• Expats
  • Grand Duchy of Luxembourg
    • Real Estate
    • Transportation
    • Luxembourg City
    • Politics and Government
    • Education
    • Luxembourgish Customs
    • Luxembourg History
    • Royal Family of Luxembourg
    • Finance and Banking
    • Business
  • Languages
    • Luxembourgish
    • French
    • German
  • Workplace
  • Leisure and Lifestyle
    • Holidays and Events
      • Schueberfouer
      • Christmas Market
      • Bazar International
    • Dining and Nightlife
    • Shopping
    • Parenting
    • Health
    • Luxembourg Wurst Magazine
    • Interviews and Profiles
    • Opinion
      • Wise Expat Sage
  • Greater Region
    • Belgium

Luxembourg Wurst

Knock A Shining Dog

Archeologists: current Luxembourg roadworks actually started 6000 years ago

November 22, 2017

Archeologists in Luxembourg: roadworks actually started 6000 years agoLUXEMBOURG-VILLE — Archaeologists working in the capital have uncovered artefacts that suggest many of the city’s most aggravating road construction projects currently underway have been going on since the end of the Neolithic Era.

Among the artefacts found in a dig near the Bierger-Center — just one of a dozen sites currently being excavated — are an ancient stone warning sign, bronze traffic cones, and reflective safety gear worn by a prehistoric road construction worker believed to have gone by the name Marco, as evidenced by his name being written on the collar.

“This is an amazing find, one that gives us a deeper appreciation for the slow pace at which streets in Luxembourg are expanded, repaired, and improved,” said Dr. Chantal Weber of the University of Wiltz. “Residents today complain about neighborhood roadworks taking weeks or months, when in reality most were started around the same time the Hittites and the Babylonians were planning summer trips to watch the glaciers recede in Central Europe.”

“The ancient dwellers of this area, as well as those journeying to work here — to herd goats in what’s now Cloche d’Or, or to spend eight hours in workshop huts in the Kirchberg plateau where they fashioned bronze ax-heads and breastplates — dealt with the same traffic problems we do today,” she continued.

Archeology: Luxembourg road worker
A reflective ibex-hide safety vest and hard hat that probably doubled as a soup bowl or toilet

“We must learn from these discoveries, and the lesson is this: don’t get your hopes up that one day all the construction will be finished, and that traffic will flow like mead out of an ancient earthenware vessel,” she said. “That will never happen. Once the workers have filled a trench, they are just going to dig it back up again, and such is the nature of existence. Just as the ancients knew this, so too must we.”

This is the second time this year that archaeologists in the region have found evidence of Bronze Age traffic congestion. In May, a team excavating a 2500-year-old site next to the A3 motorway near Livange uncovered a row of cigarette butts nearly two kilometers in length, a sign that ancient commuters were frequently stuck in long traffic jams.

Luxembourg Wurst t-shirts and hoodies on Amazon

Check out our archives of 700+ articles, enough to make your eyes bleed!

Filed Under: Featured Article, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg History, Transportation

Follow the Wurst

Follow the Wurst FacebookFollow the Wurst Twitter
Luxembourg Wurst t-shirts and hoodies
Luxembourg woman time travels

Oh no: friend traveled back in time to buy house at 1998 price, but now she won’t stop singing Backstreet Boys and trying to send everyone messages via AIM

Long CV resume zero experience

Dozens of Luxembourg companies report getting 6-page CV from applicant with zero actual experience

Asshole Luxembourg driver

For a good cause: this guy speeds through residential neighborhoods to raise awareness for how much of a fucking asshole he is

Corporate storyteller Luxembourg

Corporate storyteller thought he was meant to tell stories about corporations

About the Luxembourg Wurst

Disclaimer

Contact Us

Luxembourg Wurst © 2023