Categories: uncategorized
Date: 25 November 2008 21:38:52
When we visited Battle a couple of years ago, we had a look round their rather lovely little museum there and were rather amused to see the roof tile off a Roman villa. Not that these things are usually so much amusing as interesting, but this one was definitely amusing. Because when the tile was originally made and laid out to dry, a Roman pusscat decided to wander over it and said feline's pawprint has survived intact for thousands of years.
I wonder, in thousands of years to come, whether some future archaeologist will smile and put our new step in a museum. As no sooner had the builder laid the concrete to render our outside steps safe (they previously lacked a bottom step, thanks to the JCB and tipper truck invasion of last summer) than Charlie decided that the only thing missing was a tiny feline pawprint to claim it as our own.
On the subject of archaeology, by the way, did I ever tell you our exciting news? Whether you will find it exciting or not will depend, of course, on the degree to which you are interested in history. But in the summer meeting of Young Archaeologists, the Smudgelet had the fun of sifting through a load of mud from under the water at Yarmouth, peaty mud gathered by marine archaeologists, and you'll never guess what he found....
a piece of string, about 4cm long.
Impressed?
What? not impressed?
Well, how about if I tell you that this piece of string is very possibly the oldest piece of string ever found? It's actually mesolithic. Stone age string!