On the cusp of the unknown – thoughts on Lincoln City and the new football season

I very deliberately haven’t blogged (or even tweeted much) about football over this summer, not in fact since I wrote my end of season review.  This has mainly been because I wanted to avoid showing myself up by making over-the-top statements of optimism or despair that I, and I’m pretty sure most other Imps fans, have been going through since we plunged into the abyss.

I renewed my season ticket almost straight away, though I’m almost ashamed to admit I paused for the briefest of moments to consider if I would.  I quickly came to my senses, reasoning that after 18 years of being a season ticket holder, just what kind of supporter would I be if I turned my back on the club at one of its greatest times of need?  I wouldn’t be able to face myself in the mirror, let alone any other fans.  I would echo that to any fairweather fans reading this – the club needs you more next season far more than it needed you at the Millennium Stadium 6 years ago (though you can leave the silly hat and foam hand at home this time)

But here we are – on the cusp of another season.  That magical time in football when everyone’s eager to get going again but completely unsure whether the next 10 months will bring the elation of promotion, the despair of relegation or the drudgery of mid table obscurity.  This is truer than ever following City’s relegation to the Blue Square Premier.  I’ve been the first person to say that we need to put last season behind us, move on, be positive and tackle this new adventure head on.  However, I sometimes wonder if I believe it myself.  I watched the first game in League Two on Saturday, between AFC Wimbledon and Bristol Rovers, and it hurt.  I felt empty, strangely rejected.  League Two may be shit, but it’s been our home for so long, it feels sad to see that it’s forgotten us already.  I wonder how long it will take for the BSQP to feel like home.  Let’s be positive and hope that we’re in it for such a short spell of time that it doesn’t get chance to feel like anything more than a hotel room (at the Blue Square Premier Inn, as it were).

So, what are my thoughts on the upcoming season?  I have to say that, although I feel that promotion is too much to ask for at the first attempt given the other strong ex-league teams in the mix, I am confident that the season will be a positive one - one where the club can stabilize and begin to rebuild.  That optimism comes primarily from the fact that, despite needing to rebuild virtually the entire squad from scratch, I’m pleased with the players Steve Tilson has brought in.  Not just from a playing perspective, but from the fact that they seem to be of the type we needed – good, honest pros who will work hard and play for each other, rather than primadonnas with more ego than talent.  I’ve said many times before that I’d rather have 11 hardworking cloggers who’d run through brick walls than a team full of technically more proficient players who only turn up for 10 games a season.

Although pre-season friendlies should never be a reason to get overly emotional one way or the other, City’s pre-season has been generally optimistic, with some solid performances and suggestions that the new players will be able to gel together and play some composed football, and the players still with us from last year can put it behind them.  Perhaps the only worry I would currently admit to is a hangover from last season – conceding too many goals.  Against Grimsby in the Lincs Senior Cup we conceded two last-gasp goals to throw away what had been a 3-1 lead, and against Scunthorpe in the same competition we conceded in the last minute to take the game to penalties.  In the final friendly away at Boston we were repeatedly pegged back and conceded a last minute goal, thankfully hanging on for a 4-3 win.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m pleased with the goals we’ve scored, and I know that some of the above results were when playing with trialists and after multiple substitutions, but it’s still the one thing I don’t think we’ve entirely fixed yet.

An inability to stop the opposition scoring, especially in the final few minutes of matches, effectively cost us our league place last season.  I fear that without a capable goalkeeper being signed, similar frustrations may dog us again this season, even though our defense has been bolstered, not least by Josh Gowling, a player whom I was desperately excited to get back, and I am certain will be a rock for us this season, as well as chipping in with a few goals.  He also seems a thoroughly nice chap and a very honest pro (I should also mention that he’s on twitter too, so you should definitely follow him for his post match thoughts)

One thing we should definitely be pleased about is that this summer’s off the field shenanigans are resolved well before the start of the season.  Personally, I feel that the attempts to disrupt the board were ill-timed and ultimately amateurish, and as a shareholder (albeit a very low level one), I could never support such actions.  I’m not saying for a second that the board haven’t made mistakes and couldn’t do some things better, but in the absence of a money man offering to buy the club, I feel that stability is the best thing and the board do genuinely seem to have the best interests of the club at heart.  Better performances on the pitch and the increased crowds they bring are the only real things lacking in turning the club around.

