frances Cranfield married Richard Sackville in 1637.
Cranfield was the daughter of the Earl of Middlesex, who owned Copt Hall; Sackville, the 5th Earl of Dorset, had inherited Knole, his family’s home.
Household records indicate that large trunks filled with domestic items—including various papers—were moved from Copt Hall to Knole at the time of the marriage, and subsequently stored in the attic. Draper’s note may have slipped under the floorboards.
The marriage of Cranfield and Sackville was important for Knole, according to the National Trust Collections, because Cranfield inherited a trove of expensive paintings and furniture from her father.
Draper’s letter certainly was not among the more prized items that Cranfield brought to the marriage, but for modern-day historians, it is exceptionally valuable.
“It’s extremely rare to uncover letters dating back to the 17th century, let alone those that give us an insight into the management of the households of the wealthy, and the movement of items from one place to another,” Nathalie Cohen, regional archaeologist for the National Trust, tells Porritt.
She added that the good condition of both the list and the two other letters found at Knole “makes this a particularly exciting discovery.”
Kansas Archaeologist Rediscovers Lost Native American City
A conqueror named Juan de Oñate led an expedition of 200 soldiers in 1601 into uncharted territories of what is today the state of Kansas.
Along with the soldiers and canons, the group was accompanied by a number of priests as well as adventurers who were attracted by the expedition’s final goal ― the legendary city of Quivira, whose streets were allegedly paved with gold.
Before Oñate chose to venture into the Great Plains, two other conquistadors ― Antonio Gutiérrez de Humana and Francisco Leyva de Bonilla ― already lost their lives there in 1594, while embarking on a similar quest.
Juan de Oñate, first Governor of New Spain.
But Oñate’s thirst for fame and riches, as well as an appetite for terror, led him and his posse deep into the unknown where he indeed discovered a large settlement, but it wasn’t exactly what he expected.
More than 400 years later, archaeologists from the Wichita State University flocked around a site which they believe was the place where Oñate found his Quivira, or Etzanoa, as it was known to the Native Americans.
Oñate’s 1605 “signature graffiti” on Inscription Rock, in El Morro National Monument.
Located in southern Kansas, at the confluence of the Walnut and the Arkansas rivers, it has been known for decades as a place of historical findings. Since 1959, both archaeologists and locals have discovered various artifacts belonging to the Wichita people.
Literally tons of objects belonging to an ancient civilization were collected after a road construction in 1994. Many of the objects are kept in private property, as it became common to find shards of pottery or pieces of arrowheads. However, never before was the connection made between these traces of settlement with the almost mythical city of Etzanoa ― discovered by Oñate’s expedition in 1601.
Trade beads found at a Wichita village site, c. 1740, collection of the Oklahoma History Center.
Protohistoric Wichita points found at Etzanoa.
The research was conducted under the supervision of Donald Blakeslee, a veteran archaeologist who became intrigued with finding the lost city in 2013, after new translations of various accounts of Spanish colonialists serving under Oñate during the Etzanoa expedition were made by scholars from UC Berkeley.
Together with the National Park Service, Blakeslee scanned the area with a magnetometer, enabling him to determine the variations in the earth’s magnetic field and locate remains of houses, cellars, and fireplaces belonging to a once vibrant settlement. Not far from the settlement’s location, in what is today a suburb of Arkansas City, traces of battle were also found, including three Spanish cannonballs, a horseshoe, and a number of other objects.
Protohistoric Wichita stone knives were recovered from the site by the Kansas State Historical Society.
Let’s head back to the year 1601 and the fate of Juan de Oñate’s expedition, to further unravel the story which led to this amazing discovery. After his vanguard came with reports that a large settlement lay ahead of them, the conquistador must have rubbed his hands in delight ― it was the chance to amass gold, and to convert the natives into Christianity, gaining favor from the Spanish Crown in return.
According to his scouts’ reports, the city seemed as though it stretched for miles. Large beehive-shaped houses with thatched roofs and fields of corn, squash, and beans overtook the horizon. Their estimate was that there must have been more than 20,000 people living there.
