Ok, welcome to everybody here
to the second of the, I think,
enticing series of lectures
the UCL Lunchtime Lectures
on aspects of the First World War
which are actually rarely discussed
and in this case today,
hidden in more ways than one.
I'm Richard Norton-Taylor,
a Guardian veteran
from a military family actually
I've been with the Guardian
for many decades
and before covering various wars
I was in Brussels for a long time
very near the Flanders fields,
of course.
I'm delighted to welcome Renata Peters
who is the leader
of Conservation and Development
a research network focused
on conservation's impact
in social and political arenas
she is editor in chief of the Journal
of Conservation and Museum Studies
and runs the UCL Conversations on
Conservation of Cultural Heritage blog
with students and colleagues
from various institutions.
With her students,
she's been investigating
objects excavated
from the Western trenches.
They have also worked with her
on "No Man's Land"
an association of archaeologists
and historians
on activities,
which I suggest at the very beginning
raise as many questions as answers.
And the lecture will be streamed live,
with the hashtag uclulů
I'll say that again, ucllhl.
And we should have 15 minutes or so
at the end for questions and answers.
So over to you, Renata.
[APPLAUSE]
Thanks very much
for the introduction Richard.
Thanks everybody for being here.
So, as Richard said,
I'm here to talk about a project
in which Conservation
staff and students
have been involved for a few years now
at the Institute of Archaeology at UCL
even if not very consistently, we are
not involved in this project every year
but we have been involved in them
for quite a long time now.
So this consisted
in the investigative conservation
of objects that were excavated
from First World War trenches
on the Western Front.
Over 300 objects
obtained from excavations
were studied, documented,
analysed and conserved
by students and staff
at the Institute of Archaeology.
Our main input, as conservators
consisted in performing investigative
conservation on these objects
and trying to find information
that would relate them
to the people who used them in the past
and in some cases,
information that would relate them
to the people who they were associated
with when they were excavated.
Well, some of this
provided important information
and helped the identification
of some human remains actually
but others
only provided more questions
and here I'm going to discuss some of
the aspects of the project.
Ok, so first of all
I would like to highlight
that the project had
a very strong emphasis on team-working.
The material was excavated
by "No Man's Land"
an association
of archaeologists and historians
from Western Europe and the UK.
The association is based
here in the UK.
They worked in collaboration
with Yap Films Productions
and at some point
with the Discovery Channel as well.
These acted as sponsors and
coordinators of parts of the project.
The film producers
followed the whole process
from the excavation
to the work in the lab
and other aspects of research
and produced a couple of documentary
series with the material.
The finds we worked on, like I said
were obtained from various sites
on the Western Front.
Most of them
are quite familiar to you probably
like Loos, Passchendaele,
Auchy and others
all of them in Belgium and France.
As you probably know, archaeological
studies on this kind of material
have not been conducted
for a long time.
I would say only about 15 years now.
Although, there have been quite a few
historic and even literary studies
about these places.
So in order to achieve
a better understanding
of the lives of the people
who participated in this war
and who were in the trenches
the focus, nowadays,
is very cross-disciplinary
and here I'm going to show
what we do as conservators.
I should also say that
when the First World War ended
because of the way that it ended
it left huge landscapes
basically intact
and nowadays they are still there,
a few centimetres below the surface
in, I would say
pretty much all of the Western Front.
No Man's Land's archaeologists
aim to go there and work
like I said, so to unveil
information about the people
who somehow were missed
by the grand narratives of history.
So the people who were
really fighting in the trenches.
I should also say that some
of these sites are in danger today
I mean, in terms of archaeology
because the archaeology
is so close to the surface
and some of the sites
are being highly developed
or intensively farmed.
So the information that they hold
is at risk
and there are sometimes
some rescue archaeological digs
that take place there because of that.
Umů
Well, we accepted the invitation
to participateů
The first time we were invited to
participate in these projects was 2003.
Because we thought this was
a great opportunity
for staff and students
at the Institute of Archaeology
to undertake investigative conservation
in a very special context,
so that of the Great War
in collaboration with film producers
in an educational research institution.
As well, there was the intention
to rebury the objects
at the end of the study
or with the people
they were associated with.
So this removed
the need for us as conservator
to work on the objects
and think of their long term survival
because the intention
was not to keep them.
The intention was to rebury them.
So despite very obvious benefits
of public outreach as well
because we were going to be part
of the documentary series
the project also put us in veryů
Umů How should I say?
