Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff. Lauren
Speaker 1: Bogelbaum here. Sifting through the junk stuck in the mud
Speaker 1: of the Thames may sound unpleasant to some, but in
Speaker 1: doing so, one is almost guaranteed to find a curious
Speaker 1: and possibly valuable artifact. Uncovering a piece of Roman pottery,
Speaker 1: a sixteen fifties era tobacco pipe, or a small, well
Speaker 1: preserved wax seal dating back to the time of King Richard.
Speaker 1: The third is just the kind of thing that keeps
Speaker 1: mudlarkers mudlarking. Mudlarking is essentially digging through exposed riverbanks for
Speaker 1: lost and forgotten objects, small treasures among shoreline rubbish. A
Speaker 1: dirty job, yes, but a fun one for hobbyists and archaeologists.
Speaker 1: For the article this episode is based on how Stuff Work.
Speaker 1: Spoke with Maryland heritage scholar Henry M. Miller, PhD. He said,
Speaker 1: it's the excitement. You never know what you're going to find.
Speaker 1: It's just like all of archaeology. It's the thrill of
Speaker 1: the discovery. Oh what am I going to find next?
Speaker 1: And what is it going to tell me about people
Speaker 1: in the past. That's the exciting thing. The concept of
Speaker 1: mud larking originated in these seventeen or eighteen hundreds and
Speaker 1: referred to a time when low income people, including kids,
Speaker 1: would pour over the shoreline of the Thames at low tide,
Speaker 1: collecting lost coins if they were lucky, but also spare nails,
Speaker 1: pieces of coal, and anything else they might sell or trade.
Speaker 1: There was and still is plenty to find there. For
Speaker 1: thousands of years, the Thames served as a dumping ground.
Speaker 1: A miller explained, people would throw their daily garbage in
Speaker 1: the river and the tide would distribute it and it
Speaker 1: would essentially disappear from sight. It was nasty, especially as
Speaker 1: London's population grew and the Thames became increasingly it. Sixty
Speaker 1: years ago, the Thames was so polluted from centuries of
Speaker 1: dumping that it was declared dead. Since then, intense efforts
Speaker 1: have been made to clean up the river, and it's
Speaker 1: now considered one of the world's cleanest, but its polluted
Speaker 1: past has made it one of the best places to
Speaker 1: go mudlarking. The Thames holds literally thousands of years of
Speaker 1: trash from the prehistoric era to the modern day, and
Speaker 1: as the old adage goes, one man's trash is another
Speaker 1: man's treasure. Mudlarkers can dig up a host of interesting artifacts,
Speaker 1: including things like Venetian glass beads, a tudor money boxes,
Speaker 1: medieval pilgrim badges, and sixteenth century shoes. Dumping all that
Speaker 1: stuff into the Thames certainly got it out of sight,
Speaker 1: but it didn't really disappear. It settled into the mud
Speaker 1: at the river's bottom. Durable materials like pottery, nails, tobacco pipes,
Speaker 1: and glass bottles get to humbled around a bit, but
Speaker 1: last pretty well, along with some softer materials that may
Speaker 1: surprise you. But Miller said, what's cool is there's an
Speaker 1: anaerobic condition, which means things like wood and bone and
Speaker 1: cloth and leather actually survive, sometimes in pretty pristine condition.
Speaker 1: I found the top to a wine bottle, probably from
Speaker 1: the late seventeen hundreds, with the cork still intact. He
Speaker 1: visited in twenty sixteen to help create a comparative collection
Speaker 1: of known London artifacts for archaeological analysis of early American sites.
Speaker 1: The tides of the Thames create a perfect situation for
Speaker 1: unearthing artifacts that many other waterways don't have. For starters,
Speaker 1: its tide has a surprisingly large range. It can rise
Speaker 1: and recede up to twenty four feet that's around seven meters,
Speaker 1: with two low tides and two high tides every day,
Speaker 1: leaving behind a vast swath of exposed river bottom at
Speaker 1: each low tide. Here in the US, like the Hudson,
Speaker 1: do experienced tides, but it might only drop about three
Speaker 1: feet or a little less than a meter. The Thames
Speaker 1: tide also comes in fast, upward of five miles an
Speaker 1: hour that's about eight kilometers an hour. This enables the
Speaker 1: current to scour the river bed and push out a
Speaker 1: literal treasure trove of valuables toward the shoreline, where they're
Speaker 1: left behind as the tide more gently recedes. Of course,
Speaker 1: technically you can mudlark the shores of any river in
Speaker 1: the world, but if you want to mudlark in the Thames,
Speaker 1: you've got to get a permit from the Port of
Speaker 1: London Authority. That process takes at least four weeks and
Speaker 1: costs about thirty five pounds a day for a standard license.
