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A hundred years after its first inception, the Wigan Golf Club, is at last to become an
18 hole course. The club has applied to extend its fairways by an extra 9 greens
over the fields next to Worthington Lakes. This includes the field we walked last
year in our study of Roman mining in the Arley Valley. Because of its archaeological
sensitivity, an assessment has been requested and possible excavations may be required
before construction begins. With this in mind, Norman Redhead from the GMAU came
down last month to examine the terrain with Adrian and myself. We showed him the
area we had walked and some of the pottery we had found. He was particularly
interested in the site of an old farm and may arrange for some trial trenching in the
area. He thought that our survey had been a very useful exercise and promised to
keep us informed of any future developments.
Programme
Apologies for last months meeting which, as you probably know, was cancelled due to
circumstances beyond our control (he didn’t jump after all). Ian Winstanley,
the speaker, has agreed to rearrange his talk for June. We have now a full programme
of speakers for the year, and here is the run down.
In July we have Tony Ashcroft from Leigh Library talking on local Funerary Rites.
September is John Johnson on Egypt (what else). In October we have, once again, Dr
Bain with the second part of his study of the ancient Rivington landscape. November
is Nicholas Web from the Record Office in Leigh and finally in December Eddy Pennington
has agreed to give us an update on the talk he gave on Pompeii.
Trip
A suggestion for the summer trip in August is that we visit Chester, which apparently
has the results of the latest Roman excavations on display. On the way we may be
able to call in at the boat museum at Ellesmere Port. We need to make a decisions soon so
early feed back on the subject please.
CBA AGM
This year the meeting is to be held at Liverpool University on the 8th May and as usual
there is a full programme of speakers including a talk on the ‘Discovery of a Roman
Saltworks near Crewe’. Unfortunately I will not be able to attend as I am away
on holiday, but if you are interested please see me at the meeting for more details.
Mummies
I hope you have all been watching the new series on Channel 4 entitled ‘The
Mystery of the Mummies’, particularly the first one, about the ancient Islands
culture on the Canary’s presented by Joanne Fletcher. If you remember, Joanne
came to Wigan a couple of years ago and gave us an excellent talk on Amenhotep III.
In the programme, she compared the similarities between the burial rituals of these people
and ancient Egyptian culture, suggesting a possible link.
In the last programme (in the series of three), a team of international archaeologists
set out to find remains of a little-known pre-Mayan civilisation called the
‘Zogue’. They occupied the Chiapas region of Mexico in caves hundreds of
feet above the Rio la Venta, and in an ancient complex swallowed by the jungle. In
1997 the intrepid explorers ventured into the jungle in search of this lost city.
Travelling on foot through the dense undergrowth for several days, the team finally
uncovered a towering stone wall that marked the entrance to the ruins of a Zoque religious
centre. It was comprised of five temples and a ball court where ritual games were
played. The archaeologists believe the site, built over 1000 years ago, was
originally covered in glistening stucco, and could have served both as a residence for
Zoque leaders and as a site for ceremonies. This was the lost city they were
searching for, the finest example of Zoque architecture and proof that this forgotten
people had had an advanced civilisation that had been at least the equal of the
Maya. If you are on the net and want more information, the web site is www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/laventa.
Next Meeting
(Wednesday 5th May at the history shop at 7.30 pm as usual.) This month’s
speaker is Angela Thomas from Bolton Museum who will be giving us a talk on ‘A Small
Village in Egypt’. By the way, we may need to think about a new venue for
future meetings as further restrictions have been imposed at the History Shop. We
will discuss the problem at the meeting.
Hope to see you there - B.A.
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