Unfamiliar contexts, right?
So working with television,
and film producers.
The kind of expectations
that the different disciplines have
are very different, as you can imagine.
But, we understood the end product,
that is, TV
and the documentary series
as a means to get to one aim
which was to use the project as
an educational tool for our students
and also to perhaps
help inform the stories
of the little people
who, like I said, were missed
in the grand narratives of history.
So we perceived the TV
as a means to this end
and we were hoping we could
achieve some tangible benefits.
But that's for you to question.
I'm going to ask you
at the end of my presentation
whether you think
we achieved that or not.
I should also say that the recovery
and reburial of human remains
is of high importance
for most societies.
We could say
that returning human remains
to their families
and naming the unnamed
would help heal the wounds of the war
and also bring some kind of closure
to the lives that were lost there,
the millions of lives that were lost.
But it would, of course,
be a mistake to generalise
and think that everybody
will agree with that
because people have different values
and the way that we deal with death
and the dead
is very different and very personal.
So we can't just assume
anything about this.
But in short, we were invited
because of the skills we have
as conservators
so I'm going to tell you
a little bit about our discipline.
So as conservators, we are trained
to retrieve tangible
and intangible information
from the material we work on.
So through very simple
visual examinations
and then also more sophisticated
instrumental analysis
we are able
to unlock information from objects.
So it starts from things like,
for example
how this object was made,
what was the raw material?
What were
the manufacturing technologies?
But also about the condition
of that material
what happened to it
during its useful life
so let's say before
it was left in the ground
how it was modified
so if it's something
that was produced for military use.
So, by looking at that we can identify
whether there was any kind
of personal modification in there
and what happened to it in the ground.
After that we are supposed
to look at that material
and try to relate these material signs
to the values or significance that they
may have to different groups of people.
That is, to the soldiers
that were using them
or were carrying them on their bodies
or left them somewhere
or their families,
or to us today.
Well, after thatů
this was the important part
and the reason why
we were included in the project
because, of course, we are also trained
to implement measures
to make the material fabric of objects
last longer
to make them beautiful, you know,
to display them
make them accessible in museums
and you usuallyů
If our work is well done
you usually don't notice that we have
done something to the object.
So we are quite invisible
in the museum environment.
But the beginning, our beginning is
always the material world
and by using some of these conservation
skills that I talked about
we actually managed
to reveal information
about the people
who used the objects we received.
Even if the objects were not really
associated with human remains.
So as you can see in the picture there,
most of the objects
were produced as military regalia.
So uniforms, mess tins, buttons.
You can even see there playing cards,
you know
and if you think about
the way you relate to your own things
people usually try to personalise
their possessions.
So we were trying
to look at this material
and find any personal information
that they might bring with them.
Of course, if we are looking
at buttons, for example
we would inspect them for, for example,
regiment numbers, any general
information they could carry with them
and hopefully
some more personal information.
Well, some objects didn't really give
much personal information
but they collaborated in other ways,
like for example
coins were very useful
to help us date the burial,
the context where they were found
or perhaps even the places
where the soldier had been.
Umů As I have already saidů
We have always been very aware
that this project
delves into very sensitive areas
of conservation and archaeology
because it involves human remains
that are very recent
and still relate to us.
This never escaped our thoughts.
And perhaps that was the reason as well
that most of the material,
even though it was military regalia
as you can see on the slide there
parts of uniforms, weapons, utensils
because of their recent character,
they were all charged
with a sense of humanity,
intimacy and even fragility
that sometimes was overpowering.
So, I'll give you some examples here.
Here, for example, you see two
instances of what's called "trench art"
which is military material
that was modified
still in the trenches.
So this kind of trench art
is very rare actually
because it was modified
still in the trenches, by the soldiers
If you look at eBay
there is a lot of trench art on there
which is not this kind of trench art
I'm talking about, ok?
It's completely different.
So the first one in there,
the first one at the top
was found near the neck of a soldier
and at first inspection,
I don't know what impression you have.
You can tell me later.
Some people have different hypotheses
as they look at these things
but it was clearly made by a soldier
and it's actually
made of three bullets.
The three bullets,
after inspection we found out
that they were actually
from three different armies
three different countries
and besides all this significance
that the object carries
we can also tell that the metalworking
skills of the person who did this
were quite sophisticated.
So he drilled a hole
between the bullets
and then intersected them, fixed them,
they were very firmly together.