A sketch of a Wichita Indian village in the 19th century. The beehive-shaped grass-thatched houses surrounded by cornfields are characteristic and appear similar to those described by Coronado in 1541.
Esadowa (or Isadowa) was chief of the Wichita village adjacent to the Comanche camp attacked by Van Dorn in 1858. In 1861, Esadowa led his people north to Kansas, then in 1865 brought them back to the Indian Territory.
After they were approached by a friendly delegation bringing offerings, the Spanish took the welcoming committee as hostages, as they needed leverage while possibly facing an entire city in battle. As a response, Wichita warriors, who were calling for a fight with the invaders, put on their battle paint. Spanish soldiers named them Rayados ― due to tattoos and paint they wore on their faces and bodies.
Even though at one moment it looked as though they were going to face an army eager to fight, only a handful of people were found in the city as the conquistadors marched into it. The inhabitants of Etzanoa, perhaps familiar with the stories of vicious invaders and their firepower, decided it was safer to just evacuate the entire city for a while than to battle the treacherous Spaniards.
So when the conquistadors entered the city, it was already empty. They wandered the city for several days in their search for gold, counting more than 2,000 houses, all of which were big enough for 10 people.
Adam Ziegler holds an iron ball that he found with a metal detector. The ball, which was part of a cartridge load for a cannon, was the first piece of evidence that suggested the archaeologist had located the battlefield where the Spanish fought the Native Americans.
Once they decided to leave, however, they were met with a horde of 1,500 warriors belonging to the Escanxaques tribe, which rivaled the Wichita. Apparently, they were on a warpath, but instead of fighting their historical enemies, they ended up battling a small detachment of Spaniards who attempted to break through using cannons and muskets. By sheer luck alone, the conquistadors managed to withdraw from the battlefield, suffering heavy casualties.
Afterward, the accounts of their mishaps have often been discarded as exaggerated ramblings of adventurers who sought glory or support from the Spanish Crown. Modern historians dismissed the notion of a settlement of such scale, in part because of yet another expedition, this time under French leadership, that ventured into the same area around 100 years later, only to find what looked to them like untouched nature.
It is most likely that the settlement was abandoned and left to waste due to some sort of disease epidemic, which was the most common reason for the extinction of many other Native American cultures. Thanks to Blakeslee and his team, a real breakthrough is happening, as Etzanoa is estimated to be the second-largest ancient settlement in the United States, the first one being Cahokia in Illinois.
Researchers conducting a surface survey mark the locations of stone flakes, points, and tools with brightly colored flags.
The discovery is also reshaping the way that the history of Great Plains tribes is perceived. It was mostly believed that the tribes inhabiting North America lived in rural settlements or as nomads, as opposed to the vast cities of the Mayans and Incas in the south. However, the unearthing of Etzanoa goes to show that large urban areas existed and thrived as trade centers of civilizations long gone.
According to Jay Warren, an Arkansas City council member, plans are already put in motion to turn the site into a tourist attraction.
“We’re not talking about putting together a one-day wonder. We’re looking at creating something that could be great for the region, and for 50 years and more down the road. We’re talking with (Unified School District) 470 about how it could enhance education. And we think the site could also be a hands-on field training facility for archaeologists from all over the world.”
This 5,500-Year-Old Leather Shoe is the Oldest Ever Discovered
The oldest leather shoe known to archeologists was discovered lodged in a sheep dung pit in a cave in Armenia, and is about 5,500 years old, according to a BBC article. The so-called Areni-1 shoe is an example of early, simplistic footwear which may have influenced the creation of other types of shoe design in the ancient world.
Anthropologists believe that humans started wearing shoes around 40,000 years ago contributing to anatomical changes in human feet and limbs. However, we have very little idea of what these prehistoric shoes might have looked like.
Entrance to the Areni-1 cave in southern Armenia near the town of Areni. The cave is the location of the world’s oldest known winery and where the world’s oldest known leather shoe has been found.
Entrance to the Areni-1 cave in southern Armenia near the town of Areni. The cave is the location of the world’s oldest known winery and where the world’s oldest known leather shoe has been found.
