Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/06/29/inventory-of-a-dutch-riverbed.html
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When I went to Amsterdam a few years ago, I learned that the city got established largely due to a piece of communion wafer that got vomited up in OK condition.
Silly humans.
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If it was the Schuylkill - they’d be inventorying skeletons in cement overshoes.
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If this is viral marketing for Nokia, I’ll be completely indifferent.
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I assume that, despite years underwater, the Nokia phones continue to function perfectly. 
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I don’t think people 2000 years from now will get so excited when they find pieces of junk we left behind.
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Neat. Check out this page.
https://belowthesurface.amsterdam/en/rokin/NZR2.00038MTL006
Its is all nicely laid out… you can click on most anything to see what it is.
I am a little surprised there wasn’t more modern warfare stuff in there.
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“And this card, some how, actually measured Loyalty?!”
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)Great link, thanks!
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There was very little fighting in Amsterdam either during the German invasion (the Dutch surrendered before the Germans got there) or during the liberation (the Germans surrendered before the Allies got there), and I don’t think it was ever bombed either. The only obvious signs of the occupation are some Nazi-era German coins.
Most of the weaponry section seems to be small-arms cartridges, often of the sort that you might expect to be used in a fairground shooting gallery or for pest control.
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Yea but it’s Europe. Their entire history is war war war, kings kings kings, church church church.
Thanks for the link. Were those objects in the big page I posted and just missed it? I did see the modern shell and some old hand grenades.
HOLY SHIT - there is a Japanese Tsuba (sp). WTF did that come from?
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It looks to me like they mostly edited-out the WWII era items. Most of the listings skip from the late 20’s and early 30’s to 1950. …or maybe I’m doing it wrong and am missing something!
IIRC there was a Samurai Champloo episode about this.
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Why do people believe this? It’s not like nothing existed except kings and churches. People lived their lives, often despite the king or the church, and that’s where the real interesting history happens, if you ask me. Wars by kings and/or churches are more of a disruption to real life.
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It’s often said that the history of the medieval era is the history of the church, but it’s pretty clearly a circular argument.
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Institutions are always important, and plenty of people study the church, in part because it has an archive that you can actually go to. Everyday history in the medieval period is much harder and much more work for a historian (and they often also have to be archeologically minded as well). However, it can and has been done. So yeah, circular argument, indeed.
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I was being a bit hyperbolic. But yeah, there were a lot of wars, and a lot more time overall of people fighting them that I was a bit surprised to not find more artifacts to reflect this. After all, rivers were often strategic points as natural barriers, and for moving stuff around.
Certainly history tends to highlight the “movers and shakers” of the Europe, but the common person has lots of interesting stories as well. I can’t remember the BBC series name, but it covered a lots of the common jobs back in the day - many of the less pleasant ones.
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