We also found remains of leather fibres
and then so we think
that it was hanging from his neck
from a leather strap.
The other one at the bottom
is less sophisticated
but it also tells small stories about
what was going on in that context.
So, it's a shell
and then they just modified it.
You can see that somebody
spent a lot of time modifying it
changing the shape,
I don't know for what reason.
Maybe just to pass time,
and think about something different.
This is from the same site in Loos.
The site in Loos revealed quite a few
books
that survived because of the
waterlogged environment where they were
semi-waterlogged, I would have to say.
Umů You can seeů
Well books are usually interesting
because people
may have written things in them.
Of course, you probably know where
people bought them, things like that.
In a mass grave that was found in Loos
there were, I think,
four bodies in this mass grave.
One of the soldiers
was carrying two paper items
in the area around his pockets.
I should say as well that thisů
So this was a mass grave
and it was obvious
by the way the bodies were laid out
that somebody took
a lot of time to bury them.
They were buried very carefully.
They were soldiers
of different nationalities
and somebody really took the pains to,
took their time to bury them
and separate them with their jackets,
you know?
So you could see that it was very
thoughtful work.
Well, anyway, one of these bodies
who, back then, we knew as Body 13
was carrying two paper items,
so first we thought that this one here
at first inspection we thought that
that one was a passport
but after starting working on it
we actually found out
that this was a "Sold Buch".
So a "Sold Buch"
is a soldier's pay book
where obviously,
all his personal details
will be recorded.
So, of course, in doing investigative
work, you have to do a lot of research
as you conduct,
as we call them, microexcavations
but you have to know
what you're looking at
otherwise you may destroy the very
evidence that you're looking for.
So the work is quite slow
because we also need
the help of other professionals
people from other disciplines
who may help us identify,
help us know what we are dealing with.
So we decided that we wanted to save
the first page
of this pay book
because that's where we thought
the personal details were.
Unfortunately, we couldn't see much,
but you can probablyů
Well, the light's not very good in here
but here we could see his date of birth
and right below that, there was
part of his father's last name.
So we knew that this person
had been born
on the 20th October '92.
The other book
was not so interesting in itself
because it was a soldier's songbook
but you know when you have a book,
you receive a letter or a postcard
and sometimes you put that letter
between the pages of that book.
This is exactly what happened,
this soldier received a postcard
you can see it
on the right side of the slide there
and he put the postcard
in between the pages of this book
and that's how
we managed to identify him.
On there we could see
that the postcard
was posted in Munich.
We could even see the date
and it was posted
to a Gefreiter Leopold Rothńů
We couldn't really see
the rest of his name
but we knew that already
from his father's name
from the "Sold Buch".
So, in collaboration with
the historians we were working with
so they researched
the archives in Munich
and they found out
that Leopold Rothńrmel
indeed had been born
on the 20th October 1892, in Munich.
He was the son of Leopold and Emma.
I think he had four siblings.
He was a very popular guy in Munich.
He was a lead violinist,
a musician, a conductor.
There are records
of him trying to organise a choir
within his regiment in the army.
He went to the war
in 1915, in February.
In July, he was awarded the Iron Cross.
In October, he was killed.
In the documentation
in the archives in Munich
it said that he was killed
with a shot to the stomach.
This is all in line
with the human remains that were found.
The physical anthropologists
found that the area
in his stomach was missing
because it had been exploded basically.
So you see, it is not only about
who is carrying what on them
it is also about the forensic work
that they do on the remains.
Leopold Rothńrmel was buried under a
named headstone
in the German military cemetery
at Labry in France
along with the other unknown soldiers
he was found with.
Unfortunately, we could not
unveil any information
to help with the identification
of the other soldiers.
We could also not find any living
relatives of Leopold Rothńrmel.
His address, his home address in Munich
became a park
after the Second World War
because it was bombed
during the Second World War.
So his family is thought to have
vanished during the Second World War.
We were also able
to identify Jakob H÷nes
and Albert Thielecke
from material
that the archaeologists found
in an excavation in Serre.
They were also in a mass grave.
So you can see some
of Albert Thielecke's belongings here.
He was actually identified,
also because of a book he was carrying
in this case it was a bank book
with his bank account details.
There was a number in there and he was
identified because of the number.
And there were quite a few
other belongings with him.