So here’s to a new adventure, a new set of players to get to know, some old adversaries to become reacquainted with and some new places to visit.  At the end of the day it’s only a game, and celebrating a good season in the BSQP will definitely feel better than celebrating a lower mid-table finish in League 2.  Let’s firmly set this season going as the first chapter in a new Lincoln City story, not the final chapter of the last few years of drudgery.  Up the Imps!

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Travels with Li Dongni – Ephesus and Selcuk, Turkey (September 2010)

Romans, Saints and dodgy fakes…

I can’t begin to describe how excited I was at the thought of going to Ephesus.  For anyone with an interest in Roman archaeology the site is legendary, and I’m pleased to say that it lived up to all of my expectations.

Although I deal with Roman archaeology on a daily basis, we just don’t have the scale of physical remains in England that you get in the Mediterranean and northern Africa.  Remains such as Ephesus are on a different scale to anything else, and the sense of what it must have been like to have lived in a wealthy Roman city is palpable.

I’ve done previous travel posts about our Turkey trip - about hot air ballooning in Cappadocia and about seeing wild turtles in Fethiye.  Our visit to Ephesus came as we were travelling slowly up the eastern coast towards Istanbul.

We had previously been on the hot Mediterranean coast in Fethiye, and took one of many long bus rides to Selcuk, the town just a few miles from Ephesus.  We’d been good, careful travellers, done our research on hotels and booked one that we liked the look of before we left Fethiye (especially as we knew we’d be arriving late at night).  Sadly, Turkey being Turkey, we were let down again by hotels, and arrived to find that the one we’d booked was now full as our bus had been delayed by about 30 minutes and our room given away (we had this on our very first night in Turkey too, in Antalya, when a late arrival from the airport led to a long-booked room being given to somebody else and the hotel outrageously denying any knowledge of us and pretending not to speak English.  This led to us wandering the streets at 2.30am looking for another hotel!)  What is it about Turkish hoteliers not honouring their bookings?

Thankfully, this hotelier had not entirely turned us away, but had had the kindness (or gall, I can’t quite decide…) to book us a room in another hotel run by a family member.  Despite us having looked at this hotel on the internet and deciding not to go for it, it was too late to argue or find somewhere else.  As it turned out, the room was actually rather large and lovely, so we needn’t have worried.

So the next morning we set out for Ephesus, giggling like excited schoolchildren at the thought of the sights that awaited us.  We arrived, as we had expected, into a busy bazaar of stalls and street vendors, selling only the very finest merchandise money can buy.

One thing I instantly liked about Ephesus was that the city wasn’t going to give up all its delights in one fell swoop.  Instead, as you might expect for such a large site, it revealed itself slowly, every corner turned leading to a new surprise.

We entered by one of the impressive theatres, sitting in the back row of which must have been as lovely then as it is now.

A walk through some low shrubs brought us to the most famous of Ephesus’ monuments, the Library of Celsus.  It was built in AD135 by wealthy local Gaius Julius Aquila (and named after his father Celsus) and has the unusual dual function of being both a repository for scrolls and the mausoleum of Celsus himself.

Further up the wonderfully evocative stone-lined ‘Curetes Street’ lies another of Ephesus’ treasures – the excavations at one of the high status insulae.  This requires a separate entrance fee, but if you’ve gone all that way to see Ephesus then don’t go cheap at this point, as the excavations are worth every penny.  The series of wealthy houses, complete with painted plaster, mosaics and plumbing are all contained under a purpose built roof with walkways allowing visitors to travel within the houses, but in a controlled manner.  I’ll just let the pictures speak for themselves at this point, though look out for the images of ‘conservation in action’ – it was fascinating to see the conservators reconstructing and sorting marble and wall plaster as we wandered around.  And I’m not jealous in the slightest…

Opposite the insulae excavations sits the Temple of Hadrian.  It was built following the visit of the well travelled Emperor, who visited Ephesus in AD128.  The carvings on the temple are particularly interesting.  The entrance arch features a bust of Psyche, Goddess of Victory.

Inside is a relief of Medusa and friezes depicting the founding of Ephesus, though these are actually replicas.  The originals are in Ephesus museum (not that the site interpretation actually makes that clear for visitors.  Naughty!)

No Roman site would be complete without a suite of toilets to provide a good photo opportunity, and the chance to make jokes about sponges on sticks (the Roman equivalent of toilet paper).

At the top of Curetes Street we encountered another, smaller, theatre, notable for the carved animal feet decorating the steps.

