It is an exciting project for the project leader, who is also an archaeologist himself. “As an archaeologist, I think I know what is important and interesting. That is actually imposed on the population. But they may find another period in history much more interesting.”
The Hunebed Center will therefore set up a kind of election, in which the center itself makes a small pre-selection. “We leave the rest to the local population. If they want to know more about an excavation, we arrange an exhibition about it.”
Archeology, that sounds like searching for remains from prehistory. But that is a misconception. “All excavations where finds have been made fall under archaeology. The only condition is that it must have been underground for at least fifty years,” says De Roest.
“In Friesland, there has been a major excavation in recent years at a place where Moluccan people came to live when they first came to the Netherlands,” the project leader gives as an example. Closer to home, archaeological research has been conducted in the waste heaps of Camp Westerbork in recent years. “History tells the big story. What you find in the ground tells the story of the common man.”
Archaeological finds tell something about the place where you live. According to the Treaty of Faro, heritage belongs to everyone and everyone can derive identity and values from it. Presenting archaeological finds in such an accessible way is in line with this treaty.
“Whether you were born where the finds were made or not, it doesn’t matter. People need connection. You derive your identity from, among other things, the place where you live,” says De Roest. “Archaeological finds do not belong to bigwigs or museums, but to all of us. That is why the Treaty of Faro states that you should not hide them away. If you hide them in a depot, stories will be lost.”
After three months the exhibition disappears from a municipality, but the story is not meant to end there. “We want there to be twelve permanent projects,” says De Roest. “That could be a cycle route past historical places, a work of art about the find or perhaps there are people who want to make it accessible digitally. As far as I’m concerned, the projects all have a completely different character.