RAMLA, ISRAEL—According to a report in The Telegraph, an excavation ahead of highway construction in central Israel uncovered hundreds of gin, wine, and beer bottles dating to the early twentieth century in a garbage pit. The pit was found near an old building converted into barracks for British troops under the command of Field Marshall Edmund Allenby, who was on a mission to capture Ottoman-controlled Jerusalem by Christmas of 1917. The beverages are thought to have been consumed in an officers’ club, since fragments of Italian porcelain plates were also recovered. “It’s an amazing discovery and it really gives you a sense of what these soldiers were doing and how they spent their spare time,” said excavation director Ron Toueg. The excavators also found toothbrushes, uniform buttons, shaving kits, and the silver tip from a short cane known as a “swagger stick,” a symbol of authority for Royal Flying Corps officers. To read in-depth about the recent excavation of a glass works, go to “Letter from Philadelphia: Empire of Glass.”
