Word: digging
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...tourists at ground level who poke their noses through the chain link fencing and peer past the scaffolding and sandbags are rewarded with a wholly different, riveting view of the famous piazza: underground. There, some 30 Italian archaeologists are digging through a cross section of history from the Bronze Age to medieval times. Exposed now is a Roman thermal bath with its frigidarium, or cold room, almost intact. And smack on top of that are the remnants of a tower dating from the 13th century era of the Ghibellines. With 86,000 sq. ft. of past at his feet, archaeologist...
...truth is that Florence almost did not let the archaeologists excavate the site. The ruins were discovered in 1974, but the city argued over courses of action for more than a decade. Finally, archaeologists won permission for a three-year dig, funded with some $3 million from the Ministry of Cultural Affairs. The deadline for completion is November 1989, when the city must repave the square for the onslaught of 1990 World Cup soccer fans. As a result, bits and pieces of Florence's past are visible for a month, or sometimes only weeks, then are re-covered with sand...
...often the tourists don't know what they're looking at. A tour group of Soviet emigres glanced briefly at an intact medieval basement and walked away, thinking they had come across some urban renewal project. Francesco Nicosia, the feisty archaeological superintendent for Tuscany who battled for permission to dig up the piazza, hopes to mount a midyear show to explain the history unearthed: a medieval city of giant towers sitting atop an important Roman city dating from the 1st century; Greek objects imported as early as the 8th century B.C.; even obsidian tools and pottery fragments probably imported from...
...outfoxes Ross Johnson in history' s biggest takeover tussle. The company will now have to dig out from a colossal load of debt. -- Interest rates hit the highest level in years...
...what the U.N. should be all about. I maintain that my idealism, which is based on some fairly rough experience, is a great deal more realistic than the totally defeatest notion that human beings are born to suffer and kill each other. If one believes that, one should go dig a deep hole and jump into...