Gorinchem is on the eve of an exciting excavation in the city center: the Court of Arkel, on the future V&D site in the Krijtstraat. Expectations are high, because this is the first time that a professional company has been hired for archaeological research. To the delight of city archaeologist Pieter Floore, who has been employed by the municipality of Gorinchem one day a week since February. “City core archaeology is a profession in itself. You can easily dig for five weeks and find nothing at all.” Although the archaeological 'pel' level has already been reached in some places on the V&D site that is currently being cleaned up, Floore still has to wait until mid-August. Then the seven weeks will begin in which he, together with the Baac company and the working group of Gorcum amateur archaeologists, hopes to stumble upon the Hof van Arkel while digging.
This home of the prominent Van Arkels from Gorcum would be an important archaeological find for Gorinchem, Floore believes. “Actually, very little is known about this noble family and the founding of the city.” Near the Dalempoort, the Van Arkel Castle 'scooped up'. Floore, who studied at the University of Amsterdam, had previously been involved in excavations in Gorinchem on an ad hoc basis.
The first time he assisted the Archaeology working group with advice and support was six years ago, at the Happy Corner, an equally large-scale construction project in the city centre. Floore: “Archaeology was clearly still a necessary evil in Gorinchem at the time. There was hardly any budget available, large parts of the site were inaccessible, and we were only given three weeks to dig. That was a shame, because it meant we could only expose a small part of the site.” A few years later, during the next large project in the city centre, things went a little better. The archaeologists were given five weeks then. And now, on the construction site of the new V&D on Krijtstraat, things are really starting to look like it. With its own city archaeologist, seven weeks to dig, and a budget of 120.000 to 140.000 euros from which a professional team of archaeologists can be hired, Gorinchem is at the forefront of the regional vanguard of contemporary archaeology morality. Floore: “Archaeology is really taken seriously in Gorinchem these days.”
This turnaround is not surprising. The stricter regulations in the field of archaeology (the Malta Convention) are gradually forcing municipalities to deal more carefully with their underground hereditary capital. For example, since this year, it has been mandatory to engage a professional archaeological service for excavations and archaeological research must be carried out for construction projects that go more than a metre deep. Simply driving piles into the ground and smashing everything underneath to pieces can no longer be sold to posterity, who also have a right to a portion of antiquity, is the idea behind this.
Although, according to Floore, it is still easy for municipalities to turn a blind eye to these new standards (after all, archaeological knowledge and supervision are lacking in many municipalities), the awareness of the invisible treasures under the ground will become clearly visible above ground in a few years, he expects. 'Municipalities and project developers will more often choose not to realize projects in a place where something important is under the ground. If only to save the costs of an archaeological investigation.' For example, the municipality of Gorinchem, in its expansion plans for the future growth district of Oost-Dalem, neatly and creatively took into account the prehistoric remains that are expected to be there 'and that are many times larger than what was found a few years ago in Hardinxveld-Giessendam during the construction of the Betuwelijn'.
Although a villa park was initially planned with neat clusters of houses on these meadows in the East, a more irregular design was chosen to save the subsoil, according to Floore. The fact that the archaeological treasure hunt is thus passing Floore and the fanatical amateur archaeologists of Gorcum by, is not seen by the down-to-earth Floore as a missed opportunity.
“Every excavation we do takes at least two years of work. We dig up piles and piles of crates of stuff from the ground. Because I only have to do my work one day a week, all that work quickly threatens to get out of hand.” Floore expects that the municipality of Gorinchem will need a full-time archaeologist in the future to be able to further professionalize. Floore, who in addition to his work for the municipality is also in a partnership for archaeologists, will not apply for this (office) vacancy. “I prefer to be in the field in my overalls. My heart lies in putting together that puzzle of how life used to be, time and again.”