The archaeologists
who excavated this were very excited
because they thought he,
Albert Thielecke, liked archaeology
because he had some archaeological
pieces with him
which he probably picked up
in the trenches.
We also identified Jakob H÷nes.
You can see him in the picture.
That's Jakob H÷nes.
He was from the same regiment
as Albert Thielecke
but he was identified
because of a fragment of his
identity disc that he was carrying.
Unfortunately, you can see there was
only a fragment of his identity disc.
His identity disc
only had his regiment number, ok?
So that's how it was issued
by the military.
So we think that perhaps
he was a bit anxious
about dying and not being identified
because he actually, or somebody
scratched his last name on there, H÷nes
and also the name
of his home town, Munchingen.
You can see it there.
Well, Jakob was a farm worker
and he was the father of five children.
When he left for the war his wife was
pregnant with his youngest child.
He never met the youngest child
but when his remains were identified
this youngest child,
I can't remember what his name wasů
Oh, Ernest.
Ernest Christian H÷nes was still alive.
He was the only child that was still
alive. He was very elderly and frail
but he was reported to have said
that he was delighted
to know that his father had been found.
Unfortunately, he couldn't really
give many details about his dad
because he had never met him.
When Jakob H÷nes
and Thielecke
were buried in the named tomb
14 members of Jakob H÷nes's family
attended the funeral.
Well, so far I'm only telling you
the very successful stories, right?
But not everything was so successful
and not every lead
really led to identification
but some of them,
even if there was no identification
there were some nice stories in there.
This was the case of a watch
that was found in Cross Roads
This was found in an area
believed to have been a British trench.
It was not associated
with any human remains
but we decided to work on it
because it was a quite nice piece.
So we found out
that this was an Ingersoll.
So it wasn't highly popular
but it was still
quite common at that time.
So we started working on this.
So as you can imagine,
any investigative work
starts with a hypothesis
So when you're looking at something,
you start understanding how it was made
so we found out that that was an
Ingersoll that had been made in England
and, sort of, find similar ones
to date that material
and then we tried to do what was the
most interesting part of this project
which is try to find personal signs,
personal marks on the material.
But you have to start with hypotheses
you don't know everything at once.
So whenů With this oneů
I worked on this for a couple of hours
on a Sunday afternoon
and suddenly I realised
that there were some words
scratched or maybe embossed
I didn't really know at that point
on the leather strap, so you can see,
you can see the watch here, right?
And then there's that leather strap
behind it, this is the leather strap.
So after working on it for a couple
of hours on the microscope
you know that sometimes you start
seeing things under the microscope
if you look at it for too long.
But I thoughtů I was pretty sure
that I could see three words on there
and the last of them
was probably the word "England".
So, as I emphasised
at the beginning of my talk
this project had a very strong
emphasis on team-working.
So, what we would do is,
as we started working on our hypothesis
we would send this information
to other team members
so that they could also work on that
and perhaps give some information
back to us conservators.
So we shared that information.
I told the archaeologists
and also the film producers
who were coordinating
this part of the project
and a few hours laterů
No, I told them on the Monday,
I found out on the Sunday
and on the Monday,
a few hours after I told them
they called me back
and said that they had
actually found out
that a soldier named John England
had died in that trench, in 1914
and that actually after the war
his father had written
a letter to British officers
asking about his son's watch.
It's a bit too good to be true,
don't believe in it.
[LAUGHTER]
Well, anyway it was quite exciting,
but a little bit scary
even if I may say
because we hadn't really
proved our hypothesis yet.
That was just a hypothesis
we were working on, right?
And so we went on with our very
meticulous work in our lab
looking at things,
showing it to different people
to see what different people
would see in there and so on
Wellů
A week later
the film producers contacted me
and told me
that they had a script ready
to tell the story of John England.
His name was actually
John Humphrey England.
They had found his living family.
They even located the letter
and they wanted to do this episode
and my reaction was a bit like
[GASP] Oh, really?
You know, we haven't
really proved the hypothesis.
And it so happens that, in the end,
what we concluded
was that the three words,
as you probably guessed already
were just "Made In England".
[LAUGHTER]
So, umů
Well, a little bit disappointing
but that's all we could confirm
at that point, right?
But the film producers decided
to go on with the episode anyway.
[LAUGHTER]
Well, it's television, right? Soů
It's ok though.
They wanted to tell stories, right?
And they did produce
a very respectful episode
telling the story
of John Humphrey England
who was not the owner of this watch
or, at least, we couldn't prove that.
