History in my hands

[bobleponge]

As I have whinged and moaned about before, my job is often rubbish. Takes me away from family and friends etc etc but there are times when it all makes up for it.
Was out doing some stuff today, and the driver casually drops into the conversation that there is a very old mosque up the road.
Ok says I, lets pop up and have a look.
Transpires that this mosque was actually the very first mosque built in what we now call Pakistan. The guy had come from Mecca into a Sikh region, around the river Indus in Sukkur, had a scrap, won and bought the muslim religion to the area. He then built his mosque to show that he was the boss.
Well over a thousand years old, quite awesome to stand inside the remains of it.
As I'm wandering round, a self appointed caretaker comes over and starts to chat away to me as if I am of course a native Urdu speaker. Hmmm
Pop across to his little house and he showed me a bag of "floose" which I did know, its money.
He had a bag of coins that he has found in the area, some of them from old Sikh times and some from the newer, only 1200 odd year old Muslim times.
Was a fantastic feeling holding history like that in my hands.

[Flummery]

It certainly puts your life into perspective doesn't it? I took a certificate course in archaeology about 10 years ago and we did some local field walking and found wasters from a Roman pottery kiln. That was the same feeling - esecially when you could sometimes make out the chap's finger-prints in the clay.

[bluemoon]

My daughter read geology and archaeology with no real intention of becoming either a geologist or an archaeologist when she graduated, which I always thought was a terrible waste. A walk on the beach with her is a real eye-opener, she can always be guaranteed to find ammonites and once found a huge cave bear tooth just lying there. The really scary part though is when she sifts a handful of sand and shows you what looks like a grain of sand and it's a shrew's tooth or something. She might never have worked as an archaeologist, but the habit has never left her, she sifts through every lump of soil and is always coming across something, usually something I'd have completely ignored. I have at home a fossil which is simply of a very large blade of grass, but because it is in light coloured stone and has stained it black where the leaf was, it's beautiful. She found it in the back garden in a heap of what I thought was building spoil, most of it was, but she homed in on that one piece as if she knew it was there.

[SarzWix]

Oh, I adore stuff like that! I was lucky enough to visit Pompeii in my teens while on holiday in Italy, that was just breathtaking, especially as we'd been studying it in Latin at school. I was very, very naughty and brought 2 tiny pieces of mosaic home with me

[Seahorse]

Sarah! You're our very own version of the British Museum and the Elgin Marbles

Before I had an unfeasible amount of children, I worked in an archive/antiquities conservation lab and was lucky enough to handle quite a few amazing historical artefacts (even the Magna Carta once ). There really is something very special about actually touching things, not just seeing them in a glass case.

[NOG]

I know what you mean....Mrs Nog has money in her purse that has been there so long its got that Hadrians head on it.

[smallblueplanet]

Living 'between' Avebury and Stonehenge is a real buzz. For anyone who'd like to experience some prehistory I highly recommend the Avebury area. Having been on a few archaeological digs I find there is nothing to beat the feeling of uncovering an artifact or feature that hasn't seen the light of day for centuries...

Just returned from a trip to the Lizard in Cornwall and visited Breage church where we saw some medieval wall paintings - fabulous. Gave a very different and spectacular idea of what medieval churches were really like inside.

Edit - Ps did you take any photos Bob, it sounds really interesting?

[allotmentlady]

oh lucky you! i love history, i am going on an archaelogical dig in september in yorkshire....

[smallblueplanet]

Where are you going? We dug on Thornborough Henges in N. Yorks that was great.

[Comfreyfan]

Amazing stuff BLP, there have to be some benefits! When DD was deciding on her degree course a friend offered her a tour of the archaeology dept at Exeter - I was invited along. The store rooms were amazing - the guy was passing us incredible bits and pieces in a most nonchalant way - fossils, stone tools, axe heads - I nearly signed up myself!

If anyone's visiting Dorset they do great guided fossil hunting trips at Charmouth.

[lizzylemon]

What an amazing experience for you. One that will stick I'm sure. I love stuff like that too as it's a constant reminder we're just the last in a long line of care takers for the planet. I often wish there much more of that old stuff around.

It's surprising what you can find in the oddest of places. Our drive is gravel, but it's river gravel and so far I've found 2 arrow heads and 3 shell fossils just sitting on the door step sifting with my hands.

Walking the dog up the field I found a fossilised egg with the top missing and "stuff" in the centre and a perfectly spherical stone (not passing that one off but interesting nontheless to me).

I vaguely remember something about black stone on beaches being fossilised poo of some sort and worth money - anyone else remember that storey?