Dredging the river Vecht was a mega project. Never before had a river nearly thirty miles long been taken care of in one go. The Vecht had never been dredged before. Archaeologists have dug up two thousand years of finds:from Roman toga pins to weapons from the Second World War.
2.5 million cubic meters of sludge resulted in the dredging of the Vecht between Muiden and Utrecht, part of which was seriously polluted. Not wise as an archaeologist to sit and stir it with your fingers a bit and, moreover, not to do it. Johan Langelaar, project leader of ADC ArcheoProjecten, provided archaeological supervision during the four-year dredging project and explains how it went.
“I was not present during the dredging itself, because I couldn't do much with all that mud on site. A pre-selection took place on the dredgers. First, the dredgers dumped the sucked up sludge on a grid with holes of twenty centimeters. Coarse material such as rubble, bicycles and even safes were left on it while the sludge ended up in the hold. When the dredger was full, the sludge passed through a sieve of four centimeters of wire mesh when it was pumped out. Everything that was left behind ended up on our conveyor belt. From these we selected the finds of archaeological value. All the material with no value that could be reused, such as stone and iron, has been recycled.”
Chafting table
When the dredgers saw something strange on the grid during their work, they had to call Langelaar. “That happened once, yes, and then I went to look as soon as possible. Once I went to the shack, where the head of the Roman emperor Vespasian (9-79) was staring at me from the dining table!"
During the dredging, Langelaar was unable to examine all the silt. For example, he was not allowed to use sludge that was too polluted or sludge containing explosives. The Explosive Ordnance Disposal Service then came by to clear the bombs. Two aircraft bombs came out of the dredge near Weesp. During the Second World War, the nearby railway bridge was heavily bombed. “Because we couldn't check all the dredging, we certainly missed items of archaeological value. They have now ended up in the IJsseloog, an island with a deep hole in the Ketelmeer where the polluted sludge was dumped. When the hole is full, it is covered and returned to nature.”
Irons
Four years of dredging has yielded many archaeological finds. These finds tell the story of life along the river for the past two thousand years. For archaeologists it is a lot of interpreting work:the finds have been lost or deliberately thrown away, but a broader context is missing. “The finds mainly confirm that the Vecht has been a place for many hundreds of years to sail across and to throw in discarded items. Recently, criminals also used the river as a dumping ground. We found quite a few safes and weapons. But otherwise it is difficult to say what the finds mean," says Langelaar.
Fortunately, the finds do not only raise questions, they also clarify things. “We found many pieces of tombstones that were reused to reinforce the quays. We did not know that for this dredging project. We also discovered the function of iron irons. We found hundreds. There were many laundries along the Vecht, but why would people throw away irons? At one point we found a few tied together by a string and then we understood:discarded irons were reused as anchors for small boats.”
During the Second World War, the Vecht appeared to have been used regularly by the resistance as a dumping ground. The archaeologists found many weapons in the same spot and conclude that the weapons were thrown into the river when overpowering threatened. At least that way they didn't fall into the hands of the opposing team.
Finds from the Second World War are well represented anyway, including many helmets and weapons. “We found a German helmet with legs. As it turns out, just after the Second World War you could hand in German helmets at the BK pan factory in Kampen, where they were enamelled and given legs. HEMA sold these creations like piss pots. A kind of revenge towards the Germans, I think.”
Weapons and jewelry
In addition to many militaria, shipping-related and utensils, some very valuable finds have also been made, such as a broadsword of an elite fighter from about 900.
“The question is what does the sword do in the water. It may have been ritually deposited. This happened more often after the death of a combatant. Such swords are only usually curved and that is not the case here. The sword may also have been lost during the journey across the Vecht towards Dorestad, the most important trading city in these parts at the time," says Langelaar. In the swampy Netherlands around 900, traveling over land was a lot more difficult than over water.
Other unusual finds include several Roman-style marble heads. The aforementioned head of Emperor Vespasian (9 – 79 AD) turned out to be not Roman but a replica from the seventeenth century after thorough investigation. “The head has been dredged up at Nijenrode Castle, near Breukelen. This castle had a sculpture garden with marble statues and that is probably where it comes from. The head is authentically recreated from old Italian marble. So we doubted for a long time whether the head was really Roman. Roman coins had also been found nearby, bearing the image of Emperor Domitian (51 – 96), the son of Vespasian. That made it all the more confusing.”
Finds that do date from Roman times are a lot smaller, such as coins and cloak pins. The oldest is a wire fibula, a military toga pin in its simplest form, from the first century AD.
Exhibition of finds
The archaeological finds from the Vecht have been traveling around for a while and can now be seen in Huis van Hilde in Castricum. A few recently dredged finds have been hastily added to this, such as a marble head of the Roman emperor Nero (37-68) and a woman's head. Nero is also a sculpture garden replica from the seventeenth century, but the lady is not in Roman style and probably of more recent date.
Also new are a large dagger from about 1500 with a silver inlaid handle and a wooden stop egg. A stop egg is a typical everyday utensil that we don't know anymore but was very common half a century ago:women used stop eggs while repairing holes in socks. The value of such a wooden egg is not great, but the archaeological value is. These kinds of objects tell how people used to live, and how different that can be compared to today. Who puts another sock?