GORINCHEM — The last days of the excavations of the House of Paffenrode On the Gorcumse Kazerneplein, the archaeologists and volunteers were shocked. On Wednesday night, a beer barrel discovered early last week was looted. The excavators call it the work of professionals. They knew exactly where to look.
The robbery also caused destruction. The crane did not escape the cowardly acts of the, as archaeologist Pieter Floore calls the perpetrators, 'money-hungry treasure hunters'. The crane was smeared and the crane operator, Jacques Pos, needed some time to repair the destruction.
Police report and interview by Philomena Bijlhout, RTV Rijnmond
"A lot has been destroyed," says Pieter Floore, who leads the excavations together with Martin Veen and Mathijs van Nie, bitterly. "It's really a shame and happens a lot during excavations. Those guys knew where and how to do it, because the pit was covered. This is certainly not the work of a few schoolboys. It frustrates your work tremendously. A lot of volunteer work is being thwarted in this way. It is also theft of state property. The Monuments Act applies to that. We had not yet excavated the bottom layer and there is a good chance that there were still whole objects there. We found a lot of seventeenth-century glass and pottery in the upper layers. Now we can no longer reconstruct, because a lot has been stolen and all the different layers have become mixed up." Each layer represents a period, so the shards are collected per layer and later glued together. After the rummaging through the pit by strange hands, it is no longer possible to determine which shards belong where.
Volunteer Tiny Wines: 'Everyone was different after the discovery of the robbery. People were tired. I'm angry. This has been a lot of work and the fact that this happened makes me feel bad. You do it for something and this makes you feel so angry.'
It was rewarding
Fortunately, the excavators also experienced happier situations last week. For example, a 'fairly large outbuilding' was found outside the main building, which cannot be found on any map. More and more ditches with sludge and many finds were also uncovered. From - among other things - those ditches came knives, keys and a lot of household waste. During the last few days, the archaeologists also found a cannonball and military decorations. The general opinion was that it was a very rewarding excavation. that it turned out that they had been looking for a very large, stately home. a very nice find was a holy water font made of blue natural stone. "In 1580, the urban expansion in Gorinchem was in full swing. Many medieval buildings were demolished at that time. Building materials were reused. As can be seen at the Huis van Paffenrode, where the foundations were built from reused materials. It is therefore possible that the holy water font also ended up there in this way.
Jan Robijns
Compass Active
September 9 1997