We didn't have any evidence
really to support that assumption.
So the episode showed
the whole thing, right?
So our work in the lab,
the research that was done
his living relatives,
his photographs.
By the way, he also died very young.
He was also a very popular guy.
He lived in Cardiff.
He was a medical student.
And then at the end of the episode
they had the conservators
at the UCL Institute of Archaeology
saying, "Well, actually
we don't have any evidence
to support that hypothesis."
[LAUGHTER]
So we were not very popular I think.
[LAUGHTER]
Well, a few months later
there was an exhibition
at the National Army Museum.
You can see one of our students
working on the installation there
and I was introduced
to one of his nephews
of John Humphrey England's nephews
and he came to me and said,
"Are you Renata?"
"Yes, I'm Renata. Hi, how are you?"
"Well, I wanted to say
that I was very disappointed
"when I heard you said
that was not my uncle's watch."
Rightů Well, what can I say?
We didn't have any evidence to support
that hypothesis.
Of course, we would like that to be
true, but we didn't have the evidence.
And then he saidů
He changed tone very quickly and said
"Oh but you know what?
"Our family,
we had almost forgotten John
"and because of that investigation
we started researching his life
"finding photos of him, and actually,
in the end, we celebrated his life."
Soů
Well, so that's the little story about
John Humphrey England.
In the same exhibition
I also met Walter Rapp
who was one of the grandsons
of Jakob H÷nes.
So, the soldier
who had the fragment of the ID.
So he came to the exhibition.
He was delighted.
It was very rewarding for us.
It's veryů
I'm sure you can imagine
that if you work with archaeology
you don't get that kind of reward
very often, right?
Due to the character
of the material we usually work with.
Well, now moving to Auchy.
Another excavation, this one in 2008.
Thisů
Some material was found in associationů
It was also a mass grave, unfortunately
also of soldiers
of different nationalities
and somebody was clearly very careful
and laid them very carefully.
They really took their time
to lay these people out.
And then, this person,
who was known to us as Body 15 then
had this small pouch,
a leather pouch, a purse
in the area of his chest.
So, as you can see, very, very decayed.
Really not in very good condition.
The first thing we do
with this kind of materialů
I'm sorry that you can't really see
because of the light.
You have to believe me.
The first thing that we do
with this kind of material
we don't know what's inside
so we x-ray it.
Very simple technique, right?
Very accessible
that can tell you a lot of information
about the material that's inside
and we saw,
and again you have to believe me
because I know you can't see that
some round shapes,
so there were some round objects
inside this purse.
So it couldů Our hypothesis wereů
We didn't know,
we couldn't look at it yet
they could be ID tags, they could beů
You start thinking, you know?
Medals, coins, right?
Something like that.
So, we had very strong reasons
to excavate this material
microexcavate it
so, remove the layers that were on top
and get to the material that was inside
to see if it could help us.
So as you can see here
we already removed one layer
from the leather.
It had multiple layers of leather.
However, this kind of decision
is not very easy to take
because in doing this kind of work,
you actually destroy the material.
It's very difficult to remove this kind
of material and not destroy it.
So you really have to weigh
the pros and cons.
Well, but it sort of paid off
because besides an ID tag
inside the purse
the ID tag actually was too
deteriorated, it was very thin metal
so it had corroded completely
and we couldn't really read
even the regiment number.
It had three rings.
It had a few coins as well
and three rings in there.
One of them, so the green one
that's a copper alloy
that was corroded
and you can see
that it has an Iron Cross on there.
After we did some research
we found out that this kind of ring
would actually be made in the trenches.
So, the soldiers in the trenches
would recycle metal
from shells or whatever they found
and would make these kind of rings
and give them to the people
that they thought were honourable.
And also you can see there,
two other rings
gold rings
that look like wedding bands.
What do wedding bands usually have?
[AUDIENCE MURMURINGS]
Yeah, so usually they have
something engraved in them, right?
Like names or dates or makers marks,
and things like that
and quite right, you can probably see
a name engraved in there
and also in this one.
This was the larger one.
Ok, so I'll show you here, thisů
The student whoů It was Kelly Caldwell
who was working on these materials.
So here you can see
her first notes, ok?
So this is like fresh,
the first time we looked at this.
She started drawing what she could see.
So the larger ring
had some kind of initial in it, here
and then the name Martin
and the date 1882.
