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2024-04-23 07:39:11
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 | The Privy
entry by Gatsby
6/7/2005 12:29 AM
| Oh man, this was a great night. D_Wrex and I were planning on doing a routine expedition, when it turned out to be one of the greatest finds we'd ever made.
Donning our suits and ties, we started out in style and felt positive about the evening. We walked around in some tunnels for a couple of hours while trying to figure out the answers to a few questions we had before entering, not solving anything. We were just about to leave, when D, for an unknown reason, decided to check out a side passage. He shouted back to me, "Come check this out!" He found an odd brick-off section that was actually on the side of the tunnel we were in, apparently running parallel to us. There was a fist-sized hole on the edge, and we thought maybe we could dig a little and make it big enough for one of us to look in and see what it was. So we did. It took about 10 minutes or so. It appeared to dead-end to the right, but kept going to the left. We got more excited and decided to make the hole big enough to actually enter the passageway to investigate thoroughly. This took 20-30 minutes.
As D was taking a turn digging, he suddenly found what was definitely a bone! He tossed it to me and, while I examined it, he found another - and another! He began tossing them to me while stating what he thought each of them were, "shoulder plate, finger, jawbone".
When we got in, we saw all kinds of interesting things - ceramic plates, bottles, glass, a frying pan, and more bones. We began what turned out to be a three hour archaeological dig. We chose our own stations and carefully unearthed many artifacts ranging from broken glass to beautiful ceramic doll heads.
After awhile, we decided to see how far the tunnel actually went. I had to dig out a large portion of dirt so we could pass to another section, which appeared to keep going for quite awhile.
When we got through, we were in complete awe. Ahead of us was a long crawl tunnel filled with completely intact bottles, all of which were different from each other. Beautifully formed, some had text molded into them. One said, "Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup - Thomas and Perkin Proprietors". The glass was also made into many different colors. We found a glass bell, and a tiny porcelain doll's body.
We crawled past this section and found a connection to more abandoned sewers beneath us. We climbed down a wet but gorgeous cliff and found 3 different passages. Each dead-ended pretty quickly, but one was brick-off. I'd like to get by that one at some point.
Making our way back out, D_Wrex mentioned his theory about what the hell all of this meant. He was right, as it turned out. 150 years ago, people used what they called "privies" to dump their waste in. Sometimes it was a hole dug right underneath their house. After 20 years or so, the hole would be full, and they would dig another hole on their property and move the house on top of the new one, filling the old hole with the dirt removed from the new one. A lot of times, the "privy" would be combined with the outhouse, so human waste would be a large part of the filling. Over 150 years or so though, poop becomes mere dirt, and it doesn't smell anymore. The tunnel that D and I explored didn't smell at all. It was actually quite pleasant.
We figured the bones that we found were most likely chicken bones, deer bones - bones from animals that the people had for dinner. We also found what appeared to be a bear claw! Someone probably shot a bear and ate it. I can see that happening 150 years ago.
The "garbage" we found was indeed in a tunnel, so apparently it was one of the first city sewer systems. Modern!
We're going to be on the lookout for more privies. We found that sticking our hands in old poop is really fun!
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