Gruesome Finds and Glorious Treasures
Collection: The Channel Tunnel Rail Link
A collection in the archive can contain dramatically different objects. This exhibit highlights some of the curious and interesting finds, such as a mummified cat and ancient brooches, found during the Channel Tunnel Rail Link Project.
The Channel Tunnel Rail link collection is extremely varied. The objects found during the excavations were dated to different eras, from the Mesolithic (10.000-4000 BC) through to the Modern Era (after 1540). The range of objects found is extremely wide, and includes ceramics and pottery, coins, carved stones, human and animal bones and much more.
As described in the 'Moving House' exhibit, the Channel Tunnel Rail Link collection is one of the largest collections held in the ADS archive, with over 10,000 files made up from sreadsheets, databases, drawings, geophysical, GIS and photographs, which are summarised in a series of 'site' and, more detailed, 'integrated' reports which provide contextualisation for the data. More focussed specialist reporting and assessment of the ceramics, lithics, small finds, dating, human remains and palaeoenvironmental evidence was produced for many sites, these are then summarised in a series of 'scheme-wide' reports. Each of these reports is accompanied by datasets (databases and spreadsheets) which allows users to track specific information about those discoveries summarised in the 'specialist' and 'scheme-wide' reporting.
"The Channel Tunnel Rail Link (Section 1) archive was the first project that I worked on at ADS and I probably couldn't have asked for a better introduction. The archive covers over 100 sites from a swathe of Kent stretching between the outskirts of London down to Folkestone on the coast. The archaeology, in terms of subject matter and technique, is just as broad, touching on all periods of British archaeology and investigative techniques." Kieron Niven, ADS Digital Archivist.
