Flint collectors on the western front.

[Simon R]

Dear All,

This may seem like a rather incongruous question to many, but has anyone out there come across any accounts of old comrades collecting prehistoric material from trench sections on the Western Front?

Some of you may know of Capt. Francis Buckley of 1/7th NF who collected and published palaeolithic material from Coigneux - from my own research, this activity is surprisingly common and often continues back in blighty after the war.

[Guest Pete Wood]

Not pre-historic, or even the Western Front - but there was an earlier thread on archaeology on Gallipoli, mainly by the French troops. You might find it interesting?

Have a look at Archaeology by Asiatic Annie which involved the troops uncovering ancient Greek remains, uncovered in the first instance by the Turkish guns.

[ianw]

I think there was an even earlier thread in which it was suggested that a number of artefacts found while trench digging on the Western Front found their way to the British Museum. There is also a superb classical gold item in the Hermitage(?) which was found in a similar way by Russian troops.

Anything of value no doubt disappeared into the old pack a bit swiftish and eventually went back to Blighty.

[Guest Pete Wood]

I think there was an even earlier thread in which it was suggested that a number of artefacts found while trench digging on the Western Front found their way to the British Museum.

Looking back at the Gallipoli thread, I think this was discussed on the old WFA forum.

[Simon R]

Dear All,

Thanks very much. It shouldn't really be surprising that people found antiquities in a deep trench that ran from belgium to switzerland - am I right in thinking that the German Army had official procedures for the recording and curation of finds whereas the British did not? Does the Handbook of the German Army have any references to this?

If it did, am I right to assume that this was due to the influence of the Kaiser, given his obsession with the swastika, gorgons and his excavations with Dorpfeld?