Excavations at Redcliffs 1958. Madeline Reid

EXCAVATIONS AT REDCLIFFS...1958

THE crater steams, hill-ringed,

The volcanic bubble bursts,

A shell of stone holds silence,

Patterned by wind's hymn, gulls cry,

The sea's millenial murmuring

And no man by.

We found a cave at nightfall,

Built a fire, named our dead,

Mourning their swift souls' flight.

Stone walls contain despair,

Ash-covered hopes grow cold,

Outside a north wind roars,

Stars shudder,

Sleepers groan.

Red cliffs bulk and curve towards slow-breathing waters,

Upon the cave's sea floor careless centuries housekeep with sand and shards,

Within a mass, a bone, a comb, a blade

Court the bright spade.

Time passes; here is a claw upon my hand,

A shadow cast on time by some giant bird,

A hook of bone,

And look; a wooden head with eyes that watched a people die,

Sees now the Church of England Hall and washing on the line.

Madeline Reid

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The figure as illustrated on the cover of offprints to Trotter 1975.

This appeared in The Press at the time of the excavaton of the cave directed by Roger Duff and attended by members of the Archaeological Association. John Parry recorded the Auckland group's experience of the dig in a verse of his song To Delve into a Midden.

The wooden head referred to is an item (perhaps a godstick head) found in the work, by Bob Law, father of Garry Law. A re-enactment of its discovery appears in a contemporary newsreel Pictorial Parade No 76. There is a copy in the national Film Archive.

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Trotter, M M 1975: Archaeological investigations at Redcliffs, Canterbury, New Zealand. Records of the Canterbury Museum 9(3):189-220.