"The Ambush That Changed History" Topic

""This is the soil of 2,000 years ago, where we are standing now," Susanne Wilbers-Rost was saying as a young volunteer pried a small, dark clod out of it. Wilbers-Rost, a specialist in early German archaeology, peered through wire-rimmed glasses, brushed away some earth, and handed an object to me. "You're holding a nail from a Roman soldier's sandal," she said. Atrim, short-haired woman, Wilbers-Rost has worked at the site, which is ten miles north of the manufacturing city of Osnabrück, Germany, since 1990. Inch by inch, several young archaeologists under her direction are bringing to light a battlefield that was lost for almost 2,000 years, until an off-duty British Army officer stumbled across it in 1987.

The sandal nail was a minor discovery, extracted from the soil beneath an overgrown pasture at the base of Kalkriese (the word may derive from Old High German for limestone), a 350-foot-high hill in an area where uplands slope down to the north German plain. But it was further proof that one of the pivotal events in European history took place here: in A.D. 9, three crack legions of Rome's army were caught in an ambush and annihilated. Ongoing finds—ranging from simple nails to fragments of armor and the remains of fortifications—have verified the innovative guerrilla tactics that according to accounts from the period, neutralized the Romans' superior weaponry and discipline…"
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Amicalement
Armand

I love the way these things are always 'stumbled over'. Nothing to do with the prior reading, discussion with locals, examination of the lay of the land and guidance from prior finds.

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

I love the fact that the article dates from 2006. Surely the last thirteen years have yielded more information? Sadly, Tony Clunn is no longer with us.

Swampster,
There was indeed prior reading, etc.
Clunn was advised by Wolfgang Schulter the archaeologist for the district of Osnabruke to search a specific area with his metal detector. This was hardly stumbling over his finds, he was looking for them.

There`s more here:
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