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Date: | Fri, 6 Mar 2009 00:14:00 +0000 |
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As the building that collapsed was modern I presume you are referring to
the excvations. Geoff might be able to explain better but I think the
problem is not one of regulation as such its the fact that German
archaeology is stuck in many ways in the 19th century- field
archaeologists are people preferably with a PhD who can't dirty their
hands and are looked down on by people in universities who are in turn
are treated like dirt until they get tenure. Urban archaeology is also
very very expensive in Europe even if you bull doze off the 19th century
because you can be dealing with 30 metres of stratified deposts,
millions of artfacts and tens of thousands of layers. Of couse in France
INRAP (state archaeology service) would have spent tens of millions of
Euros doing the work and told the developers to get stuffed but my
French collegaues would argue that an archaeology of capitalism was an
ethnocentic fad of the US and Uk funded by the CIA and capitalism was
merely a apssing and superficial shadow on France and Sarkovsky will be
gone soon (hope for their sake they are right and they get to retire at
60 on a nice state pension). Otherwise food parcels would be welcomed
for the rest of Europe's archaeologists- sorry forgot US is in similar
economic meltdown.
paul
Morgan Rieder wrote:
> Those of us involved in CRM in the States are often critical of the way archaeology is handled in major urban projects, but we seem to have a better regulatory system in place to avoid this kind of disaster. It is to be hoped that (not "hopefully") this will alert Germany and other EU members to their lack of meaningful regulations to protect their cultural heritage (which of course is not only theirs but ours as well).
>
>
>
> Morgan Rieder
>
> Historical Architect, Tucson
>
>
>> Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 21:25:05 +0100
>> From: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Cologne Archives
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>
>> They're apparently also asking for help retrieving stuff, so I was vaguely
>> thinking of helping out this weekend; there are videos here:
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7922342.stm
>> & here:
>> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090304.wvcollapse0304/V
>> ideoStory/VideoLineup/News
>> this is part of the new subway project, which has had a lot of trouble: cost
>> overruns were recently blamed on delays caused by archaeologists (doesn't
>> take a brain surgeon to figure out that there is a lot of archaeology in the
>> middle of Cologne, & that they should have planned for it better at the
>> beginning; hiring 4 or 5 German firms to "manage" the excavations by hiring
>> student workers at 400 euros/month didn't help much, either [students are
>> allowed to work enough hours to earn 400 euros without losing their student
>> status, which would mean having to pay for unemployment insurance & income
>> tax, among other things; unfortunately most of the people on my wife's crew
>> were not even studying archaeology...]; there should be a major scandal
>> because local firms even undercut a bid by a Polish university... & there
>> have been various rumours of serious health problems among some of the
>> excavators [mercury poisoning, etc.], etc., etc.), so now I'm wondering how
>> they'll manage to blame the collapse on... archaeologists (had to cut back
>> on health & safety precautions because of all those cost overruns because of
>> the cut-budget archaeology...)...
>> they're still not sure whether anyone has died: 2 are apparently missing,
>> but with the weather, chances don't look good...
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>>
>> The archive office in Kon (Cologne) has collapsed killing at least two
>> persons and much of German's greatest urban archive (undamaged during
>> WW2) may have been lost- makes the case for digitisation. I was going to
>> vist the city this weekend but had to cancel holiday due to sick cat.
>> Masive new stoneware catalogue of Cologne and Frechen stoneware has also
>> been published by the city museum service while I remmber- can send
>> details if anyone wants.
>>
>
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