21/06/2026
A lot of digging is taking place in Eindhoven nowadays - foundations for high rise apartments, re-surfacing the city centre and bringing rivers back above ground - and we regularly hear that work has been paused while archaeologists investigate a hole in the ground. Have you ever wondered what they find? Yesterday had an open day and the finds were there for everyone to see. We had a guided tour by Stefan, one of the enthusiastic volunteers there, and he showed us some of the highlights of the collection. The earliest finds date back to Neolithic times ( Eindhoven in fact pre-dates Amsterdam ). We saw a horse’s skull with holes bored through it, used by children in Breughel’s time to make a sledge. You can see one in use in one of Breughel’s winter scenes. Those were hard times and we saw evidence of dog butchering and consumption dating back to Spanish besieging of Eindhoven. They looked just like the spare ribs on modern BBQs! In fact we saw plenty of bones, excavated from the graveyard round the Catharinakerk - you might have seen Marcus of Eindhoven, now on loan to Leiden. Marcus was buried with a Venetian coin, but we also saw a piece of Egyptian glass from a much earlier period. Eindhoven was on a trading route then too. Later finds come from Stratumseind where debris left behind by German and English soldiers was unearthed. The sw****ka and an RAF logo prove that. The Erfgoedhuis (Heritage House) is not a museum, it’s a workplace where archaeologists restore and catalogue their finds. There is so much, and hopefully more will be on show at Museum Vonk soon.
