ÿþ<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"> <html lang="en"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <meta name="keywords" content="uneven days, unevendays"> <meta name="description" content="Uneven Days"> <title>Uneven Days - How did they live?</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../standard.css"> <link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico"> </head> <body> <div class="headimage"> <img src="../unevendays.gif" alt="unevendays"></div> <div class="nav"> <a href="http://www.last.fm/user/unevendays">Music</a></div> <div class="nav1"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1052328">Books</a></div> <div class="nav2"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/unevendays/">Photos</a></div> <div class="nav3"><a href="http://unevendays.livejournal.com/">Blog</a></div> <div class="nav4"><a href="../writing/index.html">Other Writings</a></div> <div class="nav5"><a href="http://books.dreambook.com/zaf/unevendays.html">Guestbook</a></div> <div class="nav6"><a href="mailto:kindle@unevendays.co.uk">Contact</a></div> <div class="navhome"><a href=../index.html">Home</a></div> <div class="main"> <div class="head">How did they live?</div> [ <a href="index.html">Writing</a> ] [ <a href="../index.html">Home</a> ]<br><br> They broke through into the building that hadn t seen the light for five hundred years. They trowelled the ash away carefully into the holding cells above for examination later, carefully exposing the building. Now that they had found the building, they quickly found a room inside. They removed the ash from inside by the trowel-load  it was a blessing that the roof had been lifted earlier in the excavation.<br><br>  Good work, everyone, said the director of the project, when the first skeleton s foot was uncovered. Work slowed as the excavator assigned to the bones began to use the brush transporter instead of the trowel, but the others carried on around her. However, it soon became clear that the room was full of the dead.<br><br> The skeleton was sprawled to the side of a chair made of a primitive plastic, it turned out. The seat had decayed a little, but much remained. Even the cloth plastic fibres were largely intact. Fragments of the cloth that had fallen from the main chair were sealed into protective cells along with the precise location in the 4D grid provided in the brush s microcomputer. There was no need for photography, as each brush and trowel had a live video feed back to the base computer. <br><br>  What is it, do you think, Dr Robinson? asked one of the diggers.  What were they all doing here? <br><br>  I m not sure yet, he replied.  It could quite well be a  waiting-room , but that s only a vague impression. In fact, I doubt it is, for it would be documented. This is a university-owned building, I think. It will help us greatly to find out what these buildings were used for. <br><br>  I see, <br><br>  Wait& Clarissa has found something else. The director went over to where Clarissa had unearthed something interesting. There was a step up, with a plastic table, behind which a skeleton had been found on the floor, with no chair. Was this someone who had just arrived? <br><br> Several excavators had found some wonderfully well preserved artefacts near to the skeletons they were uncovering. Thin tubes about 12 cm long were associated with virtually every skeleton, for a start. They looked like primitive laser pointers, or maybe that mysterious pre-digital object, the pen. No-one was really sure what  pens were for, but these were some of the best preserved ones ever found. Primitive watches, bunches of keys and crude and un-useful  phones were found  a far cry from the personal computer visors that most people had now. You couldn t even see the person you were talking to, apparently. They were also so bulky, and didn t seem to perform the most basic of usual computer functions! Archaeologists understood that they had separate computers that were too big to carry around.<br><br> In the far corner, the director supervised the uncovering of some primitive device that had been found on other digs. Never one this well preserved, however. They were called  OHPs , although no-one was sure if this was an acronym, and if so what it stood for. However, it helped pinpoint the date, as records were a little shaky around either side of the cataclysm. The devices, Dr Robinson knew, began to be used in the late 20th century and fell out of use by the 2030s. On the flat surface that had perplexed experts for years, there was a flat sheet of clear plastic. It seemed to have the vague imprints of writing on it.<br><br> Dr Robinson used a handheld device that had been used to great success on other faded writing, and was able to make out the words, and translate them.<br><br>   Archaeology Practicals  he read aloud, carefully, from the enhanced image.  26/01/2004. A precise date! Wonderful!  Fieldwork: how do sites form? How poignant  the owner of this device was an archaeologist. <br><br> The work continued: every scrap of material was put in protective cells. Once all the ash had been completely removed to the holding cells to be examined, they surveyed the empty room. <br><br> Technology had been set back by the disaster that had claimed these people, but it seemed so primitive. The excavators couldn t understand why these people had all been sitting in the room with an archaeologist. Couldn t they have spoken to him via a video feed? Was the technology that primitive, that they had to actually be in the same room? <br><br> The skeletons were moved into special cells designed for human remains. They would be examined by experts, and then placed in the special crypts for archaeological remains. They would be perfectly preserved if they were needed again. The native population would probably want to do their burial rites  they were still knee-deep in superstition here, even 500 years on  but the fact remained that they could be retrieved at need.<br><br> The excavators finished their work in silence. The connection between them and the dead seemed strong. These people hadn t dreamed of the disaster that was to occur later that day. By the science of the time, it must have seemed impossible! They had been, perhaps, learning to become archaeologists  now they were archaeology. <br><br> [ <a href="index.html">Writing</a> ] [ <a href="../index.html">Home</a> ]<br><br> </div> </body> </html>