Pieces of the Past

Stoneware ceramic fragment, 19th century.

 

Decorated with a smiling Maori chief, this fragment of ceramic was found by a crew replacing

a damaged stormwater pipe close to the

Heathcote/Ōpawaho River.

 

The partial writing on it suggests that it might have once been someone’s souvenir. It has survived

a high temperature trip through the Municipal Destructor. This smoke and stench-belching urban furnace consumed the contents of council collected rubbish bins from 1902 to 1938, all the while generating electricity and heating the public [swimming] pool. 

 

Once cooled and then crushed, the rubbish residue slag, or ‘clinker’, was found to be a very good road building material. No such thing as waste!

 

Hamish Williams, 2015.

Is an archaeogist who loves animals (especially cats!) and World War II military history.