The Manchester of the 19th century was a different place. One that inspired Marx and Engles to write about economic equality for all. The people of the city lived in squalor, in dingy crowded little rooms. Disease ran rampant through them, killing them slowly and spreading to the next. And like their lives, invisible to the mill and factory owners that overworked them, they were invisible in their deaths.
Until now. The new Coop headquarters building is unearthing Angel Meadow, or Hell on Earth:
Working in the shadow of the Co-operative's CIS Tower, his team is slowly piecing together the lives of Manchester's Victorian poor from household artifacts they have found such as glass bottles, broken crockery, rosary beads and a doll's head.
Importantly, they've revealed some of the dingy 10ft by 10ft cellars which, in the 1840s and 1850s, would probably have housed an entire family of three generations as well as a lodger. A yard with a pig which fed on rotting vegetables and human waste was a common addition.
BBC Manchester
And in addition to verifying claims of poverty and investigating how Manchester's poor lived, there's a murder to solve.
A murder inquiry is under way after a woman's skeleton was found wrapped in carpet on a building site in Manchester city centre.
The bones were unearthed after a skull was spotted by workmen at a site on Miller Street, near the CIS Tower.
It was treated as non suspicious until post-mortem tests found the woman had a fractured neck, collarbone and jaw.
Police are unsure how long the body has been there and are now looking through missing persons files.
BBC Manchester
Who says archaeology is boring?
(Thanks to Maddie!)
0 comments:
Post a Comment