Speaker 1: With that license, you're allowed to dig about three inches
Speaker 1: or seven and a half centimeters into the mud and
Speaker 1: are expected to replace the ground you disturb to help
Speaker 1: preserve the environment and food chain. For the river's wildlife,
Speaker 1: protecting the foreshores, natural and agricultural resources, and keeping mud
Speaker 1: larkers and other citygoers safe is of utmost importance. Thus
Speaker 1: there are some zones where digging isn't allowed. Restricted areas
Speaker 1: include public infrastructure like passenger piers and gas pipelines of
Speaker 1: plus historic sites like the shore along the Tower of
Speaker 1: London and Queen Hive, which is a former Roman dock
Speaker 1: area that was later developed by the Saxon king Alfred
Speaker 1: the Great in the seven hundred CE. No permits are
Speaker 1: required to mudlark in the US. You may find objects
Speaker 1: of interest, but won't find the quantity and only very
Speaker 1: rarely the quality that you can find along the Thames.
Speaker 1: Miller said, we don't have, unfortunately, massive quantities of Roman
Speaker 1: artifacts exposed here. Regardless of where you mudlark, you may
Speaker 1: overlook a valuable artifact as junk or mistakeo worthless piece
Speaker 1: of debris for a valuable treasure. Finding lost treasures takes
Speaker 1: a trained eye and a good working knowledge of antiquities.
Speaker 1: Remember that wine bottle stopper Miller had the thrill of
Speaker 1: finding during his mudlarking excursion in the Thames. Some might
Speaker 1: have assumed it was trash, but Miller knew it was
Speaker 1: from the late seventeen hundreds because of the style of stopper.
Speaker 1: He explained, on handmade bottles from that time, there's an
Speaker 1: applied piece of glass just below the opening at the
Speaker 1: top called a string rim. That's where they tie a
Speaker 1: cord or wired to secure the cork in place. The
Speaker 1: style has changed over time, so knowing the style of
Speaker 1: the string rim, that's how I was able to date
Speaker 1: the wine stopper. Luckily, for those of us who aren't
Speaker 1: professional archaeologists, England has a system for identifying found objects.
Speaker 1: Your permit to Mudlark allows you access to collect, but
Speaker 1: it also explicitly says that you must give any fines
Speaker 1: over to an authority for evaluation. That authority is your
Speaker 1: local Finds Liaison officer, who has access to experts who
Speaker 1: can help identify what a found object is. These objects
Speaker 1: are also recorded in the Portable Antiquity Scheme, which is
Speaker 1: a project of the British Museum to track all historical
Speaker 1: artifacts that are found in the Thames and other locations
Speaker 1: across the UK. Miller said England has a Treasure's law
Speaker 1: on stuff like gold or silver or something like a
Speaker 1: complete Roman sword. Stuff that's really rare because that's the
Speaker 1: property of the people of England. If someone does find
Speaker 1: something of great value, museums have the right to purchase
Speaker 1: the item, for which the finder would be compensated. However,
Speaker 1: it's really lucky to hit that kind of jackpot, Miller said.
Speaker 1: Things like tobacco pipes, pieces of a bottle, a pig's jaw,
Speaker 1: a specimen of medieval pottery, or a thimble are so
Speaker 1: common and such domestic debris that museums already have thousands
Speaker 1: or millions of those specimens in their collection. If an
Speaker 1: item is reviewed and deemed not to be a treasure,
Speaker 1: the mudlarker can have it back. In the US, if
Speaker 1: you find something and are curious about its value, you
Speaker 1: can contact your state archaeologist or an archaeologist at your
Speaker 1: local college or university. The rules aren't as explicit here,
Speaker 1: but it's still a good thing to do, especially if
Speaker 1: you think you might have something uncommon on your hands.
Speaker 1: A university or museum might be interested in purchasing it,
Speaker 1: and it's really only polite, Miller said. As an archaeologist,
Speaker 1: I must emphasize that for things that are exceptionally rare
Speaker 1: that are part of our collective history. It really would
Speaker 1: be appropriate to notify the State Historical Trust or archaeologist
Speaker 1: about them. Trudging along riverbeds may sound harmless enough, but
Speaker 1: mudlarking can be dangerous, especially along the Thames with such
Speaker 1: tidal action. People have become so caught up and looking
Speaker 1: for objects that some have become stranded and swept off
Speaker 1: by the tide and had to be rescued. Other hazards
Speaker 1: include slipping on rocks, getting hit by speedboats or garbage barges.
Speaker 1: We're syncing into mudholes. You may also be at risk
Speaker 1: for Vile's disease nasty bacterial infection that can spread through
Speaker 1: rat urine in the water. Whether you find that an
Speaker 1: acceptable risk or not is up to you, but if
Speaker 1: you don't already have a permit, it may be a
Speaker 1: while before it matters. The part of London Authority only
Speaker 1: allows four thousand standard permits to be in play at
Speaker 1: any given time, each vallid for one year. Those are
Speaker 1: currently all accounted for. They do have a wait list,
Speaker 1: but it's currently capped at ten thousand. Perspective Mudlarkers, Today's
Speaker 1: episode is based on the article mudlarkers pull historical artifacts
Speaker 1: out of riverbank muck on HowStuffWorks dot Com written by
Speaker 1: Jennifer Walker. Journey brain Stuff is production of by Heart
Speaker 1: Radio in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com and is
Speaker 1: produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio,
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