In the early 20-ies in Australia, in the city of Melbourne, an amazing story happened: during the preparatory earthworks for the future foundation of the Capitol Theater, workers found a vertically standing wooden fence under a layer of clay 1 meter deep. The fence boards were still quite solid and neatly lined up. A wooden sidewalk was excavated at the base of the fence. In 1923, this was a real archaeological mystery: after all, this fence was located under a recently demolished building, which was built in 1865.
Here is a brief chronology of events: The Capitol Theater was built by a group of Melbourne businessmen. The theater project was approved on February 9, 1923, construction began.
In the place where the theater was supposed to be built, there were residential buildings built in 1865. These houses were demolished and a wooden fence was found in a layer of clay at a depth of 1 meter. Archaeologists in the 1920s were unable to explain this find. Why is the fence so unusual? It is interesting in that the city of Melbourne itself was founded as a European settlement only in 1835. This date is also the date of arrival of the first European settlers in this area. so that until 1865 no city stood there could be no wooden fences.
Everyone safely forgot about this story with the excavated fence and remembered about this case only in 2017 during construction work, when a whole block of houses buried in clay was discovered. Here is a photo from the excavation:
We see surviving brick and stone walls that were completely buried in clay.
Melbourne is a very young city by historical standards. The first settlers appeared in 1835, built houses, and for some reason their houses in the 1860s were abandoned and covered with clay. On the site of these buried houses, new houses were built in 1865, one of which was demolished in 1923 during the construction of the Capitol Theater. Others were demolished in 2017.
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Also, during the reconstruction of an intersection on one of the busiest streets in Melbourne, the remains of two ramparts were found in the clay. A cart was found next to them, which they were pulling. This is an even stranger story: if it were just an animal burial, why is there a cart nearby? It turns out that the owner of the ramparts loved their animals so much that, according to ancient Egyptian customs, he buried the cart they were carrying next to the oxen? Very strange events happened in Melbour in the 19th century!
But Australian scientists have found an explanation for this. In their opinion, everything is very simple to explain: the first settlers built their houses in low-lying, swampy places. After the rain, the streets turned into an impassable swamp, where horses and carts were stuck. Because of the dampness in their homes, people were often sick, so the city administration decided to make life easier for people and save them from dampness and dirt. In 1853, a law was passed that required residents of low-lying areas to fill their houses and plots with soil themselves. If the owner of the house refused to bury his house, then the city administration itself raised the level of the site, charging a compulsory payment from the landowners. This is how people, where voluntarily, and where and forcibly fell asleep their houses.
Historians have a good version, of course, but I am confused by several points.
First is the fence. Let's say a person voluntarily falls asleep in his house. But why doesn't he save his property? After all, this is a new city. It seems to me that in a new place, building materials are always in price. Really, before filling the house, could not a person remove the fence and, after raising the soil, return it to its place? But no, he does not protect his property, but simply covers everything he has acquired with clay. Or here's a brick fireplace:
After all, it could be disassembled, and then folded again in a new house. But people weren't just burying stone fences. They threw good dishes and bottles. It seems to me that these are things that are necessary in the economy, especially on the underdeveloped continent.
This story is like a carbon copy written from the history of Seattle and Chicago: settlers come, settle in swampy places, then when people get tired of living in mud, they raise the level of the ground in the city by several meters …
Let's now check if Melbourne was really so swampy in the middle of the nineteenth century. In June 1835, the territory in which Melbourne is now located was surveyed by John Battman, who entered into an agreement with eight chiefs of the Varum Jerry tribe to sell 600,000 acres of land, which is no less than 2,400 square kilometers. In August, the first settlers arrived in these territories. In 1837, the city was named Melbourne, and a city development plan was also adopted. Since the discovery of gold in the state in the 1850s and the start of the gold rush, the city has grown rapidly.
In the 1850s, many of the city's most famous buildings were built: the parliament building, the treasury building, the state library, the university. The city's central quarters were well planned, with numerous boulevards and gardens and parks in the city. You read and rejoice at how everything was clearly planned and built. Only this all contradicts the story of the swampy area and improperly built houses.
A very interesting situation emerges. We have two official stories of the city: the first story is very correct and beautiful. Settlers arrived on new lands. In 1837, a correct plan for the development of the city with roads, boulevards and parks was adopted. But for some reason, this story does not say anything that Melbourne was built on wetlands, the roads were impassable, the houses were damp, and people were sick because of this, and therefore the city administration forced people to bury their houses. All these details in the history of Melbourne appeared only after 2017, when several quarters of houses buried under clay were excavated.
We need to believe either the first version of the Melbourne story, where everything was built according to the plan, or not believe the first story and believe in the second, according to which people built houses without any plan in the lowlands in some swamps and after everything was built, they buried everything their acquired property.
Let's decide together which story to believe in. Or maybe you don't need to believe in any of these versions, because we have this interesting date - 1850. Mid-19th century, the time of fires in America and photographs of empty cities in Europe …