The smaller one also had an initial
and also the date 1882.
We thoughtů
We didn't know much about wedding bands
from this part of the world
but we thought that this was probably
the date of the wedding, right?
But I don't know if you noticed
on the first slide
that I showed about this purse
the physical anthropologists,
they actually thought that the soldier
was probably
between 25 and 30 years of age
so he couldn't have got married in 1882
so it probably belonged
to somebody else.
And I'm sure
you're starting with the hypothesis
so I'm getting you into the
investigative work, right?
That's how I start,
to start talking to people,
getting questions and trying to
answer those questions.
To make a very long
and fascinating story short
we did identify Alfred Martin
who was the son of Julius Martin
and Carolina Becker.
1882 actually was the date
when they got engaged
so they were from Bavaria and there,
they put the date of the engagement.
They got married in 1883
and Alfred was born in '84
but his mother sadly died in 1891
so when he was about seven years old.
His father marries again
and had two more children.
So from here on,
what I'm going to start telling you
is what we heard from,
we say, oral history.
So David Kenyon,
one of the archaeologists
from No Man's Land
actually interviewed his grand-nephew.
So, Alfred's grand-nephew
and he toldů
He told Dave all those things.
He toldů Well, there is
documentation about that as well.
We learnt from him that the family,
so Alfred's father, had a winery
but he suffered an accident
a couple of years before the war
two or three years before the war
and he couldn't work
in the winery any more
so Alfred took over, he was
controlů he was managing the winery.
The family rumours were though
that Alfred was not very interested
in business.
He was more interested in girls, so the
businessů
I'm just telling you the story
the way I heard it, ok.
So the businessů
He loses the business
And then for the other
generations that came after himů
And then he dies in the war in 1915.
And then the other generations
that came after him
passed on this story that he didn't
care much, or he lost the business.
He wasn't very popular in the family.
However, this is very personal
and we only know that because we had
the fortune to meet his grand-nephew.
He said, "Well, you know
"I really have to reassess the story
that was told to me by my father
"because if Alfred
didn't care about the family
"why did he carry his parents'
wedding bands with him, by his chest?"
Well, I don't know.
Last story, also from Auchy.
This material, associated with Body 16
As you can see there, clearly, a spoon
that is fused together with a metal box
it's fused together with the box
because of the corrosion products
and also the soil.
So the first thing we did was
to separate the two of them.
So here's the box.
We also x-rayed it.
Oh, and then in this one
you really can't see anything!
Well, we worked on this one
just after the rings, ok?
So, here are the repeated
images of the x-ray.
And in the x-ray images
we could, again
see some round objects inside the box.
So, naturally I thought,
"Oh, is this my luckiest season ever?"
[LAUGHTER]
Right? But we were
quite careful about it of course.
So, we thought
we had reasons to believe
that there was something
inside the box
that perhaps could lead to the
identification of this soldier
who was British, by the way.
But in this case
it was just very well-preserved mints
[LAUGHTER]
which is quite interesting too! Right?
But I have to emphasize here
that we don'tů
As conservators, we are trained
to protect material fabric
we are trained to make them last
longer, you know?
and what we were doing hereů And we are
trained to extract information from it
and relate that to the values
of people who were using them.
So to make a decision like this
because really I had to saw this open
because of the corrosion products
it was completely merged.
So to make a decision like this
is not easy.
You really have toů
You need strong reasons
to believe that this is going to reveal
some sort of evidence
that is going to affect the process.
So, I hope that
what I have shown you here
was enough to, you knowů
Was enough to give you a taster of
investigative conservation
and how we can enhance
and even maximise
the work of other disciplines
like history or archaeology
and how the work that we can do
can actually bring information
to these grand historical narratives
that somehow miss
the histories of the small people
and the people who actually
were trapped by the war
and died there.
So I hope that what I showed here
gave you a little bit of that sense.
So the aim of revealing information
from these excavated finds
was a very challenging
and in many ways,
a very rewarding objective for us.
So we really got a lot out of that
and so did our students.
But it also required
the conservation approaches
to be reformulated as we worked
so, there were no answers ever
we never knew what we were going to do
until we were working with the material
until we got more information about it.
So we really learnt a lot from that
but we have to say that this ability
to crystallize meaning
in the material fabric of objectsů
So, we're revealing information
and crystallizing that information
and that meaning
in that object.