Several pairs of rope sandals discovered by archaeologists in a cave in Oregon are thought to be the oldest footwear ever discovered, dating to approximately 8,000 BC. However, the oldest shoe, made from leather and featuring a closed toe, was found in a remote cave in Armenia in 2008.
The shoe was excavated as part of a project led by archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia.
The team was exploring a cave known as Areni-1, in the Vayots Dzor region. Areni-1 contained a number of Neolithic and Copper Age remains, including food containers holding barley, wheat and apricots.
The shoe itself was found inside a pit, perfectly preserved in the cool, dry conditions of the cave. It was cemented in with several layers of sheep dung, which acted as a seal, protecting the contents of the pit from the air and water.
The Areni-1 shoe was made from a single piece of tanned leather from the hide of a cow. It was seamed at the front and the back and tied together with leather cords, and appears to have been made to measure.
According to National Geographic, the leather was probably wrapped around the foot before stitching to ensure a tight fit. It corresponds to a size 7 (US) in modern footwear, and so could have conceivably been worn by either a man or a woman.
The archaeological site of Areni-1 in 2012.
The shoe was also found stuffed full of grass. The archaeologists could not determine whether this was intended as a way to ensure that it held its shape while not being worn, or whether it was insulation designed to keep the wearer’s feet warm.
The Areni-1 shoe was carbon-dated to around 3,500 BC, making it the oldest footwear of its kind ever to be discovered. Shoes would have been particularly important to the Copper Age inhabitants of the cave, as the area around the site is well known for its rocky terrain, with sharp, pointed rocks and thorny plants.
The shoe itself showed considerable signs of wear and tear, particularly at the heel and ball of the foot, suggesting that the wearer habitually walked very long distances. This assumption is further supported by the other items discovered in the cave including obsidian, thought to have been brought from a site over 75 miles away.
According to National Geographic, the Areni-1 shoe appears to be an example of the earliest leather footwear designs, creating a basic prototype that would be exported throughout the region.
Replica of the footwear worn by Ötzi The Iceman (about 5000-years-old) found in Alps.
The shoe closely resembles other ancient shoes discovered in the Middle East and North Africa and even draws a comparison with traditional clothing from the Balkans and North Africa, which are still worn in festivals today. In particular, it bears close similarities to the opanke, a form of traditional Balkan footwear.
The second oldest leather shoe discovered by archaeologists was found on Ötzi “the Iceman”, a mummified corpse uncovered in the Austrian Alps and dating from between 3,400 and 3,100 BC.
Reconstruction of Otzi the Iceman.
Ötzi’s shoe was significantly more sophisticated, comprising a bearskin base and deerskin side panels, pulled tight with a bark-string net. Dating just a few hundred years after the Areni-1 shoe, Ötzi’s shoe represents a significant leap forward in footwear design and technology.
Nevertheless, the Areni-1 shoe provides an important and extremely rare insight into the clothing and footwear worn by the Copper Age inhabitants of Armenia. Today it is on display in the History Museum of Armenia in Yerevan.
A gigantic natural quartz crystal cluster was mined from the Colemans quartz mine near Jessieville
On a Reddit site on Sunday, almost two years after it was found in the Arkansas mine, a picture of 3.5 million dollars chunk of quartz was taken.
Ron Coleman left, and his son Josh Coleman, right, found an 8-foot, 2,000-pound crystal while digging at a mine in Jessieville
This mine was and is the most productive quartz mine in Arkansas. It has been producing quartz crystals in large quantities since 1943. When it is operating it has produced about 60,000 pounds of quartz crystals during a good month.
The image shows a man posing with an 8-foot block of crystals found in the Ron Coleman Mine in Jessieville, about 30 minutes north of Hot Springs.
The man pictured was not a visitor to the mine, which is open year-around for public digging, but an employee who worked on a team to extract the mineral over a four-day excavation said Joel Ledbetter, an online marketer for Ron Coleman Mining.
