The Romney Marsh Sound Mirrors at Denge. The 30-foot acoustic mirror dominates the foreground, with the 20-foot mirror beyond and part of the impressive 200-foot sound wall visible in the distance. Image Credit: Author's image.

I spend quite a bit of time searching old newspapers. Usually I'm looking for something quite specific, but every now and then another story appears that sends me off in a completely different direction.

This series has gradually drifted, almost without meaning to, from objects pulled out of the ground to things that are harder to pin down. The earlier entries had weight to them. Gold, wood, bone. You could point to them, measure them, argue over them in a practical sense. This one sits a little differently. It still belongs in the margins, but the edge it occupies is closer to the present, and less certain.

In 1971, two small stone heads were uncovered in a garden in Hexham, Northumberland. They were found during routine digging, nothing deliberate. At first glance, they did not appear especially significant. Roughly carved, heavy for their size, with exaggerated features. They were taken indoors.

Ötzi and the Problem of Being Too Well Preserved

On 19 July 1545, the Mary Rose capsized in the Solent during an engagement with the French fleet. She went down quickly, in calm conditions, and within sight of Henry VIII, who was watching from Southsea Castle. Hundreds of men were lost.

Whilst doing some research over the last couple of days, I came across these World War Two defences still in place in Chelmsford, Essex, and being relatively close, I decided to go and see them for myself.

The Antikythera Mechanism and the Problem of Being Too Early

When Howard Carter uncovered the sealed tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922, the discovery was immediately recognised as extraordinary. Unlike other royal burials in the Valley of the Kings, this one was largely intact. Objects lay where they had been placed more than three thousand years earlier. The moment carried a sense of intrusion as much as triumph.

History is usually written as a chain of evidence. Dates, objects, conclusions.

I went down to Execution Dock on Sunday morning with my friend Darryl, making the most of a low tide and a clear run of time. We parked near the Captain Kidd pub and stepped down onto the Thames foreshore just as the river had reached its lowest ebb. It felt like a narrow window. Miss it, and the place remains largely inaccessible, separated by water rather than distance.