Human skulls, Roman bottles, Tudor shoes: the history of London through objects found in the mud of the Thames

Lara Maiklem (Surrey, 52 years old) has seen at least three corpses floating in the River Thames.

And many other human remains from bygone times, tibias, skulls, jaws with teeth still inserted: people who fell from ships accidentally, who died in battles, who took their own lives or who were thrown into the water because someone wanted to get rid of them. his corpse (and that it was never known again).

Maiklem, in fact, found a skull near the estuary which she named Fred: it was 300 years old and probably belonged to a prisoner in a prison in the area.

It's not about that either, but rather about finding those objects that a city as populous and with a history as long as London has been leaving on the river that runs through it.

“The river is omnipresent in London, but sometimes we don't seem to even see it,” explains Maiklem, author of the book

(Captain Swing).

There she recounts the adventures and findings of him as

, that is, as one of those diggers that take advantage of the low tides (the advantage of the Thames is that it is a tidal river) to scrutinize the mud and find the gifts of other times.

“People love it, because we all have a hunter gatherer inside us,” she says, “it's the excitement of finding something you weren't expecting.”

Handmade copper alloy pins, circa 1400-1600, found by Lara Maiklem on the banks of the Thames.

Photo courtesy of the publisher.

Mudlarking has

been an activity linked to the lower classes of society.

“It has existed since there are people so poor as to go looking for what other people throw away.

The term begins to be used at the end of the 18th century, referring to these people who live on the margins.

It was a way of survival, but now it has become a hobby, ”says the author, who has popularized the activity on social networks under the name of The London Mudlark.

Her book is also a reflection on the history of the city and also "a love letter" to the river: "It's a beautiful ugly place, like all of London, which is a bit of a badass," she jokes.

Roman bottle stoppers, 19th-century lead types (from the bookbinder TJ Cobden-Sanderson, who dumped 500,000 pieces into the river, where Hammersmith came from), Tudor-era bricks, a medieval pilgrim's band, a 16th-century sword , a container from the Iron Age… The Thames is the longest archaeological bed in England: thousands of objects kept in museums come from its banks.

For example, the famous Battersea shield, a Celtic bronze piece dated between 350 and 50 BC.

C., now in the British Museum.

To start looking, it is recommended to consult old maps and go where there is or has been human activity: warehouses, docks, workshops, bridges or wharves.

That is why it is also common to find pieces without much value, associated with daily life: iron chains, wooden bowls,

the handle of a copper frying pan, beads, keys, nails, pieces of string, or the pegs of a musical instrument.

“Personally, this list transports me to other times, and at the same time it is very familiar to me,” writes Maiklem, who in 2022 was elected a member of the Society of Antiquaries.

The history of the anyone

Thus, in the mud of the Thames, the

find the remains of the history of anyone, not that of kings, dynasties and great military campaigns, but that of the ordinary citizen who tried to survive by the river in a city. more and more crazy.

One of the reasons why many antiquities are found, in addition to those that people threw into the water, is that in other times the waste was used to fill and give strength to the retaining walls of the river and other structures.

When these erode or are damaged or demolished, the pieces are released, as if they were stored in the freezer of History.

There is legislation that regulates which pieces

and which ones have to be delivered to the Museum of London, which draws heavily on these finds.

There are objects considered "treasures" by the State: they must be over 300 years old and have at least 10% by weight of precious metals, for example, although there are other types.

Of course, there is also a large amount of contemporary material in the waters, especially related to hygiene or medicine: bath toys, combs, colostomy bags, syringes or toothbrushes.

And, be careful, one can run into wastewater, of which the equivalent of 7,200 Olympic-sized swimming pools are dumped into the river a year.

Today the Thames is one of the cleanest urban rivers in the world, but in the mid-20th century it was so dirty and neglected that it was considered “biologically dead”.

Had to face an operation

The 'mudlarker' Lara Maiklem rummaging along the banks of the Thames, in London.

Photo courtesy of the editorial.Michael White

Not everyone can do it: to practice

need a license.

And to be a member of the distinguished Society of Scavengers, founded in 1962 by Harry Mostyn, curator of the National Maritime Museum, which is another level, it is necessary to have held the standard license for two years and have made contributions to the Museum of London.

There are those who use metal detectors and who dig holes in the ground, but Maiklem is not in favor of this last practice, because it can seriously damage buried objects and the riverbank itself.

She prefers simply to look at the surface, to take in what the river offers her with the naked eye.

Maiklem started

when she moved to the capital from the family farm in Surrey in the early 1990s: as a restless young woman she was bored with rural life and wanted to go be dazzled by the lights and chaos of London.

And she did.

Back in London, the Thames was just an obstacle that she crossed slumped in the back seat of a taxi when she returned, at dawn, from discos and crazy parties.

But one day she noticed him... and she felt good, like she was coming home.

For his homework, in fact, he retains some skills from his country past: the supple back of a family used to picking potatoes and the full attention to small things that his mother instilled in him, who liked to pay close attention to everything (even until it becomes somewhat irritating).

Now Maiklem pays close attention to what the riverside mud harbors and has adapted his gaze to interpret it, just as a scientist learns to interpret what he sees under a microscope.

In nature there are few straight lines, few perfect shapes, so detecting them in the mud is a way of detecting what has been made by human hands.

Some dangers of getting lost in the river

The practice of

has mental advantages, as a way to develop patience in rushed times, to relax away from the

, to isolate yourself from the outside world, to practice mindfulness by forgetting worldly problems.

Although this absence from this world in pursuit of the search can be dangerous: “You have to be aware of the tide, which can rise quickly while you are distracted.

And you also have to be careful in areas where the mud is very deep and you can sink”, warns the expert.

Child's shoe from the Tudor period, around the 16th century, found on the banks of the Thames by Lara Maiklem.

Photo courtesy of the publisher.

Sometimes Maiklem finds bottles with messages inside, messages that are children's tales of dragons and princesses or that are intimate scribbles, farewells to loved ones who have gone forever or psychological demons that someone wants to conjure up by delivering them to the river, as a therapy, as a spell, in a river that also has a long magical, religious, spiritual past.

"Sometimes searching the river is like reading people's newspapers: love letters, old photographs, engagement rings appear...", says the author.

The precious “witch bottles” also appear with some frequency, but not too much: containers filled with urine, nails, hair or fingernails that served to protect from hypothetical evil spells.

But Maiklem's favorite find is a small boy's shoe from the Tudor era, in the 16th century: “The mud keeps the fabrics as they were when they ended up in the river, so this shoe is perfectly preserved, you can see perfectly the shape of the fingers of the child who used it, a hole where the big toe... It's like a trip back in time.

For that feeling, for discoveries like this, it is worth spending hours and hours in the damp and cold searching the banks of the Thames”, concludes the

.

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