A $3.5 million chunk of quartz found in Arkansas was featured on the Reddit home page Sunday.
A $3.5 million chunk of quartz found in Arkansas was featured on the Reddit home page Sunday.
“We had a good guess it was there because there’s a 170-mile quartz vein that runs through Arkansas, so we started digging,” Ledbetter said.
Crews blasted the area until they found the vein and then used hand tools to dig out the 2,000-pound chunk that machines lifted out of the mine.
The crystal cluster is one of the most impressive pieces to come out of the quarry since people started digging before World War II — in part to retrieve crystals used in early radios, Ledbetter said.
The 8-foot, 2,000-pound crystal cluster found at the Ron Coleman mine is being kept at the quarry until a buyer is found.
The 8-foot, 2,000-pound crystal cluster found at the Ron Coleman mine is being kept at the quarry until a buyer is found.
The latest find is second in size to only a 9-foot, a 3,000-pound circular formation that was found in the mine just a year or two before.
While the larger piece is on display at various trade shows in Arizona, the other remains in Jessieville until it can be sold.
Ledbetter said several people have inquired about the $3.5 million crystal cluster, but the company has not yet found the right buyer.
That may change as the photo gains popularity as it spreads among various social media platforms.
“Someone really big into crystals probably shared it, and other people who hadn’t seen it saw it and got excited about it,” Ledbetter said. “Anytime people talk about mine, it’s good publicity. People get into crystals but don’t necessarily get to see all that comes out of here.”
Israel Archaeologists unearth 1,200-year-old mosque
In an archeological dig in the mainly Bedouin town of Rahat, north of Beersheba remains of a 1200-year-old rural mosque, one of the oldest in the world was discovered.
“The Middle East and the world in general and, above all, in the northern part of Beersheba, where a similar building has not been found so far, it is a rare find since this time,” says Shahar Zur, and Dr. Jon Seligman, the Directors of the dig, on behalf of the Antiquities Authority.
“There have been great well-known mosques in Jerusalem and Mecca since this period, but here is evidence of an ancient house of worship, that seems to have been used by farmers living in the area,” they added.
“We found the ruins of the open-air mosque, a rectangular building with a “Mihrab” (a prayer niche) facing south, to the direction of Mecca.
These features are evidence for the purpose for which this building was used, many hundred years ago.”
Muslims pray at the newly discovered remains
A farm from the end of the Byzantine period (500-600 C.E.) was also uncovered in the excavations, as well as a small settlement from the beginning of the Islamic period (600-700 C.E.) with remains of buildings that were split into living spaces, open courtyards, storage space and places used for food preparation, including “tabbuns” (open-air fireplaces used for baking).
“These sites were part of the agricultural system that existed in the northern Negev in early times,” explained Zur and Seligman.
“The soil was suitable for growing grains and the groundwater in perennial streams attracted settlers here who wanted to cultivate the land.”
“This is one of the earliest mosques known of from the time of the first arrival of Islam in Israel, after the Arab conquest in 636 C.E.,” said Professor Gideon Avni, an expert in the period at the Antiquities Authority.
“The discovery of the mosque next to an agricultural town between Beersheba and Ashkelon indicates the processes of cultural and religious change which the country underwent during the transition from the Byzantine period to the early Islamic period.”
“The uncovering of the town and the mosque next to it, significantly contribute to studies on the history of the land in this stormy period,” he added.
“According to historical Islamic sources, the new Muslim government distributed plots of land to its senior officials, including Omar ibn al-Etz, an Arab military commander who took over the land of Israel and Syria.
The continuation of excavations on the site will perhaps provide answers to the questions regarding the foundation of the settlement and the nearby mosque and its connection to the Arab conquerors of the land of Israel.”
Yaser Alamor of Israel’s Antiquities Authority displays a stone retrieved from the mosque
The dig was headed by the Israel Antiquities Authority alongside Bedouin residents and youth from towns in the area as a new neighborhood was established in the city.
An initiative by the antiquities authority engages organized groups of youth during the summer vacation in archaeological digs, allowing them to earn a fair wage, engage with the past and also collect experiences for their whole lives.
