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Accidentally used a trowel from Pompeii on a dig and the site supervisor blew up at me for five minutes
I was on an excavation in Rome last spring and grabbed a rusty trowel out of the toolbox thinking it was a spare, only to have the lead archaeologist tell me it was actually recovered from Pompeii in the 1800s and used for documentation, which probably messed with the original patina, has anyone else run into random historical tools on active digs?
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jamesc798d ago
Hang on, isn't a trowel from Pompeii technically an artifact in its own right though? The patina on it isn't just a few scuffs from normal use, it'd be a record of how the tool was made and handled in the 1800s. Using it on a modern dig would be like taking a 120 year old brush that was used to clean the Terracotta Army and using it to wash your car. The connection to the past is cool, but the tool itself is a piece of history.
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jackson.max8d ago
Look, I'm gonna play devil's advocate here on the "probably messed with the original patina" part. That trowel has been sitting in a toolbox for probably a hundred plus years, it's not like it was some pristine artifact locked in a museum case. Tools are meant to be used, and using a historic trowel on a modern dig is kind of a cool connection to the past, you know? The patina thing is overblown too, because a trowel that's been handled by multiple generations of archaeologists is already covered in scratches and dirt marks from decades of use, so one more dig isn't going to ruin anything. Honestly, your supervisor sounded like they were just having a bad day and wanted someone to blame for something that didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.
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kai8398d ago
Man, I gotta say I think you're way overthinking this. It's literally a trowel, not some sacred relic from a temple. Patina on a digging tool? Come on. That's like worrying about the patina on a shovel or a hammer. Tools get banged up, that's their whole deal. And using an old trowel on a dig sounds like a fun nod to history, not some crime. Your supervisor probably just needed a reason to yell at someone that day. It's not like you're out here using a priceless painting as a frisbee or something.
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