What historical artefacts do we value in this country? Or is everything just rubble to be bulldozed and forgotten, blown up and shipped overseas as dust?
Two examples from this month.
A few weeks ago, a convict-era pub in Sydney — the Royal Oak Hotel, in the suburb of Parramatta — began to be demolished to make way for a light rail.
It was one of Australia’s most historic hotels.
It was built around 1830 by a man named John Tunks, whose father was a First Fleeter called William Tunks, who had served as a marine in the American War of Independence and then onboard HMS Sirius — the flagship of the First Fleet.
an excavator tearing into a building
John Tunks’ mother was Sarah Lyons, a convict on the Lady Juliana, the infamous ‘Floating Brothel’ that arrived in Sydney in 1790.
Everywhere you look in early Sydney, the Tunks left their mark.
They have a huge family vault in Parramatta’s St John’s Cemetery — the oldest surviving European cemetery in the country, notable for the graves of more than 50 First Fleeters and early settlers.
One of the oldest cricket grounds in Australia, North Sydney Oval, owes its life to John Tunks’ son, also called William, who dedicated the land for a public park and cricket ground as local mayor in 1867.
But after 180-odd years, and despite the NSW Office of Environment & Heritage acknowledging the Royal Oak Hotel was “relatively rare in its age”, the pub has been razed.
Mining giant Rio Tinto has destroyed something so ancient in WA it’s hard to fathom with a human brain.
Two rock shelters, recognised as one of Australia’s oldest known Aboriginal heritage sites — with evidence of human occupation from over 46,000 years ago — were destroyed last weekend.
“This site was something special. It was a massive cave, it had such a rich cultural deposit, such an old occupation.
“And so significant in that respect, that it’s one of those sites you only excavate once or twice in your career.”
How can we put the loss into perspective? Can our brains comprehend deep time?
According to historians, written language was invented around 5,500 years ago. The Great Pyramid of Giza, the oldest of the seven wonders of the ancient world, was constructed around 4,500 years ago.
So go back a further 40,000-odd years.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-31/wa-heritage-destroyed-by-rio-tinto-example-of-national-trend/12305298