Archaeologists Reveal the Hidden Horrors of Only Nazi SS Camp on British Soil
One of the British Channel Islands has a German concentration camp which has been a location for terrible atrocities, which have been downplayed in official reports after the end of World War II. Now, a new investigation reveals details that were kept hidden from the public for decades.
Photograph of the Sylt concentration camp taken in 1945.
The only German concentration camps on British soil existed during WWII on the island of Alderney — part of an archipelago in channel waters between France and the United Kingdom
There, inmates endured brutal treatment, including hard labor, beatings, and starvation; but the full extent of what they suffered was not widely known even after the war ended.
Recently, archaeologists pieced together the story of Alderney’s Sylt camp by examining declassified satellite images and exploring ruined buildings at the site.
They created the first map of the camp, which was built by the Nazis in 1942 and used first as a forced labor camp for political prisoners and then as a concentration camp, researchers reported.
The northernmost of the British Channel Islands, Alderney measures about 3 miles (5 kilometers) long and1.5 miles (2.4 km) wide. Sylt was originally constructed there to house 100 to 200 prisoners, about 20% of which died of poor treatment during the first year, according to a study published online on (March 30) in the journal Antiquity.
Approximately 1,000 more people were transferred to the camp in 1943 — far more than Sylt was built to accommodate.
Around that time, prisoner supervision was handed over to a Nazi paramilitary group called “Totenkopfverband” (Death’s Head Unit). Testimonies from Sylt survivors described 12-hour days of heavy construction work and little food, and guards who would beat the prisoners “with everything they could lay their hands on,” according to the study.
But as Germany’s hold on Europe weakened, the Nazis began systematically destroying their own records regarding Sylt and other concentration camps, to hide the evidence of their crimes.
Sylt closed in 1944, and after the war’s end, British authorities on Alderney and the mainland conducted approximately 3,000 interviews with camp survivors, witnesses, and German officers. Their official report wasn’t released publicly until 1981, and it softened the worst of the details to quell rumors about the “death camp” in the British Channel, the scientists wrote in the study.
Aerial view of the site of the former labor and concentration camp of Sylt, and the memorial plaque installed on the camp gateposts in 2008, by a survivor.
Experts returned to Sylt in 2010 to evaluate the site and create the first reconstructions of the camp using archaeological methods, to better understand the inmates’ living and work conditions.
They visited the island, clearing vegetation and examining the camp’s few remaining structures; they also used a remote-sensing method known as light detection and ranging, or lidar, to survey the former camp from above and map differences in elevation that would indicate where buildings once stood and how they were constructed.
Their maps and 3D digital models showed that the prisoners’ barracks were poorly built and unable to keep out the wind and cold. The buildings would also have provided only about 5 feet (1.5 meters) of living space per person, resulting in severe overcrowding.
These findings corroborate witness testimony about outbreaks of lice and typhus, which would have spread quickly among people who were living in uncomfortably close quarters under unhygienic conditions, the authors said.
By comparison, according to the research, the Nazi guards lived comfortably, in buildings made of reinforced concrete surrounded by stone walls “to protect them from the weather and air raids,” the study authors wrote.
Images from Sylt: A) The toilet block; B) prisoner kitchen cellar; C) stable block; D) the SS orderly room.
According to Nazi records, only 103 people died at Sylt of “faulty circulation” or “heart failure,” according to preprinted death certificates that the camp provided to Alderney doctors. But the recent discovery of mass graves on the island suggests that at least 700 people perished at Sylt; these new findings will help to ensure that their stories won’t be forgotten, the study authors wrote.
“This work has shed new light on the German occupation of Alderney and, crucially, the experiences of the thousands of forced and slave laborers who were sent there,” said lead study author Caroline Sturdy Colls, a professor of conflict archaeology and genocide investigation at Staffordshire University in the United Kingdom.
“Historical, forensic and archaeological approaches have finally offered the possibility to uncover new evidence and give a voice to those who suffered and died on Alderney so many years ago,” Colls said in a statement.
