Summer Archeology

Archelogy is an idle occupation of nerdy students digging excitedly in the residues of our ancestors. What does this work even look like nowadays? And who cares about it at all, if it is not about digging out some sort of holy grail object from prehistory?

Beyond unexpected, I found myself caught in the heat with a spade in my hands on a flattened area where the whole summer archeological excavations would take place. So, new job situation. Lovely. The flattened area so to speak was a heavy machine created platform of several hectares surrounded by dunes of soil carried out by massive excavators.

We would work next to a gravel plant and actually be in a direct conflict of interest with the employees of the plant. I guess the drivers of the excavators did not share the same passion and patience to dig in the earth for hours for sake of finding antique vessels, probably, of the Celts.

In fact, they would make fun of us since they forward as much earth with one shovel as we do in a week. We were a group of 5-6 people working on the excavation. Some of us studied Archeology, some were desperately looking for a job during covid. Anyways, I should become familiar with the individual work processes very quickly. Observing.

We would even have two big containers. A blue one filled with equipment, such as mortars, heaps of different shovels or a coffee machine that works thanks to a noisy electricity generator.  The other one to gather when rain or to do the administrative part of the business.

It happened very quickly that after some weeks our platform turned into a constant changing micro cosmos. The landscape around us changed due to the machines of the plant. Surreal shapes of tons of dug soil and new spots where nature succeeded to flourish again. Birds would drink from the small ponds that emerged on the field and sometimes frogs hided in the middle of an archeological site. Hot summer days felt like desert and scattered breezes of wind like bliss.

I began to enjoy the workflow and atmosphere among the people. At times it felt like festival when hiding in the shade of our pavilion and listening to music. We were joking around while working the soil and sometimes nothing but desperately annoyed by digging. Our job was digging, drawing and documenting the various archeological findings and site from the early iron age on.

Mostly we found remains of ceramic vessels or post from ancient settlements, which was not always satisfactory. After all, that’s fine. The purpose, finally, is to document what has happened before this surreal platform was created and a gravel plant was set up nearby.

However, the scenery was fantastic and so I started to document this tiny world with my camera. I was attracted by the light, the elements and the characters, of course.

Many thanks to the folks that trusted me to do so!