Close by is an interesting monument constructed in the 1^st Century by Memmius, the grandson of Sulla.  Despite being one of the great figures of the late Roman Republic, Sulla somehow seems to be virtually unknown to the general public, especially when compared to figures such as Caesar, Pompey and Mark Antony.  To those who know of him however, the monument to him is rather interesting to see.

As well as visiting Ephesus, we also had the chance to have a quick look around the town of Selcuk.  I’ll come to the tourist bits in a moment, but one thing I did experience is being repeatedly offered some incredibly bad modern copies of Roman coins by a local chap (who assured me that he worked on the excavations at Ephesus and was allowed to sell them).  The thing that got me was thinking just how many tourists would actually buy them.  Now, as they were bad fakes, they deserve everything they get (or rather, don’t get), but to think that people would actually buy what they believed to be genuine ancient coins of such obviously dodgy provenance makes me quite angry indeed.  As it turned out, when I got fed up of humouring the guy and told him outright that I work in a museum, have a specific interest in Roman numismatics, and that his coins were bad fakes and I definitely wouldn’t be buying any, he not only repeatedly told me I didn’t know what I was talking about, but also that western museums and archaeologists bought things from him all the time!  Lord help us all if that turns out to be true!

Dodgy fake coin peddlers aside, Selcuk is an OK place.  It’s mostly a modern little town, but it has a very nice museum displaying the finds from Ephesus, which you can see in the photos below.

Selcuk is also home to one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World – the Temple of Artemis.  Sadly it’s not easy to find, and we actually ran out of time after wandering around trying to find it, and ultimately failed to see the one remaining column of this giant temple.

One site we did see was the Basilica of St John, built on a hill in the centre of Selcuk.  The story goes that, following Jesus’ crucifixion, St John and the Virgin Mary went to Ephesus to live out the rest of their lives.  When St John died, a mausoleum was built on that hill, which was later turned into the Basilica once Christianity had become the dominant religion in the 4^th Century.

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FAME – we’re going to dig forever…

On Friday 1^st July I spent the day in York, attending a conference organized by FAME (Federation of Archaeological Managers and Employers) and the SMA (Society of Museum Archaeologists) entitled ‘Trouble in Store: facing up to the archaeological archives crisis.’

For readers not familiar with the terminology, archaeological archives are the products of organised archaeological fieldwork – the documentation (reports, maps, photographs etc) and the finds (if there were any, and ranging from the finest jewelry to bits of broken building material and environmental samples such as soil and snail shells).  Most archaeology in Britain nowadays is done in advance of development (the dastardly plans of certain fenland councilors notwithstanding).  Commercial archaeological contractors tender to carry out the archaeological investigation deemed necessary by planning officers and afterwards produce the archives.  These archives are then deposited with specific repositories to be stored, cared for and used for research.  The repositories are usually museums, as is the case in my patch - Lincolnshire.

However, as the title of the conference indicates, there is a sense that a crisis faces this seemingly simple system.   The crisis lies in the fact that some repositories are now full, and are not able to take new archives.  This has led to the contracting archaeological units themselves having to retain the archives they have produced.  This is not only unfair on these contractors - keeping the archives out of a sense of professional responsibility but not able to financially support such long-term curation, but it is also not in the best interests of the public, as these archives are not accessible in the way they would be in a publicly funded museum.

The seriousness of the situation was reflected in the fact that around 100 members of the archaeological community assembled in the attractive historic surroundings of York’s Merchant Taylor’s Hall.  In fact, this was perhaps the most single-minded I think I have ever seen the archaeological world, as museum curators, field archaeologists and planning archaeologists agreed that the problem was one that required immediate attention.

The list of speakers was varied and reflected the range of specialism present in the audience.  Interestingly, however, if recognition of the problem was unanimous, identification of the details and formulation of the cure were less so.  I have grouped some of the major discussion points below.

Defining the scope of the problem

That a problem exists was recognized over and over again throughout the day, but a key stumbling block to finding a solution is simply that we are not sure how big the problem is.  Sample surveys have suggested that it may be rather large indeed, with thousands of archives not able to be deposited.  The secondary problem is that the problem is geographically imbalanced.  Some areas have no current problems in taking new archives, yet in other areas entire counties have closed their repositories’ doors.

New innovations in digital archiving

The issue of digital archiving is the elephant in the room at any discussion regarding the future of archaeological archives.  Unsurprisingly, archives are increasingly being produced in digital formats, be that through digital photographs, word processed finds lists or CAD site plans.  However, the main purpose of the archive is long term preservation, and I think people would be shocked by just how quickly a ‘normal’ printed and stapled piece of paper will degrade, especially if it is a standard cardboard storage box.  Because of this, museums produce long and detailed requirements for the materials and formatting of documentary archives – occasionally to the chagrin of the contractors who have to meet those standards. 