It brings a lot of responsibilities
and like I already mentioned
opening things like that,
so microexcavating materials
so basically we are destroying
the material fabric of that object.
So one of the questions that we asked
ourselves all the time, really
was, how far can we go?
And can we really justify
this kind of action, right?
Is it really justifiable
to destroy material
so as to reveal information
about people
that were related to that material?
Where do you draw the line?
Another question:
Who do these objects really belong to?
So who do you ask?
Who should really participate
in the decision-making processes?
Of course, it's impossible
to ask living relatives
because we don't know yet
who they are, right?
And, as well, is it justifiable
to disturb these landscapes
where people have been resting
for so many years?
So, telling the story
of the people who died there
does it really justify doing that?
So, these are questions
that I pose to you, really.
Andů Well, anyway,
that's my message
and thank you very much for listening.
I just wanted toů
Yeah, this last slide.
Just to showů
These are just some of the people
who participated in the project.
Ok. Just to give you an idea
of how many people
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]
That's really fascinating. Fascinating.
Great stuff, Renata.
As you posed questions
maybe some of you here
have got answers to those questions.
Or indeed questions,
I certainly have got some.
Who wants to fire ahead?
There's a mike actually I think.
Is that right?
Could you speak into the mike?
There's one over here.
The lady here in the second row.
Thanks very much.
[WOMAN] What happened
to the tin of mints?
[LAUGHTER]
All the material that we worked on
depending on where it was excavated
we would follow
the legislation of the place, right?
So, depending on where it was excavated
it would go back
to the local authorities.
In some cases it was reburied
in the very place where it was found.
In some cases like, for example,
the trench art
it actually, in the end,
it went back to a local museum
and in most of the cases
they would just be reburied.
So that was reburied.
That tin of meat you were asking aboutů
But we didn't really
taste any of the mints!
Mints. That's extraordinary
how they were preserved.
Yeah, that was.
No, that was a very interesting one.
Too bad that it didn't really
provide any information
but yeah it was quite exciting
to see how long they last!
[LAUGHTER]
There. Yeah.
[MAN] My ignorance of archaeology
knows no bounds
but I was interested to hear you talk
about reburying some of these artefacts
and I had never heard
that that's an archaeological practice.
How do you make that decision?
What's the purpose?
Of reburying? There are
quite a few reasons for reburying.
Even, you know,
if you want to preserve that
in many cases when people can't really
conserve the material they found
they will rebury it.
In these cases though,
it's a different reason.
It's because the material
is associated with human remains
or even if it's not directly associated
it is telling the story of those people
who died in those battles.
So it's more an ethical motivation
behind the reburial.
And when living relatives were found
it was up to the living relatives to
decide what to do with the material.
So, for example,
in the case of Albert Martin
his grand-nephew decided thatů
He said that the rings belonged to him
and they should be reburied with him
in the named grave.
So there can be quite a few
reasons to do that.
It is common.
It's not uncommon to do that.
Did you rebury human remains?
Yes. Yeah, yeah.
That'sů You know,
there is a lot of legislation in Europe
regulating that
and in France
it's different from Belgium.
So, because No Man's Land
is working with archaeologists
in different countries,
they are the ones who are responsible
for doing what's in line with the
country's legislation.
Where you have identified bodies or
remains belonging to people
have any of the familiesů Have they all
applauded what you've done?
Or did some of them say, "What are you
doing? You shouldn't have done that."
Not in the cases
that we have worked on, no.
Ok.
Which may just be a coincidence,
you know?
Yeah. There's one there
and then after, next one, yeah.
[WOMAN] When you rebury objects
rather than human remains
how do you then protect them
from other people knowing
that they're there
and just coming along
and pinching them, basically?
And does that mean then
that that land, if it's been found
in the case of industrial development
or further agricultural development
does that mean that that ground
can no longer be used
because it does contain
interesting artefacts?
No, it doesn't and in many cases
it's private property as well.
So in some cases actually,
depending on the local legislation
it may belong
to the land owner, actually.
There is no way
to protect them like that.
I can tell you a story, for example,
I didn't mention this here
but one of the excavations,
one of the excavations theyů
These excavations are very quick,
I have to say, you know?
Usually they get permits to work
for three or four days only.
And one of them was actually looted
during the night
because this material
actually has financial value.
If you look at eBay
it's sort of appalling
how much material is there for sale.
So, I'm afraid that, no.
Usually it's reburied
in the same place where it was found
unless there are reasons
not to do that.
