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THE DIG AT THE GLENROWAN INN SITE DURING MAY 2008.
'Exciting' finds in Ned Kelly dig. (The Age May 14)
Two cartridges and burnt artefacts have been excavated from the site
of infamous bushranger
Ned Kelly's last stand. Kelly was badly wounded and captured at
the Ann Jones Inn at Glenrowan, in north-eastern Victoria
on June 28, 1880 after he took 60 locals hostage and was involved in
a ferocious gun battle with police.
Heritage Victoria is overseeing the month-long project involving
six archaeologists, a conservator and
40 students who are mapping out the site and searching for relics.
Project director Adam Ford said the discovery of the two hard
brass cartridges is "fabulous" and he is
confident they date back to the siege.
"They are the right age, right location, so we are pretty
confident they are evidence of the gun battle."
Police moved from using soft brass cartridges to hard brass, just
weeks before the siege.
"This is very exciting. We had spent a whole week here moving
very slowly and trying to understand
the site so to find this is amazing," Mr Ford said.
The cartridges, which came from a Martini-Henry rifle, were
uncovered last Friday during a dig to the
north of the main site.
Mr Ford said an important part of the project was trying to
identify the original outline of the inn.
Two posts that date back to the original inn, burnt nails and
other burnt or ash covered remnants also
have been found this week.
"Today is very significant because we are really getting down to
where we are identifying outlines, form
and function.
"We're very happy with the progress at the moment, the remains
are in very good condition," Mr Ford said.
"The information is coming out of the ground every second,
really."
He said the burnt nails and posts were very "evocative" of what
happened on the site.
The archaeological site is very shallow - with many of the
remnants being found just 20 centimetres below
ground - because there has been only two other buildings on the site
since.
Once the dig is finished, all information gathered will be sent
to Heritage Victoria and LaTrobe University.
The data will be researched and analysed then added to the
existing history of the battle.
"The great thing about archaeology is we can look at it in a very
objective way," Mr Ford said.
"We're finding stuff that has not been looked at before, or seen
since the siege. That information can add
to the story of the siege, it's very exciting."
The dig, which started on May 5, continues for two and a half
more weeks.
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Archaeologists find bullet cartridges from Kelly siege
Posted Wed May
14, 2008
One of
the cartridges found at the scene of Ned Kelly's
last stand. (ABC News: Narelle Graham)
Archaeologists believe they have found more
evidence of the 1880 gun battle between Ned Kelly's
gang and police at Glenrowan, in central Victoria.
Bullet fragments were uncovered during excavations at the
former Anne Jones Inn site earlier this month.
Now archaeologists have revealed that two bullet
cartridges from a Martini-Henry rifle were discovered in
the northern section of the site on Friday afternoon.
Excavations Director, Adam Ford believes they came from
weapons that would have been used by police
at the time.
"They [the cartridges] were only released to the police
approximately two weeks before the siege event,"
he said.
"They were superseded reasonably quickly after the event.
I mean within a couple of years. S I feel quite
certain that they are physical evidence of the gun battle."
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Site of Ned Kelly's last stand being excavated.
Archaeologists have begun scouring the site
of Ned Kelly's last stand at Glenrowan.
It has been nearly 130 years since the shootout but they
hope to find artefacts from the siege that will shed new
light on the episode.
The dig is being conducted at what had been a vacant
block of land for the past 30 years.
Now the site of Ned Kelly's last stand is being scraped,
dug and sifted.
Project director Adam Ford says no stone is being left
unturned in the hunt for Kelly artefacts.
"I'm pretty sure we will find physical remains that I can
attribute to that night in June 1880," he said.
Kelly historian Gary Dean thinks the dig could help
substantiate rumours that Ned Kelly's brother Dan escaped
the siege and subsequent fire by hiding in a cellar.
"Actually locating the cellar means the story, the actual
oral histories from families that tell this story, means
it's probably a true story.
Archaeology students from La Trobe University will spend
the next four weeks working on the dig and they are excited
about working on the site of one of Australia's most fabled
legends.
Student Luke Falvey says it is a fantastic opportunity.
"I never thought that I'd be working on a site like this.
The guy's a legend and to be working on the famous shootout
site, it's just indescribable, really," he said.
As the dig begins, the exhumation of 20 sets of remains
has ended at the old Pentridge Prison.
It is hoped the remains include the bones of Ned Kelly.
Source: ABC News.
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Spade gang hoping to unearth Kelly relics at Glenrowan.
ARCHAEOLOGISTS will start a major month-long dig today on the
site of Ned Kelly's doomed siege at Glenrowan.
Heritage Victoria is overseeing the project involving six
professional archaeologists, a conservator and 40 student
volunteers.
They hope to map out the site and find relics of the Glenrowan
Inn, which police burnt down on June 28, 1880, in a bid to flush out
the Kelly Gang — Ned, his brother Dan, Joe Byrne and Steve Hart —
after it had kept 60 locals hostage.
The gang had ripped up train tracks 40 metres away, hoping to
derail a police train. But police were tipped off, and on arrival in
the north-eastern Victorian town troopers surrounded the inn — a
five-room weatherboard belonging to Ann Jones.
According to historian Ian Jones, four locals, including two of
Mrs Jones' children, died in the ensuing shootout, and Dan Kelly,
Byrne and Hart perished either from gunshot wounds or in the fire.
Despite his famous metal body armour, police shot and badly
wounded Ned Kelly and he was captured and sent to Old Melbourne
Gaol, where he was later hanged.
Bizarre stories of dancing, singing and card games held during
the siege later emerged. In his book Ned Kelly: A Short Life,
Mr Jones said that most of the hostages "stood in that strange
borderland between sympathiser and neutral".
Ann Jones rebuilt on the site with government compensation. A
later, 1890s wine shanty on the 80-metre by 25-metre block on Siege
Street was demolished in 1976 and the privately owned site is now
vacant.
The Rural City of Wangaratta received a $121,000 Federal
Government grant to excavate.
The project director, archaeologist Adam Ford, said the siege was
a "brutal gun battle" in which 15,000 rounds were fired.
It was a "momentous event in Australia's history" that still
polarised the town. "One challenge of the excavation will be
distinguishing what relics and deposits relate to the siege and the
inn, as opposed to periods before or after June 1880," he said.
Heritage Victoria senior archaeologist Jeremy Smith said the
project could help direct future use of the land for tourism, and
any remains or relics could be conserved and displayed, "in a way
that can help share the story of the Kelly Gang, particularly with
visitors to the region".
Source: The Age May 5.
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