A couple weeks ago, a Pennsylvania construction crew was startled to dig up a century old mass grave site. This week, a Scottish construction crew uncovered something much less disturbing: a time capsule from the 1800s.
Crews from the construction firm Morgan Sindall were working on the Ruthvern Bridge in Kingussie, Scotland when they dug up a rusty metal box, the size of a typical shoe box. Inside that box was a newspaper clipping from September 1894, a paper scroll, and a bottle of what experts believe to be a bottle of whiskey.
Robert Ogg of Morgan Sindall told BBC, “"It is fascinating to think these items have been sitting in the bridge's structure for 121 years…the changes which have occurred since it was placed there are extraordinary. If you think that the bridge was being used by horses back then, it gives you a sense of the time which has passed."
The ancient artifacts have since been given to the nearby Highland Fold Museum for documentation and display. According to the Telegraph, the old bottle of whiskey could actually be worth a bit of money, citing the sale of a 140 year old bottle of beer that was uncovered during an Artic Expedition and sold at auction for roughly $925 US Dollars.
It’s a good lesson to learn to actually look at the earth you dig up at your projects, you may just be digging up some valuable and interesting history.
Video below, from BBC, shows images of the items contained in the time capsule:
Father’s Day 2021 is June 20, so you better get started on gift ideas if you want to impress dad this year. Whether your father is contractor, handyman, or DIYer, we’ve got a lot of great ideas for him this year.
For more more gift ideas, be sure to check out our past Father's Day Gift Guides from 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 or our Ultimate Construction Holiday Gift Guides from 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020
One of the toughest things to deal with on any project can be the relationships between owner and general contractor or the general contractor and subcontractor. In the worst case scenarios, tensions between those relationships can sometimes lead to one of those parties packing up their tools and walking off the job before it’s complete. But that action may make the situation a little hairier than you might expect, if you don’t do it the right way.
Autodesk announced the impending release of 3 new products, combining the best of all of their existing products and adding new features, at last year’s virtual Autodesk University. Those products (Build, Takeoff, and BIM Collaborate) are now fully available on a global scale, with Takeoff being the most recent release.
Last summer, we learned that Travelers Insurance believed that using Procore as a project management tool helped contractors reduce risk on their projects so much that they were willing to help pay for them to join the platform. That deal was previously limited to customers in 10 US states, but Travelers and Procore have collaborated to further expand that program.
[sponsored] OnTraccr, a new productivity app for construction, is looking to make their software accessible to everyone, by making it as simple and easy to use as possible, while still giving your company the valuable data it needs to survive in our constantly changing industry.
Podcasting opens the door to listen to and enjoy so many different perspectives from across industry and across the world. I’m absolutely thrilled by the continued growth of podcasting in the construction realm, because it allows us to listen to conversations that we normally wouldn’t have access to, many of which can be extremely important for shaping the future of our industry. One of the newer voices making her conversations heard is Kathryn Hart on her podcast, Space to Build.
At last year’s virtual Autodesk University, Autodesk announced a trio of new products: Build, Quantify, & BIM Collaborate. Build, the platform that combines the features of PlanGrid and BIM 360, is officially available on a global scale as of today.
Spot, the famous robot dog from Boston Dynamics, has been officially for sale to the public for less than a year, but the company has already announced major upgrades for the growing platform. Yesterday, February 2nd, Boston Dynamics held a launch event for 3 new Spot products: Enterprise, Scout, and the Spot Arm.
2020 was a challenging year in many respects, but none greater than from a safety standpoint. The coronavirus pandemic placed the notion of “people over profits” under the microscope, while also balancing the needs of their employees to continue to make an income under difficult circumstances. While the pandemic was a large part of the construction safety conversation last year, there were several other developments to take note of for your projects in the future.