Untold stories of Tuapeka’s past revealed

Published date04 November 2021
Publication titleClutha Leader
Tuapeka Goldfields Museum’s ‘‘Life and Death on the Tuapeka Goldfields’’ exhibition, by master of science communication student Ruby Parker, discovers untold stories of Tuapeka’s past.

This new exhibition in the museum’s Goldroom will display artefacts of a Chinese miner, and of a woman possibly plying an illicit trade, and explain how modern archaeological excavation and scientific study of historic cemeteries was able to piece together details into individual stories of these regular people who lived and worked in the boomtown long ago.

Much of the information that built these stories was found by painstaking, recent excavation of well-known burial sites and the experts involved will be available to explain how their science managed this delicate process.

Ruby Parker will be on hand at the museum from 12 noon to 3pm on Saturday and Sunday to answer questions, while the nearby Touchstone Gallery will host a special talk from Dr Peter Petchey and Prof Hallie Buckley from the University of Otago at 11am on Saturday.

At Touchstone Gallery, the old Town Hall, Dr Petchey and Prof Hallie will discuss their research and findings from excavated, unmarked graves at St John’s Anglican Cemetery in Milton, and at the Ardrossan and Gabriel St cemeteries in Lawrence.

Their study of the farming and goldfield communities revealed insights into ordinary folk, many of whom chose to change their lives by beginning with a long, hazardous journey to New Zealand.

Mucking into a melting pot at the furthest-flung frontier of the British Empire, these mid-to-late 19th century...

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