Could you put your hand up so the mikeů
Thanks very much.
[WOMAN] My great-uncle
died in Fromelles
on July 19th 1916
and I'm on my way to a memorial
with my family. They were part ofů
They found his body at the Fromelles
in the excavations looking
for British and Australian soldiers
and trying to identify the bodies
and they identified them
through DNA analysis from my family
and this work is really important
and we really value it.
Oh, thank you very much. Thank you.
Thanks for sharing that.
That's good.
I wonder, is there a time limit,
do you think?
When you'll never be able to find
anything ever again
because of development and intensified,
industrial farming and so on
or do you think you'll be able to,
professionally, as it were
go on, and on, and on
or will there be a point
when some generation, or your students,
or younger people, will say
it's not worth it,
you can't look any more?
No, there isů You saw the map, right?
So the Western Front
was basically from the North Sea
to Switzerland
so there is a lot of material there
and it was very active.
But of course there are quite a few
agents that put this material at risk
and one of them is people actually,
like you said
there are quite a few people
who go out to look for these materials
to sell it, right?
So, yeah I think there is a time limit.
I don't know what the time limit is.
But I know that the material is at
risk, yeah.
And it's up to us to decide
what we want to do or what we can do.
You can't save everything, for sure.
And the question of identificationů
I mean, is there a percentage?
How much can you identify
out of all things that you've seen?
All the objects. How much have youů
What percentage?
Can you give a percentage of how much
you've actually been able to identify
to an individual human?
A named person,
eventually a named person.
I haven't really worked that out,
but I'll work on that this afternoon!
[LAUGHS]
- I just wondered how many. But alsoů
I would say that's
a very low percentage.
Yeah.
- Like I said we worked on overů
The material that I presented here
was over 300 objects.
This has already been selected
by the archaeologists in the field, ok?
They don't send everything to us.
They only send material to us
that they think has potential, right?
Soů
It depends on the context
It dependsů And that's why it's
important that it's excavated carefully
so, professionally, because it depends
on the documentation that's done
it depends on what it's related to
what is near it,
where it was found exactly
how deep, you know?
So there is quite a few thingsů
And like I said, you know?
We didn't really identify those people
only through the work
that we did in the lab.
There was a lot
of collaboration, right?
So the archaeologists,
from our department, from No Man's Land
historians from all over the place
watch experts, you know? Gold experts.
All sorts of people were involved.
So I think it's a low percentage
but I really don't know.
A few more minutes.
Thanks very much, Renata.
More questions? There's one over there.
[MAN] Thank you very much.
Very interesting.
And can I also endorse
the work that you do?
My grandfather who I knew,
survived the First World War
but had to live for 50 years with
a piece of shrapnel close to his spine
too close for it to be removed
and he was lucky
to survive the field hospitals.
We certainly do have
at least one missing relative
who's never been found
and apart from, obviously,
being able to find out
where he is buried
and possibly giving him a good burial
as something to aim for
but I do think
that the wider work you do
in identifying social conditions
of the trenches
I mean much of what is talked about in
relation to the First World War
the carnage and everything else
largely glosses over how people made,
frankly, the best of a very bad job.
I once asked my grandfather
what he did in the First World War,
when I was very, very young,
about 10 years old
and he just looked at me, got up,
and walked out of the room
and my grandmother said to me,
"what did you say to Grandpa?"
And I said,
"I asked him about the First World War"
and she said,
"Ooh, never ask him about that.
"He lost a lot of friends
during the war."
Yeah, well thank you for that.
No, really I think we have no idea of
what happened there, right?
Because most of the work that has been
done is focused on the big strategies
and the big people involved, andů
But the land belongs to whoever owns it
I mean, the private individual or the
farmer. What oppositionů
Have farmers said,
"Get off my land," as it were
Yeah, no, you have toů
You need permits to work there.
But have you had much opposition?
Have people refused permits?
Yeah, Iů You know, this part,
I'm not directly involved with that
but I do know that of course,
you have to go through
very lengthy procedures, right?
And yes, they may just say
that they don't wantů
Again, it depends on the
local legislation as well.
Yes, yes. Ok.
But there are, you know,
if you travel in that area
there are numerous local museums
or houses where people keep material
that they have found.
But yeah they have all the right
to say no.
Well that's about two o'clock I think.
Renata, thanks very much indeed.
- Thank you. Thank you for listening.
[APPLAUSE]