For documentary archives to be submitted in digital format, the issue of obsolescence has to be tackled.  File formats such as .doc, .pdf and .jpg are all well and good now, but how will they be in 20 years?  It wasn’t that long ago that you were using floppy disks.  Can you instantly lay your hands on a floppy disk drive now?  How about a 5¼ inch floppy disk readable on an old ACORN?  Even modern compact disks and DVDs have a short guaranteed shelf life for the readability of the files on them.  For digital archives to be a reliable way forward, therefore, a system of ensuring that the (potentially hundreds of) files that comprise each archive are kept up to date.  With the best will in the world, museums just do not have the resources to do that for the many thousands of archives they hold.

This is where organizations such as the Archaeological Data Service (ADS) come in.  They store and provide digital access to documentary archives, and most museums now specify that copies of all archives are sent to them.  At the conference, two ongoing pilot projects to expand the reach and potential of ADS were presented – the Wessex Archaeology image archive, and the Southampton Arts and Heritage archive.  Both of these projects were exiting examples of how the future of documentary archiving really could be digital, and that the possibility of opening up archives to the public and researchers through the ADS website could be a reality, providing that guaranteed funding could be secured.

Planning archaeology and the deposition process

Without wishing to make them seem a scapegoat for all of the shortcomings in the archaeological process, it was recognized that planning archaeologists are the biggest constant throughout the lifespan of a project.  It was felt that they were in a prime position to promote changes to the archive process, in particular in increasing communication between the contractor and the museum at the outset of a project and in having an oversight on depositions at the end of projects.  I am pleased to say that in Lincolnshire the communication with regard to deposition is now very good indeed between the planning archaeologists and the museum, and I hope that the systems we have recently put in place might serve as an example to other areas where the relationship is not as evolved.

Problems with the archives themselves

One important element of the discussions was with regard to the archives themselves.  Are they simply too big?  Should retention of material be much more selective?  Are we creating even more storage problems for the future? When researchers use the archives, what elements of it are they mostly using?

In all honesty, answering these questions involves the use of data we currently just don’t have nationally.  To know whether the material we are keeping is appropriate, we need to know how it is being used by researchers and what potential there is for it to be studied in the future.

Fortunately, English Heritage has already begun work on a document called ‘Evaluating the archaeological resource in store: informing the future’, which will attempt to:

• Update the national map of museum collecting areas
• Establish the date that archives held in repositories were deposited (how quickly are archives being processed)
• Identify areas where Archaeological Resource Centres might be a solution
• Clarify the relationship between archaeological collections and other types of museum collection, in terms of quantity, storage space, staff specialisms etc
• Characterise the users of archaeological archives
• Establish the quantity of archaeological archives held by contractors and with no identified repository

Although the data gathered will not in itself solve the problem, hopefully it will provide a firm foundation to build on.

Museums

Although museums are the final recipients of the archives and only have a limited input into their creation, there are still ways in which those of us in museums can make life easier for colleagues in the wider archaeological community.

For instance, museums could be more consistent in their requirements for the preparation of archives.  At the moment, individual museums write their own guidelines almost in isolation, meaning that contractors have a completely different set of criteria to meet depending on which museum the archive is being prepared for – different sizes of box, different methods and levels of marking, and different ways of organizing the contents.  If museums can work to nationally agreed standards for other areas of museum work, such as documentation or collections care procedures, then surely it is not beyond the wit of man to do the same for archaeological archives.  After all, the material is basically the same, and the museums are managing it in basically the same way.

The other issue is around access.  Museums are generally good at telling the public about their objects, but if we’re honest, archaeological archives are not promoted and used in the same way that other objects are.  They are not seen as sexy or populist at a time when museums are expected to be sexy and populist.  Only a small percentage of finds from an archive will be deemed display worthy, but often the story of a site can be well told even when the finds aren’t that spectacular.  Museums should be making more attempts to bring the fantastic, but mostly invisible, resource contained within their archives to public and academic attention.

It was also recognized that, as archaeology is now embedded in the planning process, it is not in the public eye as it was when museums were the ‘home’ of professional archaeology.  Despite this, claims that museums do not have the archaeological expertise required to understand and interpret their archives were firmly refuted.  In fact, the combination of skills most archaeological museum curators possess puts them in the best position to make the most of the archaeological archive resource.

