Geez, what does a guy have to do to get promoted around here? This made me laugh.
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3 comments:
I had similar ideas at one point. In fact I consider myself a practicing amateur archeologist. I've had a little project going for years which involves graffiti. Normally, I hate the stuff--particularly the massive unreadable, multicolored calligraphic gang swirls you get nowadays. But I'm fascinated by this sort of vandalism once it gets past a certain age. Cool graffito I have discovered include:
German wartime graffiti on the walls of extensive, largelly untouched, communications bunkers beneath Strasbourg which are accessible only through the city's sewers--and only if you know where you're going.
Spanish graffiti on the interior walls of the Moscow Metro system. (Did you know Stalin put Spanish commmunists to good use digging this? Most died unhappily, as the graffiti suggests).
Graffiti of multitudes of 18th and 19th century merchant and naval sailors on the interior columns of the Aya Sofya in Istanbul usually the name, ship, and date.
Graffiti of soldiers from every nation that has ever conquered Egypt on the stones at the top of the pyramids at Giza (most of it is Aussie diggers from WWI, actually, but there's lots more). These are tricky to see since climbing the pyramids is frowned upon now--easily solved with a bribe though--and because you have to go up at night with a flashlight which mmakes remaining undiscovered a litttle tricky, not to mention the fact that falling off the pyramid to one's death is actually pretty easy (picture a very long, uneven set of very big steps).
British, German and Italian graffiti on the tons of abandoned tanks, trucks, and other military impedimenta still littering the Egyptian Western desert.
I could go on. but I won't..
I love exploring abandoned, ruined places especially factories, megastructures (as in dams, bridges, etc) and anything underground eg., sewers, bunkers, quarries. I've tried caving a few times, great fun, but I find mammoth industrial detritus more compelling than eons old stalactites and stalagmites for some reason. Sadly my wife and children have conspired to curtail this hobbby in recent years. I'm looking forward to when my son gets his tetanus shot and can climb a little more reliably. He'll be a real asset!
Highlights:
Bicycling in main sewers beneath Montreal. These are as big as the London underground tubes, fully lit, and dry--at least until it rains on the surface and then you're dead before you know it. Check the forecast. The maintenance guys leave the bikes there because it's the fastest way to get around.
Into the base of the piers of the Akashi Kaikyo suspension bridge.
Top of the tower of Moscow State University where you find that there's a thick steel cable that descends from the very top through the building and reputedly a thousand feet deep underground. Apparently Stalin had mystical ideas about tapping into the power of the Motherland, quite literally. So each of the 7 sisters--seven Stalinist skyscrapers--has one of these cables apparently. This brought home to me Hannah Arendt's commment on the 'banality of evil'.
The underground city and lavishly painted cave churches around Goreme, Turkey.
The burial complexes around Siwa Oasis in the Western Desert, Egypt. Egypt used to be packed with mummies and there's still a lot around in museums. But back in the 19th century there were so many of them that they exported them as fuel for steam engines. No joke. They burn very nicely I gather. So you get these extensive burial complexes dug into hillsides which have been comprehensively looted. All over the place there are scraps of ancient linen wrapping, fragments of skeleton, bits of shattered pottery amidst the things which couldn't be carried away painted frescoes, bas reliefs and carved headstones--mostly of Greek and Roman notables, imperial administrators, wealthy merchants, and moderately well off soldiers (centurions, cavalry officers and the like). The complexes are very extensive, multilevel things which weren't laid out according to any plan. It's a bit like a big rabbit warren or an anthill with tunnels leading off everywhere, chambers opening into chambers and into yet more chambers. Few people go far in, I suspect because it can be quite tricky to get around--obviously the wood and rope ladders which connected everything have long since turned to dust--it's rather eerie, it's easy to get lost, and (I learned thsi later) there are nasty respiratory diseases one can get from breathing in mouldering old bone dust. My worst moment was having navigated a series of tunnnels and caves up the side of a gorge which had a small rivulet running down the centre which in turn was feeding the world's biggest, densest patch of 10 foot high stinging nettles, I couldn't figure out how to get back the way I came or climb out of the gorge. (Siwa is one of dozens of reputed burial spots of Alexander the Great. I'd been imagining that I'd find it). The only thing I could do was bash my way through about a hundred and fifty meters of this toxic stuff. It being the desert and all I was wearing shorts, a tshirt and ankle high climbing boots. Then I crashed my motorbike on the way back into town because I was so full of stingiing nettle poison I'd practically paralyzed myself. I wasn't going too fast, therefore no broken bones but I did get a lovely road rash over about a third of my right side from ankle to shoulder which seeing as how this was an Egyptian road covered in donkey dung then got infected. The days of agony, suppurating flesh and fever which followed were character building.
A friend of mine lives in Moscow on top of a huge, now redundant, Cold War era military command and control facility. They say that it is ten stories deep and basicallly forms the foundation for a complex of four large apartment complexes. Unfortunately, it's basically abandoned and prone to flooding. At the bottom level there are three large pumps constantly ejecting the water that seeps in. Two have failed and the last is getting pretty elderly. Thsi being Russia there is an argument between the MOD and the city of Moscow as to who is responsibile for it--each claims it is the other. Meanwhile, if it fails and floods the structural integrity of the buildings on top of it will be compromised and 5,000 people will sink into a 10 story deep mudpit overnight. That's one I'd really like to go explore before it's too late.
Check out this website:
http://homepage.mac.com/
peint/zone-tour/index.htm
Its funny how internet discussions progress from Indiana Jones' tenure to military related graffiti.
Another example you are likely already familiar with, since it is close to home, is in King's College chapel, Cambridge. Cromwell's troops were quartered there during the civil war. Their drawings on the chapel walls are still faintly visible. Not the best in artistic ability but fascinating to see up close.
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