[nfbmi-talk] story about blind archeologist

[joe harcz Comcast]

Blind archeologist uncovers ancient childbirth inscription

By

Dan Vergano,

USA TODAY

Updated19h 13m ago

 

A legally blind archaeology student uncovered one of the oldest depictions of childbirth yet found, inscribed on a pottery sherd from an Etruscan temple

site, perhaps 2,700 years old.

 

20/etruscanx-wide-community

CAPTION

SMU; UT-Arlington

 

"I am visually impaired, almost totally blind, so I needed to find an archeology role where I could work on new excavation strategies," says William Nutt

of the University of Texas at Arlington. He found one at the

Mugello Valley Archaeological Project

field school run by Southern Methodist University at the site of Poggio Colla, in Italy.

 

Thought to hold the ruins of a 2,700-year-old pilgrimage site or religious sanctuary for an underworld deity, the site allowed Nutt and his wife Hannah,

also a student, to work out a method of using a trowel with his right hand, while feeling layers of earth with the other.

 

"It was almost the first thing I found," he says of

the inscribed pottery.

Inspection reveals what may be one of the oldest depictions of childbirth found in Europe. Although the Etruscans, who preceded the Romans as rulers of

much of northern Italy, were famously frank in some of their tomb art, the child birth image represents a novel find. The inscription was likely repeated

on a bowl left at the site, Nutt suggests. Researchers plan to present the inscription to other scholars at a Philadelphia archeology meeting in January,

Nutt says.

 

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/10/blind-archeologist-uncovers-ancient-childbirth-inscription-university-texas-william-nutt-etruscan-/1