Contractors

The main accusation levied against some (I hasten to add ‘but not all’) archaeological contractors is that archives need to be given a higher priority, not considered an expensive and annoying afterthought.  The production of the archive is a fundamental element of professional archaeology.  Digging the site is only one aspect of the project, and if the products of archaeological investigation are not written up and made available for future scrutiny then, basically, all that is happening is the vandalism of an archaeological site.

So, in conclusion, the day definitely goes down as a success, but as the first step in admitting the problem rather than solving it.  The progress of English Heritage’s research will be very interesting to watch, but I hope that every attendee will go away thinking about their own role in the process, and ultimately how they can make the entire process work more smoothly and for the greatest public benefit.  Oh, and the day only featured a very small amount of rabbit cuddling…

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Grandpa Wen and the Royal medals

You may have seen that Chinese Premier ‘grandpa’ Wen Jiabao has recently been on a visit to the UK.  While he was here, the Royal Society presented him with the Charles II medal for his contribution to science and technology (read about it here).  This was because he ‘has overseen one of the most ambitious programmes of national research investment the world has ever seen.’

This got me thinking.  If the Charles II medal is given for contributions to science, what other medals based on past Royals could we be awarding?

The Charles I medal for the most egotistical leader?

The George III medal for the looniest leader?

The Edward VIII medal for leaders who don’t stay in power very long?

The Oliver Cromwell medal for leaders who don’t really want to be leaders but feel they have no choice?

The Aethelred II medal for leaders who just weren’t prepared enough?*

The Harold Harefoot medal for the leader named after the best animal?

Feel free to add your own to the list!

*before anyone tells me, I know that Aethelred’s unfortunate nickname ‘the Unready' actually means ‘ill-councilled’.  It just seemed funnier this way.

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Mes Aynak – Ancient monastery vs Copper mine

It seems that the clash between making money and preserving the past is ever present at the moment.  No sooner had we seen an English Council leader threaten to remove archaeological considerations from the planning process (see my blog post here), then I come across a news story from a lot further away, but no less disturbing.

The rich cultural heritage of Afghanistan has recently been brought to life in a fantastic British Museum exhibition, yet it is once again under threat.  Not from war, but from international commercial mining.

Mes Aynak is an important ancient Buddhist monastery, founded in the first Century AD and located high in the mountains of western Afghanistan, on the profitable silk road.  The site covers a huge area, with impressive standing remains, yet it has been little studied.  The site was used by Al Qaeda as a training camp, and suffered looting first by the Taliban and then by others after they had left.  Despite this terrible recent history, the site now faces its biggest threat – that of total destruction by open-cast copper mining.

Statues whose heads have previously been looted

The name ‘Mes Aynak’ actually means ‘little copper well’, and the presence of the metal has long been known.  It was a major reason for the location of the monastery.  But the metal that once made the site rich now threatens its destruction.  The desire to re-ignite Afghanistan’s economy has led to a Chinese mining company being granted permission to turn the entire huge site into a mine, forever destroying the remains.  Archaeologists have been granted three years to investigate the site – a permission which has led to the largest archaeological project on the planet, as almost 1,000 archaeologists and workers attempt to salvage what information they can about the site.

Yet their efforts may only scratch the surface.  It was estimated that ten years of excavations were required, and the current efforts are little more than a rescue attempt – to take as much away as they can before it is gone forever.  Sadly, this is hardly the textbook approach to investigating such an important site.  The opening of a museum nearby, promised by the government, will sadly seem more of a memorial to the site than a celebration.

The Chinese Metallurgical Group were granted permission to open the mine in 2007, and will be allowed to operate it for 30 years.  The $3 billion dollar deal is the largest in Afghan history.  Chinese workers are already at the site in large numbers, preparing for the destruction to begin in 2014.  1,600 Afghan soldiers, a veritable army, guard the site from further looting.  The irony of such resources being used to protect a site that will soon be destroyed is telling.

The balance between restarting the economy and preserving the past is a difficult one, but the speed with which the excavations must be concluded is shocking.  With more time to properly excavate, the loss of the site would still be regrettable, but at least the damage would be better mitigated.  The present situation seems very much like merely paying lip service to the archaeologists, with the ultimate desire to make money the overriding factor in all things.

Perhaps the most scandalous thing about this tale is that the world barely seems to have noticed that it is happening.  One of the most important Buddhist sites in the world will vanish in a matter of years, and yet it seems like hardly anyone will notice.

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