The SA Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA) now has a preliminary report on a startling finding — a burial site, believed to date back to the 1700s in a prime Cape Town development area, a University of Cape Town academic said on Tuesday.
”I e-mailed the report, which has 10 pages of main text and appendices that go on and on, late last night to SAHRA’s CEO Pumla Madiba,” said Dr Antonia Malan of the University of Cape Town’s Cultural Sites and Resources Forum on Tuesday.
The report sets out details of a public consultation process and includes suggestions on the development of the mass burial site discovered in the Green Point area, near Cape Town’s city centre.
Archaeologists and experts believe the site to be that of an 18th century burial ground where slaves and others found their final resting place.
”This is a test case and will have implications for other cities. How do you deal with a site that involves human remains in a city renewal context?,” said Malan.
”Every city is built and rebuilt on its history. This site has layers and layers of burials, from the pre-colonial right through to recent times. Marginalised people were buried there … passing sailors and babies, were packed into this burial ground. They were not put to rest in orderly rows and with due care.”
Malan said the ball was in SAHRA’s court and stakeholders ”await their statement with enormous interest. The matter now is between the city, the developer and SAHRA”.
Malan said she was currently finishing details for the final document, which would contain a ”full record” of all the meetings and comments.
The ”final” public consultation on the mass grave unearthed during construction in a prime position in central Cape Town took place at Alexander Sinton High School on Saturday.
About 50 people attended the report back on the public consultation process, done in terms of the conditions attached to an exhumation permit issued by SAHRA to the Archaeological Contracts Office on behalf of the developer, which allowed for a 60-day period of consultation from June 9 to August 16.
Malan said previously that the discovery was a ”test case for the implementation of the National Heritage Resources Act and associated regulations and guidelines to an accidentally discovered, historically old and complex burial ground in an urban redevelopment context.”
According to a document circulated by Malan, the Prestwich Place site covered an area of 1 200 square metres, and the team had exhumed skeletons from over 30% of this area, finding on average about one skeleton per square metre.
”This meant that the current site as a whole is likely to yield over 1 000 skeletons. This would be the largest number of skeletons ever recovered from a single burial ground in South Africa, and posed considerable challenges in terms of curation and storage,” she said.
Meanwhile, Pumla Madiba said that SAHRA’s permit committee would meet on Wednesday to look at the report.
”This will influence the way forward. We have also provided for further public consultations on the side of SAHRA, and have extended the amendment of the permit to the end of the month,” she said. – Sapa