And the most amazing information is still coming to light.' Superb workmanshipīack in the lab at the Faculty of Archaeology Rachel Schats points to the next spectacular find: a skull with a very well maintained set of teeth and enamel that simply gleams with good health. And even today - eight years after the excavation - they spend two days a month in the archive. 'They helped us in the first instance with cleaning the bones, and later they did an enourmous amount of work in the Waterlands archive. Around 400 of the 8,000 residents of Middenbeemster are members of the association, which is a remarkably high percentage. ‘The Historical Association of Middenbeemster was an enormous help here,' Hoogland says. Thanks to this discovery, the archaeologists were able to decipher an old layout of the graveyard. This was the first instance where a grave could be linked to a particular name. 1833, 79 years old, was hammered nail by nail in the lid of the coffin. This man, Dirk Olij (see the box), had had the lid of his coffin decorated with small metal nails. It was initially a difficult process but then one of the long-deceased Beemster inhabitants offered a solution. Hoogland, Schats and other colleagues succeeded in identifying 120 of them. Ultimately 412 skeletons were brought to the surface, all of which were buried between 18. 'Dozens of Leiden's archaeology students have also learned the finer points of excavation techniques here.' 'Middenbeemster isn't only of scientific value for us,' Professor Menno Hoogland who led the excavation explains. Paintbrushes and vacuums were used to remove the final remnants of sediment with the utmost care. They were busy with their shovels and trowels removing the soil layer by layer to reveal the coffins and their skeletons. Visitors to Middenbeemster in 2011 would have seen the students at work among the graves. Rachel Schats arranging Sara's bones in the correct position 'And that makes us the more pleasant option.' Sometimes Leiden University is given the opportunity to excavate the skeletons for scientific research. ‘In Middenbeemster it was either us or the mechanical digger,'Shaats says. Old graves have to make way for new ones, and there are times when a complete graveyard has to be cleared. That's not so unusual: in the over-full Netherlands, being laid to rest for eternity is an illusion. When the Protestant church wanted to build an annex, the graveyard had to be cleared. Sara is just one of the 412 skeletons excavated in Middenbeemster in 2011. That's somethng I wouldn't have expected in a farming community 150 years ago.' Excavating is something you can learn In spite of her physical handicap, she played a full part in her community. Everything points to her having been a respected member of the community. And even more surprising: she married and had rather a lot of children. ‘We have found Sara in archive documents, which have given us some interesting details about her. ‘It's a remarkably interesting find,’ Schats comments. In around 1850 she could be seen walking arond Middenbeemster, just 1.30 metres tall. The woman suffered from dwarfism, and probably never stood taller than the chest of her adult contemporaries. But, if you were to climb onto the work bench and lie next to her on that bubble plastic, it would immediately be obvious that there is something not quite right. Sara lies there, stretched to her full length. Archaeologist Rachel Schats had arranged the skeleton in perfect order, from the shin bone to the femur and from the vertebrae to the skull. She died in 1863, and her cleaned and polished bones are all that remain of her. Sara (66) lies stretched out on a triple layer of bubble plastic on one of the work benches at the Faculty of Archaeology - or at least her bones do.
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