Bronze daggers and shell jewellery: the Swiss teacher who unearthed the past

Symbolising the era in which archaeology emerged, just over 100 years ago amateur archaeologist Franz Wuillemin roamed the countryside around Thun, canton Bern, with a spade and a pickaxe, digging up the past. His finds are still valuable today.

Men armed with pickaxes and shovels trudged through the woods. They opened ancient graves and unearthed swords, jewellery and skulls. Whatever they found changed hands for money, disappeared into private collections or ended up in museums. “It was, in some respects, a Wild West,” Bern’s cantonal archaeologist Adriano Boschetti tells Swissinfo. At the same time, it marked the beginning of modern archaeology.

“Today’s archaeology builds on the work of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries,” Boschetti says. “Without these foundations, modern research would be inconceivable. At the same time, we’re frustrated today because so little was documented back then. As a result, information was lost.”

The Thun region in the Bernese Oberland in particular attracted such “renegade archaeologists”. They were teachers, foresters and municipal clerks who, in their spare time, made some astonishing discoveries.

Perhaps the most enthusiastic amateur archaeologist was François “Franz” Wuillemin, a teacher. Born in Berlin in 1879, he grew up in Gurmels, canton Fribourg. In 1898 he obtained his teaching qualification. After getting married, he moved to Thun. In 1906 he took charge of the senior class in the Thun hamlet of Allmendingen, while his wife, Marie, taught the younger pupils.

But Wuillemin was never just a teacher. Contemporaries described the man with a moustache and angular features as restless. He collected, observed and documented. His photographic archive in the Thun City Archives bears witness to this: it comprises hundreds of photographs of landscapes, caves, old houses and archaeological discoveries.

He also had a camera to hand, for instance when a gravel extraction site in the Wylerhölzli near Thun-Allmendingen brought a bronze dagger to light in 1920. Wuillemin secured the site of the find and continued digging. He was able to uncover two skeletons, one of an adult and one of a child.

Over the following months, he excavated further graves and made some interesting finds: jewellery made from sea snail shells – evidence that long-distance trade had already been taking place thousands of years ago.

The sanctuary beneath the ground

The Thun region continues to fascinate archaeologists to this day owing to its unique location between the Central Plateau and the Alps. Even in prehistoric times, major transport and trade routes crossed here. Wuillemin’s excavation site was situated between Thun and the villages at the entrance to the Simmental, a gateway to the Alps.

Time and again, he had his photograph taken on a prominent hilltop on the Strättli Hill, which he described as an “earth pyramid”, with the Stockhorn range in the background. The photographs show a man out in the countryside, wearing a hat and boots, gazing into the distance. The images are reminiscent of Caspar David Friedrich’s Romantic-era painting Wanderer above the Sea of Fog.

In fact, early archaeology was characterised by a thoroughly Romantic outlook: attention turned back to the origins, to a hidden world beneath the surface.

And often, a mere chance encounter was enough to uncover this world. In 1926 a farmer was ploughing a field in Thun-Allmendingen. Suddenly, he came to a halt: the ploughshare had struck something hard in the ground. When a large stone was uncovered, it became clear that it had been shaped by human hands.

This brought a site back into the spotlight that had almost been forgotten. Roman remains had already been documented here in the 19th century. After that, all trace of them was lost. Wuillemin began excavations, uncovered a large stone bearing an inscription and discovered fragments of a marble statuette.

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With every find, it became clearer that a sprawling Roman temple complex had once stood here, where people worshipped the gods and offered sacrifices. The amateur archaeologist meticulously documented find spots and stratigraphic sequences. His notes and drawings continue to assist archaeologists to this day.

Pile-dwelling finds led to a rethink

Wuillemin continued to excavate right up until the end. As late as 1955, he was exploring a cave with his son and found Stone Age arrowheads inside. A year later, he suffered a stroke and died. This period also marked the end of an era: that of the archaeological mavericks who dug and collected on their own initiative.

However, the change had already begun earlier. In the 19th century, the discovery of pile-dwelling sites during the Jura river regulation project in Switzerland sparked a veritable archaeological frenzy. Sites were looted and artefacts sold off abroad. Eventually, the state was forced to intervene.

The real turning point came with the Swiss Civil Code, which came into force in 1912. For the first time, it regulated the handling of archaeological finds throughout Switzerland. Antiquities of scientific value belong to the canton in which they are found – so the law stated.

This shifted the perspective. Finds were no longer personal spoils, but part of a shared heritage. This regulation continues to underpin the protection of historical monuments to this day.

However, as Boschetti emphasises, the amateurs have not disappeared. “Local experts still make an important contribution today.” However, the issue of digging is already problematic. “Anyone who actively disturbs the ground or uses technical aids, such as metal detectors, needs a permit,” he says.

Not everything has been discovered yet

The fact that not everyone is allowed to dig as they please these days does not mean that nothing new is being discovered. During the scorching summer of 2003, significant finds were made in the glaciers at the Schnidejoch. At an altitude of almost 2,800 metres between the Bernese Oberland and the Valais, melting ice revealed artefacts dating back to around 4,500BC – making them around 1,000 years older than the glacier mummy Ötzi. “Those were sensational discoveries,” Boschetti says.

Nevertheless, archaeologists today are less interested in individual spectacular finds than in the bigger picture. And archaeology today also means leaving things where they are. “We can never excavate everything, and future generations will probably have better methods than we do,” Boschetti says.

A thought that Franz Wuillemin would probably have struggled with. His urge to follow every trace back to its source was simply too strong.

Edited by Balz Rigendinger. Translated from German, sub-edited by Thomas Stephens